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Interview with Transition Radio
Transgender Cantador: StormMiguel Florez Sings Folk, Love, and Oppression
BY A. GRACE STEIG DECEMBER 1, 2012 StormMiguel Florez was very grateful to be a guest at Yale’s Trans Week this year, he told the audience in J.E. Theatre on November 8, earnestly; “Now I’m going to do what I really love to do, which is sing.” With that, the self-styled New Americana Transgender Cantador sat with his acoustic guitar to play. Florez has sung since age five, according to his bio, in such diverse circles as a Girl Scout camp talent show and the pioneering Albuquerque all-female rock band Too F.I.N.E. Minds. After moving to the Bay Area, Florez released his first solo album in 2001 and his second in 2010. Songs from this latest album, Long Lost Sun, figured prominently in his performance at Yale. He began by playing “Legend,” which recounts the experience of growing up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as an assimilated Mexican American unable to speak Spanish fluently. As a song that addresses family and culture more overtly than gender identity, it was a powerful choice to begin his performance and a reminder that identities are constructed of many themes. The song expresses a desire for the possibility of localized culture in a nation where profound pressures exist to conform, to “wash this brown out of us.” The concert, organized as part of Trans Week 2012, was sponsored by De Colores, the Ethnicity, Race & Migration program, and the Intercultural Affairs Council. READ MORE |
Buy StormMiguel's latest single I've Been To Manhattan! |
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