Coco Maria, real name Ana Lucia, was born and raised in Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico, and got her start DJing “in sweaty basements” in London and Berlin in 2014. Two years later, she became more active and focused as a small club DJ, getting into radio around that time as well. Later on, she started doing her weekly radio show on Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide FM, and currently running her successful Breakfast Show at NTS, where she has a large international following and focuses on playing global funk, Latin, and African music.
She came out with the compilation Coco María presents Club Coco ¡AHORA! The Latin sound of now in the spring of 2021 during the pandemic, featuring tracks by some of my favorite contemporary artists in the world of international underground Latin and Afro-Latin music. It was a ray of tropical sunlight after a dark winter, just what we needed during that challenging time. She gathered many artists on this compilation, most of whom are good friends, and it was a way for her to bring people together from all over the world, after the stagnation of lockdowns and the cessation of live music and DJ gigs, to celebrate dealing with fear through community, creativity, and belief in self. It was a great listen all the way through. The real revelation was hearing Ana Lucia sing her own song, “Me Veo Volar,” (“I See Myself Fly”).
I was curious to learn about her, hear how she arrived on the scene in Europe, how her aesthetic was formed, and what her thoughts were about collecting and playing records, as well as being an on-air radio DJ and a woman in an often male-dominated field.
“I thought, ‘what a great job it is to be a radio DJ’, and I was dreaming of that. When I was still a teenager, I sent a demo to a local radio station with music from around the world. It was just my thing.”
Tell me about the music in your house growing up. You wanted to be on the radio as a kid, right?
My family is very much into radio. We all had our favorite shows and stations, and we all knew who liked what show. So, my time was on Sunday and we all listened to my program, which was a Top 10 show. I was this annoying listener who always called their radio DJ to request songs. I would say “today is my birthday”, “today is my cousin’s birthday”. And they knew me by then, “oh yeah, this girl!” I thought it was a lot of fun. I thought, “what a great job it is to be a radio DJ”, and I was dreaming of that. When I was still a teenager, I sent a demo to a local radio station with music from around the world. It was just my thing.
For that demo, and your show, it’s not just about picking the music, it’s about talking and interacting. What you like is the whole package of being a locutor, a DJ host?
Yeah, exactly. I hear a lot of very nice radio shows around, especially now there’s a lot of choice of radio shows offered. Of course, some are amazing because of the music, but I feel that if there’s no talking, then it’s just a mix; like a mixtape, and then that’s it. I also felt that all these cool people who had radio shows didn’t speak, so I thought maybe it was not seen as cool to talk. And I had this transition when I was also trying not to speak too much, or just say two things at the beginning and the end. But now I have decided I like to speak.
You chose to talk in English because you’re in Europe, but you have a global audience and figured that English is probably the most accessible. How did that work out?
Yeah, I also had that question [of language]. The first show I ever had was in Berlin on this station Cashmere Radio. I used to live in Berlin, and they invited me to make a show based on Latin music and asked me if I could do it in Spanish. I told them, “why not”, but then I realized after a couple of shows that there were lots of listeners who didn’t speak Spanish, so then I felt the point was missed; I don’t just want to play music, I want people to know what I am saying about the song.
The Rigo Tovar and Costa Azul LP, Matamoros Querido. Talk to me about this record.
Yes, that’s from Matamoros, a city near the border with the US and Mexico, it’s not so far from where I’m from. Rigo Tovar was a legend in Mexico, a hero for many people. He makes really good music. I grew up listening to Rigo, and like many Mexicans, my family were really big fans of his. This record is one of the first I got, it’s part of the foundation of what I play or listen to now. So this is the background, the influences from when I was growing up, but it was also on the radio, so it was national as well.
Growing up, some of your earliest memories are of the cumbia rhythm, as well as bolero. How were you exposed to them?
Yeah, I was lucky, everybody in my family was musical—the only difference is that everybody had their own favorite genres. Also, Mexico is very musical, so you hear music everywhere in the restaurants, in stores, in the supermarket, and blasting out of the cars when you pass by somewhere—everybody playing loud music and the radio. So music was really everywhere. My dad, for example, is not a professional musician but likes playing guitar. When he’s not playing guitar, he’s listening to something, and he always brought music home, cassettes and then later CDs, and he was the most eclectic. He would play traditional Mexican music, folklore, and music from everywhere, Venezuela and Colombia, but also jazz and classical, Brazilian. The connection with my grandparents is that, I’m sure you’ve seen this, we have the golden era of Mexican cinema, from the ‘50s and ‘60s, where films were amazing and full of music.
"A great way to avoid being carded at bars is walking in with boxes of records saying ‘I'm DJing.’"
“Once you sort of understand what came before, you really appreciate what came after, even if you were maybe discovering the ‘after’ stuff first … I was a little punk kid and I started hearing that overlap [with reggae].”
