KCRW’s Global Beat

KCRW’s Global Beat is a series highlighting emerging artists from around the world. Our second season takes us to México, hosted byKCRW DJ Raul Camposalongside our curators, Mexico City DJ and music supervisorJunf,festival director and music consultant Monica Saldaña, and NPR’sBetto Arcos.

Raul Campos

KCRW DJ

As the voice of pirate radio in the mid-'90s and a native Angeleno, Raul Campos has come from the underground to represent the eclectic airwaves of KCRW. At the age of 14, he first put the needle to the record and stepped behind the decks as a DJ. At KCRW, Raul quickly worked his way from volunteer to production and on-air stints. He's opened for some of music's greatest artists, from Martin Gore (Depeche Mode), to Stevie Wonder and Cafe Tacuba, and hosts Latin Alternative Music Conference (LAMC) annually, spinning at Central Park and introducing some of the biggest names in the genre to crowds of thousands in Brooklyn and beyond.

Raul Campos

Betto Arcos

Radio journalist; writer; curator; music promoter

Radio journalist, writer, curator and music promoter based in Los Angeles. Betto is a regular contributor to NPR and BBC Radio 3, with a focus on stories about music from all over Latin America and the world. Since 2018, he's the Latin music curator at the San Jose Jazz Festival and a founding member of REDPEM - Red de Periodistas Musicales de Iberoamérica (Ibero-Latin American music journalists network)

In addition to his work in public radio, Betto has taught arts & culture and broadcast journalism at Loyola Marymount University. He developed a musical component for two different courses at Harvard University’s Divinity School, “Religion in the Latin American Imagination” (2002, 2011, 2015) and “Latinos Remaking America” (2014, 2016). Since 2014, Betto is a guest speaker at the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute, lecturing on Latin American Music to career diplomats. Starting in 2014, Betto has been traveling extensively in Latin America, offering workshops on music journalism and the music industry at major international festivals, including: Asunción Jazz Fest, Ecuador Jazz Fest, Panama Jazz Fest, Colombia al Parque, Bogotá Music Market, AM-PM in Havana. From 1997-2015, Betto created produced and hosted the daily music program “Global Village” on Pacifica Radio’s 90.7 FM-KPFK in Los Angeles.

In 1993, Betto received his Bachelor of Science degree in Broadcast Journalism with honors from the University of Colorado-Boulder. Betto is a native of Xalapa, capital of the state of Veracruz, Mexico.

Betto Arcos

Junf

DJ broadcaster

"La brisa del mar siempre es mejor cuando la música está sonando."

Content Curator and Music Supervisor for Mexico City-based Canela Music, Junf’s passions lie in world music and broadcast radio, leading him to contribute to diverse and popular stations such as DUBLAB (Los Angeles), KPFK 90.7 (Los Angeles), WFMU (Jersey City), The Lot Radio (NY), Rise Radio (NY), Aire Libre 105.3 (CDMX) and more. Junf spreads his radio and world music ideology through the telling of his own experience across prominent music conferences, encouraging future and emerging artists to embrace and share their own perspectives.

Junf