The barrier to success in the music industry no longer requires a million-dollar marketing budget or familiarity with the business. Social media algorithms are making it easier for up-and-coming artists to find their audiences. YUMA, Harlo, J Arias, Davizzy, and HDLV used the D-I-Y method, y ganas, to find their audience.
Now, these artists are under a new record label, La Bodega Records. Created by entrepreneurs and brothers, Jeff and Carlos “Carlitos” Torres, La Bodega is helping new artists through networking opportunities and management support.
Ivan Gallegos, La Bodega’s administrative manager, shared, “Seeing the way our artists are actually growing, it’s so rewarding. Really valuing their creative vision while also being on top of them.”
The name “La Bodega” reflects the diversity of cultures that they saw in a typical East Coast bodega. Carlitos shared, “That diversity is important to us because it reflects how we grew up. In places like New York, you are surrounded by different cultures, accents, music, food, and stories. La Bodega is built the same way. We are not trying to represent only one sound. We are representing a mix of cultures and artists.”
La Bodega Records looks for artists without a support system under their wing. They plan to establish a new record label that is independent and fast-moving. When looking for who to sign, Jeff and Carlos look for someone who has a story to share.
YUMA
Alvaro Prat, or YUMA, is a Cuban artist who is making a name for himself and fellow “foreigners” in Los Angeles.
“Yuma significa “extranjero” en Cuba. Yo soy Cubano, yo vine aquí a los Estados Unidos a los 8 años, entonces aquí siempre fui el niñito cubano. Cada vez que voy y regreso a Cuba me siento como el niño americano, siempre me sentía como un yuma. I didn’t belong,” [Yuma means “foreigner” in Cuba. I am Cuban, I came here to the United States when I was eight years old, so here, I was always the little Cuban kid. Every time I go back to Cuba, I feel like the American kid, I always felt like a yuma. I didn’t belong] he shared.
His mission is to blur the lines between cultures and sounds through unconventional ways. His 2025 EP, Etapas, was released alongside a playable minigame. Yuma is creating an entire universe around his music.
“Con Yuma, yo quiero traer un lugar en forma de música, como un lugar donde la gente pueda hanguear, donde puedan ser ellos mismos y puedan conectar. De ahí viene toda la idea detrás de Yuma y el mensaje detrás de Yuma,” [With Yuma, I want to create a space in the form of music, like a place where people can hang out, where they can be themselves and connect. That is where the entire idea behind Yuma, and the message behind it, comes from.]The third space that Yuma hopes to create through his music is a collage of different influences. His main genre is called Reparto, a Cuban style of music created around 2007. He describes his sound as a fusion of his background with commercial American genres, trap, hip-hop, and West Coast sounds. “La fusión de mi música soy yo.” [The fusion of my music is me.]
J Arias
For Josh Curiel, his musical journey began in a church. His parents were pastors of a Hispanic church in Portland, Oregon, where he played the drums and bass. A few years ago, he began dropping his own original music with the goal of bridging his artistry with his beliefs.
He had always wanted to drop a Christian song, but it wasn’t until a year ago that he decided to do it for himself. That song was “No Me Lo Merezco,” which gained over 700,000 streams on Spotify. “I was super surprised. So then I was like, “Okay, let me, let me try to make another one,” and that was “Naci Otra Vez‚” which has 2.3 million streams on Spotify, and so after that, I was like, okay, there’s clearly something here.”
Under the name J Arias, Josh has gained 195,000 monthly listeners on Spotify and 27,000 followers on Instagram. He gained an audience by branding himself as the “Christian Rauw Alejandro,” experimenting with clean Reggaeton. Aside from music, he also runs a gaming YouTube channel called Mr-Napkin, which helped him establish a work ethic that he applies to his music career.
“That gave me a lot of experience on how to take something from nothing to this huge thing. In music, starting, you’re gonna see no success. But you need to be consistent, dropping, always working. YouTube really taught me that, because you just need to release stuff, even if there’s no traction, and a lot of that is just great practice. It all compounds on itself.”
Davizzy
David Barranco Alvarenga has been making music as Davizzy since 2020. He began by picking up a guitar, inspired by Mexican corrido artists. Through the support of the people around him, he began singing about his everyday life.
Now, he’s performing his songs on On The Radar. He hopes to mix New York sounds with regional Mexican music. “I grew up in New York, Harlem, so there was never really any Mexican music like that around me, like this specific genre. It was always more of hip-hop or drill. So in my music, I always try to incorporate, like, a drill beat or a bit of that New York sound, that hip hop sound.”
His song “Llamo y Llamo” has over a million streams. As he gains more momentum, he also runs into more challenges.
“There have been many challenges. There were a couple of times when I had to go out to California to specific events, but I wasn’t able to, sometimes because of money, or sometimes because of family stuff,” he said.
With the help of the Bodega team, Davizzy is looking forward to one day selling out arenas and collaborating with bigger names in the Mexican music scene.
Harlo
William Molina, or Harlo, began making music at 12-years-old. He began writing poetry, which sparked a curiosity in music. What started as a YouTube search on “how to produce songs” has turned into a career.
“From 12 to 18, I would make a song every single day. After school, I would go into my room, lock myself in there, and make a song every day, every single day, because deep down inside, I really wanted to be valid in the music scene. I wanted to master my craft. Then a fire built up in me for a bunch of years,” he said.
On top of creating his own music, he found it difficult to be his own manager and find direction. “I feel like once people try to give me direction in music, I feel like that’s when it starts messing with the artist’s creativity. Like, I didn’t know what my image was. I didn’t know exactly what type of artist I was going to be known as, what sound I was going to categorize myself in.”
Harlo still does not categorize himself. He researched his favorite artists to study their style and song structures, and now considers his sound a collage. “I just kept trying to find what my sound was. All these sounds that I was developing and just trying out throughout the years made me super versatile. I kind of made my own sound up in every category.”
Living in New York, his dream is to perform at the UBS Arena. “I live right next to it, so in the next few years, I see myself selling that whole stadium,” he shared.
Hermanos De La Vibra
The last group on the Bodega roster is Hermanos De La Vibra, a band that grew up together in Forest Grove, Oregon. The four members began to record music together during their senior year of high school. Ricardo Hernandez is the acoustic bassist, Alam Martinez Josafat is on the electric bass, and Julio Martinez Josafat is on the requinto guitar. Their lead singer, Radimir Aguilar Barbosa, was inspired by the regional Mexican music his parents introduced him to and the Corridos Tumbados scene.
Everything changed when they began posting on social media.
“When we first started with a viral song, everything came so fast. We weren’t even prepared. We were faced with so many challenges, so many things that we didn’t even know about,” he said.
That song was “Para Que Digas,” which has garnered 10 million streams on Spotify. The song’s somber vibe inspired over 50,000 users on TikTok to use the audio to share sentimental posts and moments. Their viral sound pushed the group to build a team to help them gain more momentum.
Ricardo Hernandez Hernandez is the group’s outreach specialist. He makes frequent trips to L.A. for networking opportunities, finding it harder to find them in Oregon. They are focusing on their social media strategy and exploring opportunities in streaming. But learning how to manage their newfound success has come with its own challenges.
“A challenge is that once you drop a really good song, like this viral song, it makes you want to make it 10 times better for the next drop. Especially as musicians, writers, sometimes there are days where you find that momentum, and some days where you can’t think of anything,” Hernandez said.
Nowadays, HDLV is expanding its sound with songs ranging from indie pop to mariachi. They hope to have a song for everyone, regardless of music preference.
Each artist’s story is different, and that’s what makes it a bodega. “Everybody brings their own music, food, slang, style, and story, but somehow it all connects. We do not look at Latin music as one sound,” shared Carlitos. “Latinidad is wide. It is reggaeton, corridos, Latin trap, salsa, bachata, regional, urbano, hip-hop, Caribbean, afrobeat influence, and everything in between.”
For the artists on the Bodega roster, online communities have allowed them to share their artistry with millions of listeners – and they feel like they’re just getting started.