Latine artists in the alternative and emo scene
By hola | Published | No Comments
In the 1980s, emo music emerged as a genre rooted in the punk, rock and hardcore music scenes in Washington, D.C.
Emo is a widely used umbrella term describing music that is both lyrically and sonically emotional. After it took off, it began to blend with other genres, which is where pop-punk came from in the late 1990s-2000s. Rites of Spring, founded by Guy Piccotto, blossomed out of D.C.’s hardcore scene in the late 1980s and is credited as being the original emo band. The stylized genre can be associated with clothing, hairstyles, politics and lifestyle choices, similar to the punk movement in the mid-1970s.
(photo courtesy of Flesh for Fantasy)
The genre is still quite popular today. Despite its peak in the 2000s, it is seeing a significant resurgence, for both older, inactive bands and bands just starting out. Despite emerging in the United States, emo is a constantly developing scene in the music community that has been expanding into a diverse space with Latine artists and elements.
FLESH FOR FANTASY, made up of frontwoman Ash Femme and guitarist June Laska, is an up-and-coming alternative project based out of Los Angeles and Orange County. On their debut album, “CORSET” (2025), the duo incorporates new wave and alternative rock elements into their sound. Their song “ASCO,” which translates to disgusting, is a hardcore track incorporating Spanish lyrics.
“ASCO is a special song,” Laska said, adding that the inspiration was “to tell a story to shed light on homophobia while sending a message to machismo and generational toxic masculinity. Dads, uncles and grandpas hate it. It’s funny, they’re just proving our point.”
Femme talked about some of the struggles that come with being a woman in the alternative music scene. There are moments at their live shows where people only acknowledge Laska. “I do notice, like, little things where I’m not really acknowledged as much as he is. And it sucks,” Femme said.
Femme also spoke about being raised in a Latine household, where rock and alternative music were not traditionally as popular. She said that she was lucky to have a “roquero” — meaning rocker in Spanish — father, who introduced her to Latine rock bands growing up and greatly influenced her musical taste.
“A lot of Latino parents are very traditional, very religious. But I grew up with a roquero as a dad. But a lot of Latino parents might be like, ‘oh, that’s devil music’ or, you know, something like that, which is not the case,” Femme said.
Bands like Los Enanitos Verdes, Maná, Panda and more have paved the way for Spanish rock music. Laska said that compared to ten years ago, the representation of Latine artists in emo and alternative spaces is only increasing with time, and it excites him to keep making music.
(photo courtesy of Still Tired)
Another rising band, Still Tired, comprising vocalist Cyn Flores and guitarist Sean Divine, is another alternative-emo project hailing from Columbus, Ohio. Still Tired pulls elements from many genres within the alternative scene, often incorporating pop-punk, emo and hardcore sounds into their music. They only started playing live shows in June 2024 and went viral overnight after posting a TikTok of their song “Liar,” which gained about a quarter of a million views.
Flores says that growing up in Mexico, music was a universal language that had a role in helping them learn English. When they started exploring the emo genre as a listener, Flores said they found that many themes in most emo music weren’t always relatable.
“I noticed that a lot of the themes in pop-punk and emo are very like, suburban white boy, like, ‘Oh, I’m sad about my ex. I’m sad about living in this boring town.’ I could relate to some of that, but not really,” Flores said. “I found myself just wanting more out of the music that I listen to.”
This inspired Still Tired to create music with lyrics in both English and Spanish. “I just want to do both because I can’t say everything that I want in one language or the other,” Flores said.
“I started an outcast of sorts, because Ohio, specifically where I grew up, Dublin, Ohio, is mostly white people,” they said. “A lot of the time, I was made to feel like being emo, being alternative, was not for me. Like that was not the space that I belonged in. And I kind of hated that.”
By writing music in Spanish, Flores said they overcame the feeling of exclusivity within this scene by writing about more personal themes, such as immigrating to the United States, being queer and more.
“I would love for Spanish music to be like a big boom. And like, again, Bad Bunny was a big indicator that that’s definitely happening right now,” Flores said. “I would love for that to trickle down to emo spaces as well.”
– Story by Sofia Cortés
– Copy edited by Samantha Gonzalez and Kami Waller
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