By :Agazit Afeworki

From the moment Mexican-born Cesar Sanchez initially heard afro-Cuban jazz at 5-years-old, he was captivated. Though more underground to the native folklore songs in his capital of Mexico City, the fresh rhythms of mambo ignited his retroactive music journey.

At just 27, Sanchez,also known as DJ Yambu, has built a retro Latin music platform and young following through his performance nights titled Mambo Pica Pica at Capitol Hill studio Dance Underground. Due to his penchant for authentic latin music, Sanchez is facilitating young Latinos and even Seattleites explore rich Latin genres like mambo, guaracha and cumbia.

An undeniable component of his musical intrigue stems from where Latin music first touched down in the U.S.–New York. Sanchez’s Mambo Pica Pica business partner Roy Hernandez Ruiz described the Sixties and Seventies— Sanchez’s musical emphasis— as the golden era of Latin music.

“In New York there was a collective musician community originating from Cuba. With all the styles of music, the Sixties and Seventies were a time of major experimentation,” said Ruiz.

Having not experienced this music pinnacle, Sanchez’s is recreating the same multi-cultural energy here in Seattle. Whether he’s contacting his Colombian music connect to ship a one-of-a-kind vinyl, or sharing his personal collection of bongos for his audience to bang out to a Trova record (traditionally from Cuba), he’s reviving a diverse Latin artist culture before a Seattle audience.

Following his move to Seattle in 2005, Sanchez quickly discerned between the abundant Latin club scene and the lacking arts scene. And thus began his mission to construct a space—contrary to the few existing—with curated acts and events.

“There’s a difference in the scene that I’m involved, which is involved in more of the arts like live bands, DJ’s,[and] record collecting,” he said.

A feat that he prides himself in taking on, since younger audiences are less familiar to artists who he tends to spin like jazz act Trio Matamoros.

But a few years before Sanchez responded to the modest latin music scene, he connected with an audience through the Colombian online podcast Golpe y Bembe.

“It was a way of educating the people to know different styles and genres,” he said.

The show allowed him to share his expansive music knowledge to an audience of more than 5,000 listeners worldwide.

His wife Maya Sanchez remembers helping him script out his segment shows.Through this support he broke free of his shyness, but his instructive mixes also become a strategy to break down the erred meaning of the word salsa.

“That word salsa came in the 1970’s because it was a way for those musicians at that time to commercialize the name and make it more profitable. Salsa means a sauce, so promoters back then [in the Seventies] put all those music styles in one thing to market,” he told me.

And because he’s dedicated to the music’s history, he isn’t just simply a music fanatic. Maya Sanchez believes he’s playing a significant role in preserving it. He’s working towards making the scene more visible by exposing the roots of Latin music.

“I think it’s his best way to communicate towards people, “ she said. He’s a part of a new-and-now scene, as she puts, that reaches a younger latino audience much like the more known latin club scene.

Age also happens to be the reason why he’s apprehensive about acknowledging his influence. Working fewer years as a DJ than his older contemporaries, Sanchez speaks of his impact modestly.

But by developing the only Latin music experience that invests profits into connecting Latino acts to Seattle, he’s drawn in a national audience and has even had the Mambo Pica Pica brand adopted in Boston.

As a result, Sanchez has essentially nourished an identifiable Latin music epicenter in the Pacific Northwest. While promoters don’t tend to break performers or DJ’s that aren’t well known, Sanchez isn’t worried by the monetary value. He knows that these artists are fostering a scene revitalizing the culture.

“Latin culture has made an impact on other cultures, and I’m like this will be cool to make that connection by basically showing this side of our culture to them [non-latinos],” he said.