rice and beans is named after gallopinto, a traditional Central American dish you can have for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Like the dish, this monthly morning radio show is meant to accompany you through the day, offering comfort and connection.

With nostalgic sounds and musical storytelling, the show highlights migrant selectors based in Germany, exploring memory, identity, and belonging.

Hosted by azulado, co-founder of Gatxs and organizer based in Leipzig.

Simón Jaramillo Vallejo is a non-binary interdisciplinary artist and researcher from Abya Yala (Bogotá, Colombia), based between Leipzig and Berlin. Through a combination of analog and digital media, their practice operates at the intersection of community work, spatial reconstruction, and territorial memory. As a cultural organizer, DJ selector, and co-founder of the collectives Calentura Berlin and Áspora Leipzig, their work navigates the depths of decoloniality, resistance, and Latin American club culture.

“This past February 2nd we commemorated National Cumbia Day back in my homeland, and this coming February 9th my grandmother turns 95.

That’s why, on this occasion, I wanted to present a selection of cumbias on vinyl dedicated to her—who, to me, is the ‘mother hen’ and the matrix of my family, just as cumbia is the sonic matrix of our continent and the great ‘mother hen’ of our family in Abya Yala.

More than a musical genre, cumbia is resistance. It is an identity that spread across the continent long before salsa, rock, or reggaeton, weaving a shared history that connects us at the root.

It is music born in Abya Yala, in the territory we now know as Colombia—specifically near the Magdalena River and the Montes de María. It is the result of a profound union: the Indigenous, with the melancholic contribution of its melody and the wind instruments of the gaitas (kuisi) and millo flutes; the African, which gave us the heart of the rhythm and percussion through the tambora, the llamador, and the alegre; and the Spanish, which contributed the clothing (polleras and lace), the lyrics, and the language.

It is a sound that has spread throughout the entire continent, where every corner has adopted and adapted it to its own contexts, allowing it to evolve so that with each passing day it feels more current and more our own.”

Get ready for these CUMBIONES!