Sonidero Soul

Alma Sonidera

I'd seen her at every party. Front row, always dancing, always alone.

"Saludos para la mujer de rojo," I announced through the speakers. "She's been in my front row for six months and I don't know her name."

The crowd cheered. She smiled up at me.

After the show, she found me by the equipment.

"You noticed me," she said.

"How could I not? You dance like the music owns you."

"It does. Especially when you play it."

Her name was Fernanda. She worked nights as a nurse and spent her free time at sonidero parties, dancing away the stress of hospital shifts.

"Why these parties?" I asked.

"Because they're real. No pretense. Just music and movement and community."

"That's exactly why I do this."

She started arriving early. Helping me set up, testing speakers, curating playlists.

"You're taking over my job," I said.

"I'm enhancing it."

"Is that what this is? Enhancement?"

"This is whatever you want it to be."

I kissed her behind the speakers, with cumbia bass shaking the walls and the crowd dancing unaware.

"You're supposed to be DJing," she said.

"I have a long track playing."

"How long?"

"Long enough."

We became a team. I played; she danced. But now her dancing was for me—looks up at the booth, smiles that no one else understood.

"The crowd thinks I'm performing," she said.

"You're seducing."

"Same thing with the right audience."

I started dedicating every party to her. Unspoken, but clear.

"This is for the woman I love," I'd announce. "She knows who she is."

The crowd would cheer, not knowing they were witnessing our love story.

We married at a sonidero party. Our friends were the crowd; the ceremony happened between sets.

"This is unconventional," my mother said.

"This is us," I replied.

Fernanda took the mic. "To the DJ who saw me in the front row and didn't look away."

"To the dancer who gave me a reason to keep playing," I added.

Sonidero soul—where bass drops meet hearts, and the dance floor is where love lives.