Music is an incredibly powerful force that can transport you to particular times and places in life. It can connect and unite people, as well as allow you to tap into a different state of mind. For Manny Santiago, music touches on these bases with sounds that intrinsically find their way into his life. We called up Manny to learn more about Manny’s taste in music, its connection to Latin culture, and the vibrations he feels through music that empowers moods.
What type of music do you like listening to?
My favorite type of music to listen to honestly varies on where I am in my life or what mood I’m in. For the most part, any music with a good rhythm and frequency. I haven’t been able to figure out what it is about certain songs, but I go from listening to Bad Bunny, MGK (Machine Gun Kelly), J. Cole, Mod Sun, and Eminem. So it just really depends on who’s DJing and what mood I’m in. Recently we’ve been listening to a lot of Ashanti, Cam’ron, Fabolous. We jump eras in time.
You have roommates at the pad, too. How does a typical day start?
When we make breakfast, we’ll listen to Spanish, Puerto Rican, or Cuban-style music, and that’s our morning jam. When we’re working out, we’ll try to listen to more motivating music, like dance, techno, or electronic. When we skate in the backyard, we’ll listen to like Bad Bunny, and a lot of the current Puerto Rican pop artists; Latin Trap is what they like to call it. It just depends on the mood we’re trying to create at the moment.
Latin Trap, that’s a new wave that’s pretty popular right now. Is Bad Bunny pretty hot right now?
Yeah, he’s the Spanish Drake. He just got Latin pop star of the year. He’s the most wanted and sought after Spanish artist when it comes to pop. Worldstar posted something about him being the most iconic Latin pop star of this time.
That’s crazy.
We’re pretty proud, especially in this house. Most of us are Puerto Rican, and we love his music, and he’s just another one of us. So it’s pretty cool he’s our voice for the world.
How important is it to you to keep in touch with Latin music?
It’s very important to keep our cultural music playing throughout the week or even daily. We feel at home when we listen to that, and we love the vibe that the music puts out. We feel like we’re with our friends back home, and we created our own little family here within the Spanish community. Not only Puerto Ricans but all Latin skaters or people that we meet. They say you can take me out of the hood, but you can’t take the hood out of me. You could take me out of Puerto Rico, but you can’t take Puerto Rico out of me.
Do you listen to any specific types of music when competing?
It depends leading up to the contest what song I’m really into, and usually, I’ll listen to it on repeat. I’ll pretty much play the same song the whole week and weekend on repeat. I just like to create a certain type of energy around the song and the vibrations of my thought process. So when I fine-tune it and find what I want, find that inner happiness, then I just keep that plugged in, pretty much.
Who would you pick right now for Dew Tour weekend?
Bad Bunny without question.
Where would you say your taste in music developed? Coming from Puerto Rico and growing up in Massachusetts, how has your taste in music changed?
I’ve just always been into whatever makes me happy. Whatever is nostalgic from my childhood so it honestly varies. I’ll go as deep as to listening to Coheed and Cambria to Fleetwood Mac, Eminem, Mariah Carey, Mod Sun, Bad Bunny, it all varies. It depends on the frequency the song creates. I don’t know what it is exactly, but it’s just the noise. Sometimes it’s not even the lyrics. It’s just the way the song sounds along with the beat. A lot of times, the songs really don’t talk about much, but it’s just the noise that it creates.
Did skate videos open you up to music?
Skateboarding is what opened up music to me in a broader span, like watching the Zero video, Circa, Foundation, and Emerica. Music I’d typically never listen to in my life and then now I know the songs like Placebo, Mark Appleyard in the Sorry video. All those videos they opened up the door to so many songs that I like now because those songs bring me back to that time in my life. So I think skateboarding, if anything, has opened up genres of music in my life more than anything else.
What would you say skate videos opened you more up to? More rock genres?
Yeah, more rock genres. As you grow up and you go through different phases in your life, you’re finding yourself. I started to get into very spiritual music as well. There’s a guy named Nahko, and he has a band called Nahko and Medicine for the People, and for a little while, that’s all I listened to. I didn’t listen to anything else, and now he’s in my playlist. So I’ll listen to Nahko, and he touches base on a lot of like emotional things that are happening in the now and staying true with yourself and trying to get to know myself. He’s opened up a door in my mind, and I respect his music a lot.
Do you have a process for finding new music?
No, it comes to me. I don’t look for music. I don’t go and search for artists that are similar to an artist. If I hear it in the distance I’ll Shazam it or ask my friend ‘what song is this?’ but I’ll never look for music.
How important is it for you to choose the right song for a video part?
I’m actually putting out a video part hopefully within the next two weeks. That’s very important that like key. With me, it’s like the song has to talk to me in rhythm. The song has to have a rhythm, and it has to make me feel excited. When I listen to it, I’m thinking about skating and editing clips to it. I can’t just pick a song based on the artist or because he’s a friend or something. The song has to talk to me in a rhythm pattern. I don’t see the lyrics, I see the rhythm first.
Do you ever try to find more instrumental tracks so you don’t get distracted by the words?
No, because I feel like skating to instrumental defeats the purpose of an artist making a sound that you can relate to. In the sense of emotion behind words and some songs are pointless, some songs are very unintelligent, right? But sometimes the lyrics can be so simple, but you don’t know the meaning of how that word is being said for that person for his artform. So I feel like words are important.
It’s like the words themselves are almost an instrument, beat, or rhythm to the song.
Yeah! For instance, how I’m editing my part now, on the hook, the hook slows down when the person sings, but because he sings, it creates noise, and with that noise, I can use it to ramp slow-mo.
Last question, what’s your go-to karaoke song?
Probably Renegade by Eminem. That or Toy Solider. I love Eminem, he’s inspired my skateboarding for a very long time. He’s got me through a lot of stuff. If I ever see him and meet him, I’ll shake his hand with a smile and thank him for everything he’s doing.
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