Disclosure: As a 2014 Coffe-mate Ambassador, this is a sponsored post brought to you courtesy of Coffee-mate. All opinions and stories are my own.

Not a day goes by that I don’t miss my life in México. Es más una añoranza a lo que fue. Of the life I had there because it was during those beautiful years in my late twenties into early thirties when life was emotional and a wide open road.

I love my life now. No doubt about that. And I have learned to live in the present. But living in the present and loving your present life does not prevent you from yearning lo que fue. And lo que fue during the five years I lived in Mexico was pure magic.

Those years were heavily marked by music. I worked at MTV Latin America for most of my time there, so that naturally set me smack in the middle of the most amazing national and international music scene. I was one of the first people to interview Natalia Lafourcade when she was just sixteen years old and had hit it huge with her first single and was caught off guard. Our friendship still persists.

I discovered Ely Guerra’s passionate and sultry songs my first year in Mexico and many of them became my heartfelt, sing-out-loud-and-cry hymns. A few years later I was sitting in her kitchen drinking from a private stash of her dad’s tequila.

Ximena Sariñana was still a teenager, and known mostly for her acting roles in her dad’s movies and novelas, when we met thanks to Natalia Lafourcade (they were and still are amazing friends). I remember how focused she was in her music and really developing the right skills playing at small events and such.

Lila Downs used to play every single Friday at an independent, artsy bookstore in my neighborhood of La Condesa. She would draw a really small and indie crowd. I would always see the billboard and swear that week I would go. When I finally did, after months of wanting, she was no longer playing. The week before had been her last. A few years later she hit it big and she was playing at great venues in L.A. It took me almost ten years to finally go to one of her concerts, and the wait was worth it. Her and Carla Morrison. Puro corazón.

I’m not sharing this to brag but to bring you in a bit deeper to where I’ve been, what I’ve done and why I so hurtingly miss mi México.

Music is what connects me. I need to keep that Latin touch in my life. Es una necesidad. Mi alma lo pide a gritos.

Un cafecito and my Spotify playlist of Mujeres with Soul are my indulgence.

I have almost 50 songs from 20 of my favorite Latina singer/songwriters (from Latin America and Spain) that I’ve been collecting in my “Mujeres with Soul” playlist. I invite you to discover those you don’t know yet any time you want that Latin touch — with an alternative vibe — in your life. And, yes, dance, sing, roar, añora, y tómate un cafecito (I’m loving my Salvadorean coffee with Coffee-mate’s new La Lechera Dulce de Leche to round off the Latin touch of it all!)

You can also follow the playlist because I’ll keep adding to it as it is the one I can’t get enough of.

Cuéntame, how does music help you keep, experience or discover your #LatinTouch? Any Mujeres with Soul I should add to the playlist?

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