I walked up a driveway to a small garage in the City of Bell last Friday, where a group of creatives came together in person for the third YouTube livestream of
Alivio Open Mic, a grassroots safe space created to celebrate the working class community of Southeast Los Angeles (SELA). Folks gathered in a circle on the driveway doing strange vocal exercises I will never understand, while the host recorded them for Instagram from the vantage point of the top of his parent’s pickup truck. I knew from that moment it was going to be one hell of a show.