Video: Las Cafeteras, ‘Long Time Coming’

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Las Cafeteras (Photo by Alfonso Gomez)

Celebrated for their social/political activism and lyrics that reflect issues facing communities of color, Las Cafeteras have released a new song and music video titled, “Long Time Coming,” as a call-to-action to vote and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. The song follows their only other 2020 release, a twist on the 1967 song by James & Bobby Purify, “I’m Your Puppet.” Las Cafeteras’ version is titled “I’m Not Your Puppet.”

In anticipation of Election Day on Nov. 3, the East Los Angeles outfit partnered with The Center for Cultural Power and Poder Latinx to weaponize “Long Time Coming” to energize as many eligible voters as possible to get up and dance to their ballot box.

Las Cafeteras enlisted the help of their friends — Scarub (of Living Legends), Stephani “La Mera” Candelaria, Kimsly and Degruvme — to help strengthen the message.

“The song was written in response to the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd and Breonna Taylor,” says Henry Flores. The influence these events had over the song’s lyrics is evident in every verse. It also helps explain what propelled Flores’ lyrics to become, perhaps, the band’s boldest yet.

The song carries a highly addictive, muy funky bassline, a hypnotic beat reminiscent of Bronski Beat’s “Smalltown Boy” and just enough disco to encourage optimism for a better future inspired by a sensation of triumph over adversity.

The joyous, celebratory video, directed by Gio Solis and Roberto Escamilla Garduño, follows a young woman to an underground post-voting party safely staged inside the emblematic, East L.A. bar XELAS. Entering the bar, she’s greeted with an ominous yet optimistic disembodied voice asking, “A change is coming, can you feel it?”

||| Watch: The video for “Long Time Coming”

||| Previously: “Tiempos de Amor,” “If I Was President”