Privatization, accelerated by the tech industry, had left the cityвЂ™s social safety net in tatters and pushed generations of Black and Latinx residents to the outskirts, where many worked three jobs to maintain a toehold. But even before the pandemic, her community of working musicians, public-school teachers, graffiti writers and activists was in crisis. The lost, forbidden pleasures are all immortalized onscreen.

No one knew it would be the last time theyвЂ™d gather like that - passing spliffs, breathing in each otherвЂ™s humid music - for a year and counting. Not long after, off-camera, the whole scene came to life again to celebrate her fatherвЂ™s retirement from 35 years in the cityвЂ™s Department of Public Works - service sustained always by a parallel practice of virtuosic play. This is the lifelong party that incubated her versatile, confident musicianship as the artist known as La DoГ±a. We follow her fluent swerve between stove and living-room dance floor as the first scratch of the gГјira sets the rhythm - cumbia! - then, when the chorus hits, the distinctive dembow of reggaeton, a decidedly millennial mash-up. WeвЂ™re in her childhood home in Bernal Heights, San Francisco, where the floral carpet forgives festive spills and her father and sister crowd the couch on accordions. The video for вЂњQuiГ©n Me La PagaвЂќ begins with Cecilia PeГ±a-Govea testing the broth from a simmering pot of pinto beans, careful not to smudge her dark lipstick.

Who sang dona dona