Maluca grew up with what she refers to as the quintessential New York experience- an extended Dominican family where the neighborhood raised her. Since early on, Maluca has been her own person in her Tazmanian shirts and baggy jeans. She always knew she wanted to make "weird electronic hip-hop music," which today she describes as "world music goes to a rave." Maluca is fearless in her pursuit of self expression, despite being stuck in her head (she describes herself as the "Latin Woody Allen"). Her style, much like her music, is a mix of banjee girl, neo-rave and tribal. It's in the way that Maluca easily pulls off anything boisterous, like a bold Joanne Berman suit, printed with the charts from the stock market crash, or a headband that flashes pink- you can see her strength. For a long time, Maluca reveals, she lived in fear, but now she says, "I look fear in the eye and then I eat it's face off."

Video edited by John Mattia.

Shot in Joanne Berman's studio.