~ Nico ~

Los Poets Del Norte is a musical group born, raised and based in Boyle Heights, just like its two founding members, Nico and Xavier Moreno.

Immigration, poverty, gentrification and everyday life are just some of the topics Nico and Moreno incorporate into their poetry.

“We’re serious about the issues that we talk about because it’s our reality,” said Nico.

Both Moreno and Nico have their own personal war stories about what it was like growing up with gang violence in their neighborhood.

Getting hit up by different neighborhood gangs on his way to school or seeing drug paraphernalia on the streets was a daily part of life said Moreno, “I got to see that and it showed me that’s the direction I can go if I abuse it.

“I saw my friends that go through that and fall in that trap, losing friends and being shot at affected me.”

By retelling the stories inside of them, both Moreno and Nico are also giving an oral history of the community they grew up in.

They don’t want others to make some of the same mistakes they made in their youth.

“Growing up you experience all that stuff, you become surrounded by your environment and in turn you become your environment.

“We’re at a point in our lives where we have become reflective of that.

“We’ve become observant of that and survivors because getting shot at and burying your friends is not something everyone goes through.

“Growing up in a community like ours, most of our friends did experience that,” said Nico.

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