The 2013 events sponsored by the Red Bull Music Academy are still going on through May 31 in New York City. Thanks to the wonderful staff at Majestic Relations, I was able to catch the Nanobot Picket Line show Monday night at the Cameo Gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The amount of musical talent I witnessed that evening was of the highest caliber. I joined a wonderfully social crowd of music lovers at the hip and friendly venue to enjoy some awesome tunes and meet some incredible artists.

Musician Ale Hop, from Lima, Peru, performs at the RBMA Nanobot Picket Line event in Brooklyn.  (Mon. May 6, 2013.)

Ale Hop, a quiet, shy, and soft-spoken young woman from Lima, Peru making her first trip to the United States, became an entirely different person during her performance. The confidence she expressed on stage was captivating and fused well with her amazing command of her electric guitar and electronic beats.

Ale Hop has been part of an indie pop group called Las Amigas de Nadie since 2008 but wanted to introduce people to another side of her personality.

“Las Amigas de Nadie is more happy, more pop,” described Ale Hop. “This other side of me expresses the energy I have and the need for me to make noise, to play a little louder.”

Ale Hop is enjoying her time in New York and is making a lot of contacts and definitely wants to come back.

“The music scene here is crazy and very different from Lima,” said Ale Hop. “There is a lot going on here.”

Astroboyz, from Barcelona, Spain, playing his music at the RBMA Nanobot event in NYC. (Mon. May 6, 2013.)

Similar to Ale Hop, Astroboyz from Barcelona, Spain, also made his first trip to the U.S to participate in this year’s Red Bull Music Academy (RBMA.) He knew he was going to be a musician when he was 15 years old and got his start as a guitarist in a punk-rock band and later a drummer in a different band. Then around 2007 he took a course in sound engineering and found electronic music fascinating. Soon after, Astroboyz was born.

“It’s very difficult to describe my music,” said Astroboyz. “Because I don’t create just one style, I work with multiple styles of music. Sometimes I know what the end will sound like and sometimes I feel comfortable not knowing what it will end up sounding like.”

Astroboyz plays the club scene in Barcelona and performs at many parties, galleries, and music festivals, which are very popular in Spain. He will be in New York City for the entire month of May and hopes to see more of the city after the middle of the month when his lectures at the RBMA end.

Astroboyz’s music reminded me of the deep house music the clubs in NYC used to play in the past. He told me he was influenced by house music but tries to put his own spin on that style of music.

Thanks to the RBMA, both Ale Hop and Astroboyz had an excellent opportunity to showcase their music in front of a New York audience. It was a pleasure making their acquaintance and experiencing their astounding talent.

The international music community is about to gather in New York for an incredible series of events. The Red Bull Music Academy (RBMA,) one of the biggest series of music-related events to be held in New York City, begins on Sunday, April 28 and runs through Friday, May 31, 2013. The RBMA kicked off in Berlin in 1998 as a DJ event but has expanded over the years to accommodate all genres and aspects of the musical spectrum.

This year’s five-week musical extravaganza consists of 37 events at 34 venues and includes over 230 artists from 35 countries. The annual international series brings together up and coming producers, singers, arrangers, DJs and musicians and provides them an opportunity to learn from top industry professionals. This series of events includes a conversation with Erykah Badu at the Brooklyn Museum and improvisations with jazz, rock and hip-hop figures like James Chance and Questlove of The Roots.

Tickets for events spanning genres from Afro/Latin/World to Techno are available online (act now because some events are already sold-out.)

A premier show at this year’s RBMA is Nanobot Picket Line, scheduled for Monday, May 6 from 9pm to 4am at the Cameo Gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Tickets are $8 and participants must be 21 and over.

One of the few female artists to participate at the Nanobot Picket Line event is Latina artist Ale Hop. She is also known as Alejandra Cárdenas and is a member of the Peruvian group Las Amigas de Nadie. You can listen to her own music on SoundCloud. Ale Hop is excited about her upcoming New York City appearance, according to a Spanish-language Red Bull site in Peru.

To learn more about the RBMA, check out this article by the New York Times.