To declare one thematic narrative from Lucha, Y La Bamba’s seventh album, would be to chisel away a story within a story within a story into the illusion of something singular.

“Lucha is a symbol of how hard it is for me to tackle healing, live life, and be present,” Luz Elena Mendoza Ramos, lead vocalist and producer of Y La Bamba, says of the title behind the album which translates from Spanish to English as ‘fight’ and is also a nickname for Luz, which means light. The album explores multiplicity—love, queerness, Mexican American and Chicanx identity, family, intimacy, yearning, loneliness—and chronicles a period of struggle and growth for Mendoza Ramos as a person and artist.

Lucha was born out of isolation at the advent of COVID-19 lockdowns, beginning with a cover of Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” and following Mendoza Ramos as she moved from Portland, Oregon to Mexico City, returning to her parents’ home country while revisiting a lineage marred by violence and silence, and simultaneously reaching towards deeper relationships with loved ones and herself. The album reflects “another tier of facing vulnerability,” as Mendoza Ramos explains, and is a battle cry to fight in order to be seen and to be accepted, if not celebrated, in every form—anger and compassion, externally and internally, individually and societally. As much as la lucha is about inner work, fighting is borne from survival stemming from social structures designed to uplift dominant groups at the hands of suffering amongst the marginalized.

While peeling back layers of the past to better understand the present has been integral to this period of growth for Mendoza Ramos, time, trauma, and history can feel like interconnected, abysmal loops and music has remained a trusted space for Mendoza Ramos to process, experiment, and channel her learnings into a creative practice. In this way, Lucha has become cyclical, documenting the parallel trust Mendoza Ramos has built with herself to allow the songs to guide how they should be sung, or even sound.

“I’ve been wanting to let whatever feels natural—with rhythm and musical instruments like congas and singing—to just let it be, in the way that I’m trying to invoke in myself.” Lucha reflects on, “the continuing process of learning how to exercise my producing skills,” explains Mendoza Ramos. “I have so many words, ideas to work with all the time, and the hardest part for me has been learning to trust my gut. And figuring out how I work best, and with who.”

The result is a collection as sonically sprawling and bold as its subject matter. On “La Lluvia de Guadalajara,” Y La Bamba leans into a minimal, avant-garde soundscape as Mendoza Ramos recites a spoken word poem. Later, rhythms veer into bossa nova territory on “Hues ft. Devendra Banhart,” a full-circle collaboration for Mendoza Ramos as she reminisces on the significance of finding Banhart’s work nearly two decades earlier: “He was the first young Spanish-speaking musician that wasn’t playing traditional Mexican music I heard when I was 21. There was nothing like it around that time.”

“Nunca” is a warm, wind-rich track dedicated to her mother, Maria Elena Ramos whose poetry is published alongside the Lucha lyrics booklet. “I decided to put my mom’s poem, which is a poem that she wrote to me, letting me know how she felt, exploring her heart in new ways she’s never imagined. Sharing it on the record is me paying attention that she’s expressing herself.

While each song holds personal significance to Mendoza Ramos, part of growing into her identity as an artist has been allowing space for protection and boundaries, and choosing to withhold some of that meaning from the public. Lucha is her own story of the complexity of trauma and nonlinear healing and growth processes, but she imagines it is also the continuation of her ancestors’ stories and might also be a mirror to the story of others. “Even though I’m trying to fight, I never want to demonize suffering, because that’s part of growing. And it’s hard, because we’re living in times where that [stigma] is what’s happening. So if this—me talking about my mental health and finding healing in my queerness—is a risk, I hope that I find a community that protects it and protects me, because they know I have their back. I am also trying to be my mom’s community.”

Ambar Lucid

Ambar Lucid’s music sounds like the moment you step out of your anxieties, boundaries, and fears and into yourself. The New Jersey-born and Los Angeles-based vocalist, producer, and multi-instrumentalist sheds creative inhibitions and accesses a space of sonic and spiritual freedom where psychedelic soundscapes amplify pop hooks, English-language verses melt into Spanish-sung refrains, or boleros brush up against breezy stoned balladry. As such, she issues an invitation via her artistry, extending an open hand to connect with her 2025 EP, El Jardín de Lágrimas [Nice Life Recording Company]. “Music is inherently spiritual,” she observes. “I see creativity as an expression of the divine or the non-physical realm—which you could call ‘God,’ ‘the universe,’ ‘energy,’ or whatever portal connects all of us. Regardless of how we interpret that energy, we still experience it. When you listen to music, you’re experiencing something spiritual. This realm naturally manifests from making songs. As an artist, my job is to make people aware of the immaterial side of reality we ignore. I want to spread consciousness of it and make a connection.” The songstress has carefully architected the foundation to connect since emerging in 2019. She introduced herself with the Dreaming Lucid EP highlighted by “A Letter to my younger self,” which gathered over 32 million Spotify streams and counting. A year later, she evolved on the Garden of Lucid EP, yielding fan favorites a la “Fantasmas” and “Questioning My Mind.” Following the 2021 release of the Get Lost In The Music EP, Pitchfork proclaimed, “Lucid’s new release sharpens the portrait of a young songwriter ravenously building a repertoire of frames for her voice.” Beyond praise from MUNDANE, Notion, Flaunt, Pop Sugar, and more, FLOOD raved, “Lucid’s vocals are robust and entrancing,” and OnesToWatch attested, “Get Lost In The Music is a lucid dream come true.” She performed on A COLORS SHOW and GRAMMY.com in addition to packing venues on the road. In the midst of everything, she endured professional, physical, and emotional upheaval. She amicably split with her previous management and label, left Los Angeles, and returned home to New Jersey before finally settling back in Los Angeles. “Coming back to L.A. was a rebirth, and it changed everything,” she admits. “I dove deep into who I am and what I do. That kept me going to the studio and making something I could listen to while going through these hardships. I made the EP out of survival—not financial survival, but spiritual survival. After these transitions, the music felt more in line with the person I am today; this person is more conscious than ever as a writer. I decided to go to school, which added new creative elements that I didn’t have before. This project has been one of the craziest journeys of my life, but my passion for music got me through everything.” She assembled the music alongside collaborators such as the Wavies and Jack Lavose. She also worked with Sebastian Torres in Mexico City. “Most of the sessions were in home studios, which I prefer because I feel like I’m more comfortable being vulnerable,” she goes on. Ambar opens up this world with the single “There Goes My Baby.” Cymbals simmer beneath her gloriously woozy harmonies. Strings swell, distortion groans, and synths glimmer, and her vocal push-and-pull alternates between English and Spanish, “There goes my baby, he doesn’t know that he’s my baby. I know that I’m a little crazy. Es que su mira’ me mata y la mía no le hace na’. Why do I do this to myself?” “It was inspired by being infatuated with somebody to the point of delusion,” she reveals. “At the time, this person wasn’t interested in me, but now he’s my boyfriend! The song was written before we got together though. We had a good friendship. I knew he was going to be mine, but he didn’t know.” On “6am,” bells toll alongside a twinkling keyboard melody. Her breathy delivery instantly captivates as she exhales, “Getting high at 6am. I just cried so much again. I need you.” “It’s a perfect representation of how intense, complex, and overwhelming my emotions were,” she says. “The song sums up the main issues I go through daily. It’s about bad habits and how much distress certain desires have caused me. I’m acknowledging how my present is influenced by my past. Usually, people wake up at 6am to go to work and be productive, but the main line here is ‘Getting high at 6am’.” Then, there’s “Angel.” A head-nodding drumbeat tiptoes past hazy echoes, and she realizes aloud, “Guess you really meant it when you said you have wings, an angel, you’re an angel.” “Music creates a spiritual portal for people to go through,” she adds. “I wrote ‘Angel’ conscious of the portal. The angels are the fans who listen to me and support me. I never feel let down by them.” Expanding the palette, she delivers her first traditional-style bolero with “La Apuesta,” while she collaborates with the subject of “There Goes My Baby”—her boyfriend Danny Schiller—on “Forest.” Each song doubles as a pillar of El Jardín de Lágrimas (translating to “Garden of Tears”). “Life is a series of ups and downs,” she elaborates. “The project is an expression of my ups and downs. I’m sharing my most vulnerable moments, because music is therapeutic for me. It’s also an extension of Garden of Lucid. I’m referencing a concept to link these worlds. Since I’m a big crier, it’s just a different garden.” It’s also a place where all are welcome. “I hope this empowers you however you need it to,” she leaves off. “I aim for it to have a positive impact. Maybe, it inspires you creatively. Maybe, it allows you to get the cry you needed. I hope it nudges you in whatever direction your destiny is meant to go in and you feel more connected to yourself.”