Lowrider Hum OG

02 / Know

Know the Story

At thirty-four, the childhood fascination stood before me.

The song grew from my first visit to New Zealand, standing before Tāne Mahuta at thirty-four and realizing that the fascination begun in the Tiki Room when I was a child had finally connected to a living land, people and culture.

Where the connection became real

My connection began as a child in Disneyland’s Enchanted Tiki Room. I ran between the figures outside, read every plaque and became fascinated by Māui, Tangaroa and the sense that the carvings held stories larger than the place where I found them. I was only eight or nine, but the spirit and imagery stayed with me.

About twenty-six years ago, when I was thirty-four, I visited New Zealand for the first time. Standing before Tāne Mahuta—New Zealand’s largest living kauri—I was humbled and in awe. The childhood fascination was no longer a collection of figures, art and memories. I was standing in front of an ancient living presence connected to the land, the birds and the people who had protected its meaning.

The Māori people I met were warm and welcoming, held their culture dear and placed family at the center of life. Those values felt familiar to me. I felt an immediate connection to the people, the land and the stories that had fascinated me from a distance—and in those similarities, I felt at home. Pieces that had been scattered across my life suddenly connected.

I also recognized something familiar. Chicano culture and Māori culture are not the same, and neither needs to be reduced to the other, but I could feel common ground in the importance of family, elders, identity, storytelling, respect and responsibility to where you come from.

Lowrider Hum OG turns that connection into a journey. In the video, Koro—the Kiwi Cholo—takes us across Aotearoa in a lowrider and brings us to Tāne Mahuta. Then we are cruising Whittier Boulevard again. The lowrider makes the bridge visible: different land, different culture, the same understanding that roots travel with you.

By the time the car returns to Whittier, the connection does not need to be explained. We get it. The two cultures have ridden together without either one disappearing, and the hum underneath them is family, respect and pride in where you come from.

03 / Feel

Feel the Soul

What I want you to feel

Connection does not require one culture to borrow another’s identity. It begins with respect: seeing what feels familiar, learning what is different and allowing both stories to remain whole while they travel beside each other.