Latin Roots: Xenia Rubinos

Xenia Rubinos, who has Puerto Rican and Cuban roots, sings in both Spanish and English and identifies as Afro-Latina. She now lives in Brooklyn, having always wanted to move to New York City to make music — but she made a detour to Boston along the way to attend the Berklee School of Music, "to appease my parents," she says. (It was a good thing she did: At Berklee, she met drummer Marco Buccelli, with whom she has been working ever since.)

It's difficult to fit this extraordinary musician into rigid genre categories. Funk, R&B and hip-hop all coexist in the wildly original music on Rubinos' newest album, Black Terry Cat. Whatever you call it, it's serious fun.