Daniel Jimenez Afanador

Growing up in Colombia during the '90s, Daniel Jimenez Afanador and his friends threw late night parties where the heavy metal riffs of Iron Maiden collided with the salsa grooves of Fruko y sus Tesos. Mirroring Bogotá's cosmopolitan sensibility, Daniel listened to all kinds of music in his teen years - from Fabulosos Cadillacs and Counting Crows to Queen and Latin rock pioneers Sui Géneris. It was around that time - and after his mother passed away when he was only 16 - that Daniel realized that music had become a force of healing in his life. 

"Music became my salvation at a very early age," he reflects over a cup of freshly brewed Colombian coffee in his Los Angeles-based studio. "I remember falling in love with my favorite records and realizing that all my troubles seemed insignificant compared to the beauty of those sounds. The next step came naturally: the need to write my own songs and share them with other people.”