7 July 16-22, 2026 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com NEW TIMES | CONTENTS | LETTERS | NEWS | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | CAFE | MUSIC | The ladies arrived one by one, some wear- ing tracksuits and wheeling suitcases packed with outfit changes, while others were al- ready camera-ready in short shorts, oversized hoop earrings, dramatic eyeliner, and glossy lips. Between takes, they fixed each other’s makeup, snapped photos, and waited for La Goony Chonga’s next creative direction. Among them were 21-year-old Alejandra Quiroga Suarez, a Cuban from Hialeah, and 21-year-old Alexandra Caicel, a Colombian from Hialeah. As Caicel posed for photos, Quiroga Suarez smiled and summed up the moment with a laugh: “La diva reconoce a otra diva.” Both admitted they had to contain their excitement when La Goony Chonga walked through the doors. They agreed she was even prettier in person. When she arrived, La Goony Chonga greeted each woman before gathering them together. “This is my city,” she says, “All my goonies pop out for me when I need them. It was im- portant for me to go local and use girls who know I am.” Business never stopped, even for a Sunday afternoon. Customers wandered the aisles, and students trickled in for snacks and cafecitos as video director David Joseph, whose past col- laborators include Young Miko, Pouya, and To- kischa, followed Goony around the store with a speaker in hand, blasting her unreleased track. The “Gordichii” music video follows Gordilina and her cousins, Mamuchi and Goony, on a distinctly Miami adventure as the cast brings the city’s not-so-distant memories of chongas to life. The music video features muralist Diana “Didi” Contreras spray-painting a wall in the heart of Little Havana. Crouched at its base, she fills in shadows and bursts of color that slowly reveal a larger-than-life Gordichii. A self-described former Kendall chonga, Contreras wore the look naturally in her ado- lescent years, from her signature honey curls to the bronzed glow that defined so many Mi- ami girls in the early 2000s. Crossing “video vixen” off her bucket list was a dream come true, especially after meeting La Goony Chonga through a mutual friend, Lulu, who died two years ago. During filming, Contreras invited Lulu’s husband to add his own spray- painted tribute beside the mural. “The chonga is often misunderstood, but she’s also confident, expressive, funny, resil- ient, and uniquely Miami,” Contreras says. “As someone who paints women often, I saw this mural as a way to celebrate that energy and that identity.” Contreras embraced the opportunity to paint the caricature unapologetically thick. She wanted the figure to take up space on the wall, just as every Gordichii should, radiating a powerful, feminine, and playful presence. The mural captures the same spirit that inspired the song itself. “Gordichii” grew out of the playful nicknames La Goony Chonga, born Kasey Rose Avalos, gives her daughter. “The hook of this song, ‘La Gordichii, Mamuchii, La Mama,’ was inspired by Zuri, my baby, because I always give her little nick- names,” she says. “I’d sing it to her, and even- tually the nicknames started rhyming like a dembow.” While the song “Gordichii” and its music video celebrate her Miami roots, La Goony Chonga’s latest release also marks a new chapter in how she plans to share her music. Instead of debuting the single on streaming platforms, she’s releasing it first on Band- camp, where fans can purchase the song di- rectly before it arrives on Spotify and other digital services. Her Bandcamp page, with its glitter graphics and archive of past releases, feels like a nostalgic throwback to the MySpace era, reflecting the DIY community she cultivated long before streaming became the industry’s default. Beneath the business strategy lies some- thing more defiant: a bedazzled acrylic mid- dle finger to the music industry’s economics. “I’ve built a cult following and a commu- nity over the past 10 years,” she says. “I think it’s time for a new strategy, selling my music directly to my fans and creating a more exclu- sive experience.” La Goony Chonga says artists have be- come overly dependent on streaming plat- forms and playlist placement despite the relatively small payouts many services pro- vide. By releasing “Gordichii” directly to fans, with options to bundle the single with mer- chandise, she hopes to create a more sustain- able model for independent artists while rewarding the community that has supported her since the early days of her career. “I come from the SoundCloud era and had a community on Bandcamp before I had any- thing on streaming platforms,” she says. “Get- ting back to that formula is a big deal now that I’m a bigger artist and can actually thrive with my community.” She hopes the move encourages other in- dependent musicians to rethink how they re- lease their work. “I feel it’s my responsibility to be a pioneer in this new wave so other artists can follow and we can put pressure on the DSPs to pay artists fairly.” And if there’s anything a Miami chonga will do, it’s get things done her way. [email protected] 7 Month XX–Month XX, 2008 miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | CONTENTS | LETTERS | RIPTIDE | METRO | NIGHT+DAY | STAGE | ART | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | Left: The music video features muralist Diana “Didi” Contreras spray-painting a wall in the heart of Little Havana. Right: Chonga’s latest release also marks a new chapter in how she plans to share her music. La Goony Chonga Photo Photo by Kenya Rojas “The chonga is often misunderstood, but she’s also confident, expressive, funny, resilient, and uniquely Miami.”
