‘The Mix Master’ Leo Vela, a pioneering DJ in bilingual Miami radio, dies at 68
For a generation of bilingual South Florida radio listeners, many won’t forget the sonorous sound of radio DJ Leo Vela as he hosted disco and post-disco dance and salsa blocs of music on stations including Power 96 and Super Q in Miami.
For instance, Hollywood musician Bill Gato’s favorite group may be Led Zeppelin, its mighty rock roar far removed from the ol’ Super Q fare. But Gato, currently CEO of Latinx Newswire, remembers, as a kid growing up in Miami with an older sister who was always listening to Super Q and Y-100 in their house, Vela’s “distinctive” voice in 1979.
“He became famous locally in the late ‘70s,” said Gato, 52, who covered radio for the Miami Herald. “His voice was distinctive in that it was both husky and silky and he spoke in Spanglish at times. It was very Miami.”
The Voice
And Vela, known alternately as “The Mix Master” and “The Voice” (with all apologies to Frank Sinatra who once had that applied handle), had not lost that fame. Vela was still working on South Florida Spanish-language radio, on WCMQ-FM — Z92 — the Hialeah-based outlet in the Spanish Broadcasting System, at the time of his death Wednesday.
Vela died Aug. 25 at his home in Miami at age 68 after battling heart issues, according to Florida Sen. Ileana Garcia.
“One of the most iconic voices in Spanish/Spanglish radio,” Garcia said of Vela on Twitter.
The South Florida radio icon had a career that spanned more than five decades, since America’s Bicentennial year, when he was 24.
Bilingual Miami radio pioneer
Vela helped pioneer bilingual English and Spanish after working in Miami as a musician and nightclub DJ. He transitioned to radio in 1976, first with Disco 96X and later with Super Q, Power 96, Salsa 98 and El Zol in South Florida.
Radio personalities often travel the airwaves so Vela also had stints in Texas, Illinois and New York.
With signature catch phrases “Gosa Now” and “La Descarga Continues (the download continues”), Vela became one of the most warmly received voices in Miami radio.
“His generosity and genuine persona earned him the adoration of the music industry’s biggest stars and the average man — and especially woman — alike,” his family’s obituary notice read.
“We don’t scream,” Vela told the Miami Herald in 1998 when he was hosting “The Download with Leo” program on WRTO La Nueva 98, in his 22nd year as a South Florida radio veteran. “Our music is about a lifestyle. It combines the classics Hispanic-American adults grew up listening to with a balance of today’s accepted adult-appeal hit records.”
Vela often had to buck a system that, like contemporary pop English-language stations, forced a tight playlist to feed the corporate mindset.
That didn’t sit right with the musically minded voice of the airwaves.
When Vela was program director for Miami’s WRTO-FM 98.3 in 2001, he forged a mixed tropical-dance format that featured salsa, pop, merengue, bachata and English-language hits of the day. His mix idea was a gamble. Vela bet on, and promoted, a bilingual dance sound to appeal to traditional tropical listeners as well as younger, Americanized Latinos who had flocked to contemporary English stations like Power 96 at the time, the Miami Herald reported.
“Because we’re a Latin station we can only play one genre?” Vela said in an interview with the Herald in 2001. “Miami is a bicultural, bilingual city. Radio to date has not reflected what’s happening on the streets of Miami. We’re losing too many younger Hispanic listeners to mainstream radio.”
Colleagues remember Vela
Born in Miami on Nov. 20, 1952, of Cuban and Puerto Rican ancestry, Vela lay claim to the title of the first Spanish surnamed DJ on mainstream radio in South Florida, according to the Herald.
“A legend. A voice. A bigger-than-life soul,” wrote veteran South Florida DJ Jade Alexander on Facebook.
Alexander was partnered with Vela on Salsa 98.3 FM’s “La Descarga con Leo y Jade” program.
“The man who I listened to as a kid on the one-of-a-kind Super Q. The man who opened up the door to Live Mix parties on the radio in this town. The man who some 25 years later, from the days of me dancing in my bedroom to his broadcasts, would become my radio partner after I saw him at a party and said, ‘Let’s do a ‘morning show in afternoons’ on the newly re-created bilingual radio station that he was in charge of,” Alexander wrote.
“As my program director, he took the risk with this girl who’d only been in general market — and we crushed it because he gave, and he gave, and he gave some more. Generous and loyal to a fault. No ego. Pure love. Infectious laughter. Rare kindness.”
Survivors, services
Vela’s survivors include his mother Carmen; sons Leo, Carlos and Bryan and daughters Carmen, Angela and Casey; 15 grandchildren and 13 great grandchildren. He was predeceased by his father Leo and his two brothers Orlando and Carlos.
A visitation will be held 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 28, including a celebration of life at 3 p.m., at Van Orsdel Kendall Drive Chapel, 11220 N. Kendall Dr. Miami.
This story was originally published August 27, 2021 at 2:38 PM.
