The day after Reyes I found myself in la alacaldía de San Juan interviewing Draco Rosa, the genre-bending rock-pop singer-songwriter whose career began as a key member of the boy band Menudo, lurched forward into the rock en Español classic Vagabundo (produced by Roxy Music guitarist/glam rocker Phil Manzanera) and has perhaps climaxed with his Latin Grammy winning Vida, a series of pop duets with the likes of Rubén Blades, Juan Luis Guerra, Marc Anthony, and fellow Menudo alum Ricky Martin.

Draco is in the midst of surviving a scary bout with cancer and a bone-marrow transplant, but you wouldn’t notice if you were in his easygoing, full of appreciation for life presence. In this interview we talk about his retrofitted coffee farm in Utuado in the mountains of Central Puerto Rico, the trials and tribulation of living in Spanglish, savoring the moments of creativity at his piano, and the manic nature of writing “Living la Vida Loca.”