ERICK GALINDO

WRITER, PODCASTER AND DOCUMENTARIAN

Self-described Mexican American redhead and Downey native Galindo has already left his mark all over the L.A. media scene, and his star is still rising. He’s been a managing editor at the bootstrapping indie outlet L.A. Taco; a columnist at LAist/KPCC; and a podcast creator with KPCC, Futuro Studios and Sonoro. Earlier this year, he co-hosted the eight-episode podcast “Ídolo: The Ballad of Chalino Sánchez,” which tells the story of the reallife “godfather of narcocorridos,” who was slain in 1992 in Culiacán, Mexico, and left a long shadow on both sides of the border. “Chalino lived a few blocks away from where we lived when I was a kid,” Galindo, whose family emigrated from Sinaloa, told The Times earlier this year. “His music captured this microcosm of L.A. during that time, the same way Biggie Smalls did for Brooklyn.” Galindo’s 2020 essay for the New York Times about Downey, “The Mexican Beverly Hills,” got picked up by CBS last year for development as a family comedy, with Galindo writing and executive producing.