Party Crews: The Untold Story
For many Latinx kids in the ‘00s, the party crew scene was a safe space to express themselves as they came of age in the grit and glitter of Los Angeles. A space to make friends, forget about your problems and dance the night away. But the scene wasn’t always physically safe. There were shootings and police raids. Many adults saw the scene as gang-adjacent and the media fueled negative stereotypes of kids who were out of control. One of the teens who got caught in that easy narrative was Emmery Muñoz, after she was murdered in 2006.
Host Janice Llamoca goes on a Y2K-filled journey back in time to her own party crew days to find out what this scene meant for teens like her and Emmery, and why – to this day – Emmery’s case remains unsolved. From iHeart, VICE, and LAist Studios in partnership with My Cultura Podcast Network
- Update frequency
- every 2 days
- Average duration
- 29 minutes
- Episodes
- 11
- Years Active
- 2023
Bonus: Eddie Ruvalcaba on Capturing Party Crew Life
Photographer Eddie Ruvalcaba started his professional career capturing snapshots of party crews for Street Beat Magazine, an indie magazine for party crew teens of the ‘90s. His photographs have beco…
Bonus: Carribean Fragoza on Writing “The Vicious Ladies”
Carribean Fragoza is a writer, artist and co-founder of the South El Monte Arts Posse. She writes about Latinx women and girls whose narratives aren’t always portrayed in the mainstream. In 2014, she…
Ep. 8 Safe Space
What does the party crew scene ultimately tell us about what it means to have a safe space - and how might that shape the way Emmery is remembered? Janice looks back and learns that the rosy memories…
Ep. 7 Desahogar
In 2022 – more than sixteen years later – we hear from Emmery’s entire family who gather and re-hash more than a decade’s worth of information when an investigator joins the case.
Ep. 6 Searching for Digital Traces
Before TikTok, Instagram and even – MySpace, party crew teens found ways to create communities online. One of these early social media sites was called Techno4.us — where Janice and Emmery both had p…
Ep. 5 Cat & Mouse
A year after Emmery’s death, a now-notorious Los Angeles City Council member became interested in her unsolved case and led a rallying cry for LA to crack down on party crews. But the battle between …
Ep. 4 Anatomy of a Party
We go behind-the-scenes in the making of a mid-2000s flier party with an entrepreneurial teen party crew promoter from South Central to understand how parties were major money makers, but more import…
Ep. 3 The Investigation
Emmery was last seen on a Friday afternoon in January of 2006. In this episode, we delve into the investigation into Emmery’s unsolved murder. Emmery’s link to the party crew world was part of why he…
Ep. 2 Welcome to the Party
Growing up in the San Gabriel Valley, Janice saw the party crew scene as a little slice of freedom, a place to let loose, and a break from her religious, immigrant household. But the scene was also c…
Ep. 1 Emmery
Janice Llamoca was one of the hundreds of mostly Latinx kids that made up LA’s underground party crew scene in the 2000s. But as an adult, she thought she had left all that behind. Until one day when…
Introducing: Party Crews: The Untold Story
All episodes coming March 14, 2023. For many LA Latinx teens coming of age in the 2000s, flier parties and the party crew scene were an escape from the pressures from immigrant parents and the harsh …