Inside a Westchester convenience store, croquetas are served, a colada is poured into mini plastic cups, and a group of Chongalicious Miami girls turns La Goony Chonga’s newest single “Gordichii” into a celebration of every lump and curve that’s ever solicited the label “gordita.”
No Latina with extra rolls around the waist, thick legs, and full arms has survived a childhood in Miami – let alone a Hispanic household – without being called some version of the word.
While “gordita” or “gordichii” are terms of endearment, they can teeter on the fine line between playful teasing from a well-meaning tia and a backhanded jab from a petty frenemy. For La Goony Chonga, though, reclaiming words and her culture is part of the IDGAF attitude she and her Goonies embody in their daily aesthetic.
Born and raised in the 305, La Goony Chonga has built her career serving unapologetic, ’90s- and 2000s-bred Chonga confidence, drawing inspiration from her hometown of Westchester, where roosters rule the streets and ventanitas are the windows to the spirit of West Miami. If you’re new here or somehow missed the glorious chaos of the pre-social media 2000s, Chongas are the Cuban, or Cuban-adjacent, cousin to the West Coast Chicana Chola, a Miami-brewed subculture that celebrates Latina hyperfemininity with sass, confidence, and, if you’ve got it, plenty of ass.
La Goony Chonga’s career has taken her from her current home base in Los Angeles to stages around the world, earning collaborations with artists such as Rosalía and Ivy Queen. In 2022, La Goony Chonga was named Best Urbano Act in New Times’ Best of Miami issue, and she hasn’t slowed down since.
But for the “Gordichii” music video, she wanted to bring the spotlight back home to Miami.
New Times cover, photo by Ana Paula Teixera
Throwing it Back in Depinga Cafe
La Goony Chonga put out a casting call on her Instagram Stories for Miami baddies of all sizes to audition for a spot in her “Gordichii” gang. Within a week, she had assembled a team of girls eager to dance, act, and celebrate with Miami’s most recognizable Chonga.
On a Sunday afternoon, the cast gathered at Depinga Café, part over-the-counter café, part smoke shop, and part convenience store inside the University C-Store across from Florida International University (FIU). Filming transformed the neighborhood business into a music video – Like, literally!
The ladies arrived one by one, some wearing tracksuits and wheeling suitcases packed with outfit changes, while others were already 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 important 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 collaborators include Young Miko, Pouya, and Tokischa, followed Goony through 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.
La Goony leaves her mark
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 adolescent years, from her signature honey curls to the bronzed glow that defined so many Miami 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.
Photo by Steven Rodriguez
“The Chonga is often misunderstood, but she’s also confident, expressive, funny, resilient, 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 nicknames,” she says. “I’d sing it to her, and eventually the nicknames started rhyming like a dembow.”
Betting on her fans
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 Bandcamp, where fans can purchase the song directly 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 something more defiant: a bedazzled acrylic middle finger to the music industry’s economics.
“I’ve built a cult following and a community 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 exclusive experience.”
La Goony Chonga says artists have become overly dependent on streaming platforms and playlist placement despite the relatively small payouts many services provide. By releasing “Gordichii” directly to fans, with options to bundle the single with merchandise, she hopes to create a more sustainable 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 anything on streaming platforms,” she says. “Getting 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 independent musicians to rethink how they release 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.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.miaminewtimes.com ’
