The Palm Beach Post
By South Florida Sun-Sentinel   |  Bars and Clubs, Live Shows  |  July 26, 2009

MPALM-REGGAETON ART.JPGIt’s the party of their lives, for their lives: a reggaeton blow-out at the Palm Beach County Convention Center Saturday that brought together hundreds of revelers to celebrate two late promoters.

Joshua Llano and Juan Santamaria, who together founded Nitefinders Entertainment, died last June when their car crashed into a pole west of West Palm Beach. Llano, 19, and Santamaria, 21, were two budding businessmen who planned to change college majors–Llano was going to Florida International University for engineering and Santamaria attended Palm Beach Community College for architecture– to focus on their event promotion venture.

Their mothers, Silvia Canales and Clara Santamaria, are keeping their dreams alive. Together they’re continuing the work of Nitefinders’ in memory of their sons. The two grieving moms started off with Saturday’s urban Latin music “Palm Beach Reggaeton Invasion,” a tribute concert for their boys that included performances by Jowell y Randy and Zion y Lennox.

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Santamaria said that Canales approached her with the idea of holding the reggaeton concert in Palm Beach County their sons had talked about putting on.

“She said ‘Are you with me?’” said Santamaria.

These past few months have been intense with the planning, but putting together this production helped with the healing. “I just want to make everything a reality,” Santamaria said.

The two women became close friends themselves, just as their sons had, and said they will plan more Latin concerts featuring salsa, merengue, bachata and other Latin music despite having distinctly different careers. Santamaria is a graphic designer and Canales sells life insurance.

“Now, we are really, really good friends. And because, after the accident, nobody understands exactly how we can feel, but she knows exactly how I feel,” Santamaria said, “We are helping each other all the time and talking.”

Santamaria said she even listened to the music her son enjoyed to cope with the loss. Both women broke down Friday night as they wrapped up last minute details. On Saturday, a portrait of the smiling friends with arms around one another greeted concert-goers.

The boys were both proud of their Hispanic heritage–Llano was of Puerto Rican and Cuban descent and Santamaria was Colombian– and they wanted to share that with people of all ages, outside of the nightclub scene, said friend Annam Sayeed.

“They wanted to entertain and bring different artists, not always the club scene,” she said, “Everybody loves music no matter the age. . . . I think they just loved people.”

Said Canales: “It’s spiritually fulfilling, it’s their dream, their vision,” she said. “They’re here. They’re always here.”

2 Responses to “Mothers fulfill their sons’ reggaeton dream”

  1. Andrea Caceres-Santamaria says:

    As a cousin of Juan, I am very proud of what Clara and her family have accomplished! The concert was a great time and well organized, and I am sure that Juan would be more than impressed with what they organized! We are all looking foward to having more events like this in West Palm!

  2. rachel says:

    I went to this concert, and it was amazing, they prayed and mentioned Joshua and Juan a lot of times, they said that they were doing this concert because of them, it was a really nice experience, and im sure the mothers of Jushua and Juan are very glad and satisfied that they got this opportunity to honor their sons.

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