Isabella Gomez Sarmiento
Isabella Gomez Sarmiento is a reporter with NPR Music.
She covers topics ranging from breaking news to cultural trends and artists she's listening to. Recently, she spent weeks closely covering the criminal trial of hip-hop mogul Sean Combs, reporting from a Lower Manhattan courtroom on a daily basis.
In her stories, she likes to answer questions like: why are musicians joining OnlyFans? How are streaming services responding to the rise of AI-generated content? And what's the definitive song of the summer? She's also profiled musicians including Audrey Hobert, Young Miko, and Durand Jones. Her work can be heard across NPR's radio programs and on podcasts like Alt.Latino, Pop Culture Happy Hour and It's Been A Minute.
Gomez Sarmiento got her start in public radio as a Kroc Fellow in 2019. She's part of the NPR teams that won a 2023 Edward R. Murrow Award for the ongoing coverage of the fall of Roe v. Wade and a 2024 New York Press Club Award for a story about haptic suits transforming the live music experience.
Originally from Venezuela, she learned English with the help of her friends Junie B. Jones and Nancy Drew.
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As part of NPR Music's series The Ripple Effect, Isabella Gomez Sarmiento speaks with Deadheads young and old, including famous followers like reality TV host Andy Cohen, who saw his first Grateful Dead show as a teenager in 1986, and young fans just discovering the band -- and passing on their appreciation to others.
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Glen Hansard, the Irish singer who won an Oscar for the musical movie Once and the led the bands The Frames and The Swell Season, died on Wednesday. He died following a motorcycle crash in Dublin. -
Social media can make a song go viral — even push it up the pop charts — seemingly overnight. Perhaps it's not surprising that some influencers are being paid to promote music without disclosing it. -
NPR's Books We Love has staff suggestions for non-fiction, including "My Mother's Daughter," "Days of Love and Rage" and "When It's Darkness on the Delta."
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Tyler's biggest hit is a perfect encapsulation of what made her a star in the 1980s: An epic power ballad surging with emotion, delivered in a voice that sounded like it might tear the singer apart. -
Meet the fourth and fifth grades who are superstars on the Internet: An elementary school chorus from Staten Island known as PS22, where kids learn to be their most authentic selves through singing. -
On this week's Cineplexity, we explore what movies about immigrants teach us about life in America. What movies get the story right? What do they get wrong? And what stories are left untold?
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For years, Julieta Venegas sprinkled traditional elements of northern Mexican music throughout her records. Her new album, Norteña, places the singer-songwriter's folkloric sensibilities front and center. -
An antitrust suit alleged that the company unfairly controlled too much of the live music industry at the expense of venues, artists and fans. The decision could reshape the industry. -
The Rock Hall's inductees will include eight acts who have all been eligible for at least a decade. In its "musical influence" category, the hall nods to Latin and African pop for the first time.
