A multi-award-winning South Florida musician is in the running to get another Emmy — for a 21-second Spanish-language song about porcelain salt and pepper shakers.
The song was written for a far-fetched storyline on hit HBO shows Hacks — hence the Emmy nomination — that sees its lead character trying to manufacture a Grammy win by recording a song to compete in a niche Mexican music category.
The song "Mis Figuritas" was created by Grammy Award winner and five-time Emmy winner Carlos Rafael Rivera and co-composer David Stahl. It's been nominated for "Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics” in the Primetime Emmy Awards, for the best original song or score created specifically for a television program.
Hacks is a dark comedy drama that follows veteran stand-up comedian Deborah Vance, played by Jean Smart, and her young comedy writer Ava Daniels, played by Hannah Einbinder. Audiences follow their evolving relationship, as Ava helps Deborah reinvent her aging act.
The song premieres in the first episode of the final season, where Deborah is trying to make a song with the sole intention of winning a Grammy.
It’s an ironic full-circle moment, as her attempt to “Grammy-bait” is with a hastily made song, but in reality, Rivera went to great lengths to create a song that could actually win a Grammy.
He reached out to an old friend, Grammy-winning producer Sebastian Krys, for help. Krys pointed him to Grammy-winning producer Áureo Baqueiro to ensure that the song would fit — in the show — the Grammy category “Best Música Mexicana Album (including Tejano)".
The song follows a running gag where Deborah Vance is constantly collecting salt and pepper shakers through all five seasons. Her figurines hold a narrative element, but they also come from a personal place as well.
Deborah sings, "De porcelana son las que más quiero yo. Solo son de Lladró, son mi vida." She is saying the shakers she loves the most are made of porcelain, that they are Lladró — a highly-regarded brand — and they mean the world to her.
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Rivera is half-Cuban and Guatemalan, and he grew up in Central America and was raised in Kendall in Miami-Dade County. He attended Belen Jesuit Preparatory School.
His mother collected porcelain figures from Lladró, and they were just as important to her as the salt and pepper shakers are to Deborah.
“I just wanted to do something that would feel like really more authentically Hispanic, and so I was able to bring the personal side of my upbringing into what the story is,” he said.
“But that's what makes it a double-layered joke. It's not just a throwaway song; it's a legitimate song produced by a Grammy-winning legitimate producer in real life and written with the intention of it being completely about Deborah.”
No matter how many times he gets nominated, Rivera is as surprised as he was the first time. He says he is grateful for every nomination he's received because each one means one of his peers, or someone he has always looked up to, noticed how much his music was contributing to a scene in a show.
He is a professor and chair of the Media Scoring and Production Department at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music. He makes sure to teach his students that when it comes to scoring, they have to mainly support the actor's performance and the director's vision.
Rivera believes a good score complements every scene and is practically unnoticeable. He attributes this nomination to the strength of Jean Smart's acting, fully bringing the scene together.
“I think ultimately the biggest achievement is when people love the story they don't necessarily signal the score," he said. "The actors are playing people that aren't who they are, they're in a set that isn't really there, sound design is probably 80% of what you're hearing … all of these fictions create a feeling in the audience, and when it resonates, then you've won.”
The winner for "Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics” will be announced at the 78th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards on Sept. 5.
