Netflix’s hotly anticipated new music series, Neon, drops on October 20 and along with it, comes a story about friendships, big dreams, and a crash course on the glitzy yet fickle music industry. Created by Shea Serrano and Max Searle, the show tracks a tight trio of 20-something pals who ditch their Ft. Myers upbringings and head to Miami, so they can rise high in the music business.

There’s a nice sexy sizzle to Neon, which stars Tyler Dean Flores (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier), Emma Ferreira (Midnight at the Paradise), Jordan Mendoza (Kaleidoscope, No Hard Feelings), and Courtney Taylor (Abbott Elementary, Insecure). There are also cameos from some music hot shots along the way. Director Oz Rodriguez and producer Ivan Rodriguez shared more about launching the series in this exclusive interview.

Knowing Neon Inside and Out

Talent behind the scenes don’t always get the love they truly deserve, but after watching the Miami-set Neon, director Oz Rodriguez and Ivan Rodriguez are destined to generate some buzz. Rodriguez is known for Miguel Wants To Fight and 2020’s Vampires vs. the Bronx. His earlier works include directing Saturday Night Live and The Last Man on Earth (2015). Rodriguez worked closely with Daddy Yankee, one of the show’s many executive producers, to develop Neon’s pilot episode. Meanwhile, Ivan Rodriguez has been a hot talent for some time. The executive music producer is part of Tainy & One Six, a powerhouse in the reggaeton world and has worked with some of the top Latin talent in the industry.

Together the duo fuel Neon’s engaging story about music artist Santi (Tyler Dean Flores) trying to break into the music industry and become one of the biggest reggaeton stars. Friends Ness and Felix (Emma Ferreira and Jordan Mendoza) buoy the guy as his “talent manager” and creative director respectively. The show kicks off after Santi’s song “Exagaro” goes viral. Maybe BPM record label exec Mia (Courtney Taylor) can help?

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“I’ve worked in comedy for a while, but I’ve never had an opportunity to do a show like this about music,” Oz Rodriguez shared of his joy for the series. “I’m from the Dominican Republic. I grew up listening to reggaeton my whole life, and I’ve seen its rise. So, it’s amazing to see a show about that. On top of that, this is a show with Latino characters and they get to be funny and goofy and silly, but the show has a lot of heart.” He went on to say that the show is really an underdog story, tracking Santi and Friends’ as they attempt to hit it big in the music industry:

All audiences really relate to underdog stories, and we wanted to make sure that this still felt authentic, and that we got the vibes right and that’s why working with people like Daddy Yankee or the music producer Tainy comes in.

Cameos from the likes of Daddy Yankee, who’s an executive producer here, and Jon Z, Brray, and others filter into the mix of the show. The director said that even if people have never heard reggaeton before, “you could still sort of clue into these characters and their struggle and keep tuning into the future episodes.”

On Creating Original Music for the Show
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One of the most ambitious things about Neon is that most of the music featured is original and created specifically for the series. That proved challenging yet inviting to producer Ivan Rodriguez, who was tasked to invent music for the show as there was no real-life band to leap off from in real life.

“I think the first thing for me to do was obviously diving into the story and really connecting to the story,” Ivan Rodriguez said. “The character of Santi really brings to life this Latino art he’s trying to make, and how he connected to his roots and really believing in himself as an artist. Once we got into the plot and really seeing where he was as a character — trying to really reach out for his dream — that really informed the music in the show. We knew where he was at in his career, his musical influences, and listening to reggaeton. It was just about connecting the dots and bringing that to the music.”

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The show spotlights Santi’s hit single, “Exagaro,” which went viral and sent him on a new journey, and other great tracks that audiences and music fans will appreciate. One story arc features a comedic music video shoot in a grocery store. It’s one of the series’ standout episodes.

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“We still wanted the music to sound as good as everything you hear on the radio, as good as everything that we do with everybody else that we work with, whether it’s like Bad Bunny or Selena Gomez,” Ivan Rodriguez noted. “We wanted to make sure that it sounded super authentic from that standpoint, but we also wanted to connect to the character, right?” He added that it was important for Santi not to be disconnected emotionally from the music. It had to sound and feel believable when the lyrics were expressed:

We really took the time to not only craft this amazing sound we have here with these records and wanted to touch on different genres in Latin music. It had to sound like you’re listening to an actual artist and not just a character and some music that was created in the studio.

The Allure of Reggaeton
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So, what is reggaeton? Hugely popular, it’s a particular style of music that originated from Panama during the 1980s. The unique mix of popular and electronic music was inspiring and over time, the style took off in Puerto Rico, and evolved from dancehall to elements of hip hop, Latin American, and Caribbean music.

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“I think reggaeton is so massive now,” Ivan Rodriguez said. “We like to think of it like world music. Because sometimes the first feedback that you might get from somebody, whether they understand the language or they don’t, they just say, ‘It feels so good, you know, it makes me dance, the drums feel so good, they make me wanna move.’ So, it really inspires people to be themselves and it brings people together in one feeling, under one emotion.”

He added that the style is really, “an expression of Latino people. There are a lot of different ways that genre kind of blends and becomes a hybrid to become global. But at the end of the day, it’s really super authentic, and it connects to people emotionally.”

Catch Neon on Netflix beginning October 20. Find music from the show at Apple Music, Spotify, and Amazon.