If you saw him in "Machete," the "Spy Kids" series or just about any other Robert Rodriguez movie, you know that tough-guy actor Danny Trejo looks like the kind of guy you do not want to cross. But leave it to the Twin Cities' firebrand hip-hop starlet Maria Isa to do just that.
"We've had a few rough moments over the dialect," Isa said with a laugh Monday, calling from the set of the indie movie "Strike One" in Los Angeles. "When you're a Puerto Rican girl from Minnesota talking to Mexican dudes in East L.A., there are going to be some translation issues."
"Danny's so sweet, though," she added. "He says, 'Hey, we're all brown.'"
Obviously, we have some catching up to do with Maria. When we last wrote about the 24-year-old West St. Paul-reared rapper/singer (and now actor), she was starring in a well-received production of "Rent" at the Lab Theater in Minneapolis. The makers of "Strike One" came to see her in "Rent" last year after recruiting her to craft music for the soundtrack. Obviously, she passed the audition.
Isa (born Maria IsaBelle Perez Vega) left for Los Angeles in late May and will return ever-so-briefly to the Twin Cities to headline the Uptown Pride Block Party -- a gig she said she took to "help make sure it isn't just white kids there showing pride in themselves."
Next month, she is heading back to Puerto Rico with yet another camera crew. The Twin Cities filmmakers behind the upcoming music documentary "We Rock Long Distance" will be following her to a hip-hop fest there, just as they recently did with M.anifest to Ghana. Then in August, she's dropping a new album with fellow hometown rap star Muja Messiah. Then she's putting out her own mixtape in the fall. Somewhere in there, she might sit on her culo for 10 minutes, too.
First, though, Isa has to finish filming "Strike One." A gritty drama from second-time director David Llauger-Meiselman ("El Matadero") -- whose mom is Maria's aunt and one of her performing arts teachers -- the film centers around a teenage Mexican-American boy teetering on gang life and possible jail time. Trejo plays an ex-con uncle, and Isa has a leading role as the boy's older sister, a single mom who tries to steer him right.
"I may not know East L.A., but I still know the story," Isa said. "I know what it's like watching young men from our 'hood get shipped off to jail and fall in with the gangs. It's a never-ending cycle, and this movie is sort of about telling that story the right way."
