San Jose was home to two legends in the arts: brothers Rudy and Sonny Madrid.
Rudy was a trailblazing musician, and Sonny founded Lowrider magazine, a world-renowned publication.
"Rudy, he was a dictionary when it came to music," his nephew, Joey "Jam" Flores, said. "He’d start from A and go to Z, and he would hit every different genre and kill it."
Rudy was such a trailblazer that other musicians would come see him play.
"When he was at the Willow Glen Inn, it was always a musicians' house. Musicians would come out and watch and learn," Flores said.
Not to be outdone, Sonny was also breaking ground. He founded Lowrider in 1977, giving legitimacy to lowriders and the artform they represent.
Sonny was also a journalist, and he also touched on societal issues.
Local
"He was more into the politics of stuff going on in the community. We had the Chicano Moratorium in the ‘70s and all the other stuff that was going on in the community: police issues and housing issues," KKUP DJ Jimmy "Jam" Hernandez said.
When Flores was working for the magazine in high school, the magazine went international when a subscription came in from a military base in Germany.
Get a weekly recap of the latest San Francisco Bay Area housing news. >Sign up for NBC Bay Area’s Housing Deconstructed newsletter.
"It was the service men and women that were subscribing to the magazine from not just Germany, from Asia and Japan and wherever they were, wherever they were serving," Flores said.
