Alfredo Roa

«Back then Dimensión Latina was in fashion, and as there were three of us friends, we called it Tridimensión.»

From painting houses to touring the country

Roa painted houses and washed cars in order to keep improving the equipment. At first he lost the early guerras de minitecas —the sound clashes of the movement—, but by around 1986 he had already mastered the trade. He chose Tridimensión as a career —over university— and with it he traveled Venezuela from end to end, from Zulia to San Félix, with trips out to Colombia and Aruba.

Born in Barquisimeto (Lara state), Tridimensión came to be called “la universidad de las minitecas” —the university of the minitecas— for the number of talents trained in its ranks who later became legends of Venezuelan radio and mixing: among them Gustavo Bracho, Carlos Valor, Orlando Ismael “Mamón”, César Rodríguez, Waldemaro Martínez and Gregorio Valles are cited, as well as acts such as Doble Impakto and Mr. Brian.

The hidden figure behind the crew

Like so many miniteca owners, Roa was at once businessman, technician and discjockey. The visible figure was the crew —Tridimensión, its lights, its sound, its star mixers—; behind it was the boy who started out with a rig handed to him by chance and held it up by sheer work. That is the hidden-figure profile this entry documents.

Social media

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Credits and sources

• · Base mention in “La Revista de las Minitecas” (DJ Vladimir Medina Edition), p. 16: Alfredo Roa creator of Tridimensión, the purchase of “la Garza” at the age of 14 (1978).
• · External corroboration (interview with the protagonist): “Tridimensión: la ‘universidad de las minitecas’ que nació en Barquisimeto”, Noticias Barquisimeto (noticiasbarquisimeto.com) — it confirms the name, the nickname “el Máster”, the year (December 1978), the age (14), the anecdote of “la Garza”, the origin of the name, the national trajectory and the talents trained there.
• · Press clipping “Maxiteca ‘Tridimensión’ celebra su octavo aniversario” (byline: Milagros S. Castro), preserved in the CMTK Archive: the television debut on Radio Caracas Televisión through the program “Magazine” of “Lo de Hoy”, the national tours, the “Proyecto Peavey” and Gregorio Valles as representative. The article dates the formation of the miniteca to 1980, against the December 1978 of Roa's own account.
• · Under documentary verification: full surname/middle name, date of birth, the precise chronology of sound clashes won and the exact years of international touring.