Stars and Stars with Isa

Nella Rojas is a Latin Grammy winning singer and songwriter whose music is a fusion of folk sounds from her home country of Venezuela, with flamenco, jazz, and pop. Her powerful voice mesmerizes listeners with its fierce energy. Her latest album, “En Otra Vida,” honors the sounds of Latin American musical giants across ten covers and guides listeners on a journey to the origins of her inspirations and rediscovering the reasons she chose to become a singer. With Mars in Libra, Nella exudes the sociability and charm of an air sign in her personal life. The influence of Aries, from her Scorpio Sun and Rising signs, infuses her stage presence adding to the many dualities informing who she is. Isa Nakazawa sits down with Nella to discuss how her chart guides her with determination and also strives for security, love, and desire.

Comedian, writer and actor Jes Tom has worked on HBO’s Our Flag Means Death and voice acted on Adult Swim’s Tuca & Bertie. Their solo show, Less Lonely, was featured in the Netflix comedy special Gender Agenda, hosted by Hannah Gadsby. Jes’ work plays with their movement through queer worlds since coming out at 13. With seven placements in Capricorn, Jes tells host Isa Nakazawa about their struggle to differentiate between how their audience sees them and their own internal sense of self. Jes also talks about their romantic life and how listening to their body is bringing new flexibility and vulnerability into their relationships.

Born in ‘90s Havana, Cuba, Daymé Arocena has been surrounded by music her whole life. The singer, composer and arranger is deeply influenced by the voices of the legendary women in her family. As a Cancer Rising, her music moves fluidly from jazz to latin pop. She defies the exclusion of Black women from the music originated by global Black cultures. Isa Nakazawa sits down with Daymé to discuss her Aquarius sun and moon and how her most recent album Alkemi reflects a season of profound personal transformation including an awakening to her own sensual power and a reclamation of her identity as an Afro-Caribbean woman.

For Bay Davis, a community organizer, poet, and model from South Central L.A., beauty and justice are deeply intertwined. Her advocacy for those silenced by mass incarceration, addiction, and violence is informed by her own identity as a Black trans woman — who resists the politicization of her being. Her Libra rising and Aquarius Sun balance outward charm with introspective depth, while her Venus in Capricorn reflects the independence and responsibility she felt at an early age. With a moon in Sagittarius, she fulfills her inclination to spiritual exploration through her practice crown priest and the connection she nurtures with her ancestors, erasing the boundaries of what is past and what is to come.

Stephen Satterfield is an award-winning food writer and sommelier, and you may know him as host of the Netflix docu-series “High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America.” A self-proclaimed origin forager, Stephen starts his journeys with food from a place of pleasure and quickly goes deeper, seeking to understand a cuisine’s cultural roots. This Aries stellium joins host Isa Nakazawa to talk about his relationship to risk and his passion for transmitting stories of reclamation.

Musician Mireya Ramos is a Latin Grammy winning singer, composer, and founder of Flor de Toloache, an all-female mariachi band. Flor de Toloache went from busking on the New York City subways to reaching a global audience. As an Afro-latina in mariachi, Mireya knows what it means to be a trailblazer in a narrow industry. She talks with host Isa Nakazawa about the work ethic and enduring spirit of her Capricorn Sun and how her Aquarius Moon honors her family’s Mariachi roots while adding her own unique twist.

In her nearly 25 years in the music industry Kathy Iandoli has become known for showing the humanity of musicians behind the sheen of fame. She’s written some of the most intimate biographies of Black women in hip hop, from Lil’ Kim and Eve to Aaliyah. Kathy’s connection to the spiritual world runs deep and she envisions her work as an offering to the music she’s long admired. In true Pisces fashion, Kathy doesn’t see herself as a critic but a cultural memory keeper. She joins host Isa Nakazawa to discuss her relationship to spirituality and the tender rigor she shows in her music writing.

Benjamin Earl Turner is a recording artist, actor, writer, educator and multi-hyphenate on shows like Blindspotting, Rap Sh!t and Snowfall. Ben captivates in any medium he chooses as an insatiably curious soul, guided by an exquisite ethics of love. Isa Nakazawa sits down with Ben to discuss how as a Scorpio Sun, Scorpio Moon, and Pisces Rising, he is always seeking ways to subvert stereotypes – whether it’s in his art or his relationships. Isa and Ben reflect on the different forms of water his chart holds and what it means to heal through “maintaining the ugly.”

Jessica Dore's skepticism of fate is the culmination of her roles as a writer, tarot reader, and licensed social worker blending the secular with the spiritual. In her book Tarot for Change, featured in The New York Times, The Cut, and Vogue, she radically converts tarot from prophecy into a foundation for growth and movement. Host Isa Nakazawa sits down with Jessica to explore how the constant evolution of herself and her life’s work is informed and complicated by the fixed signs dominating her chart as an Aries Sun, Aquarius Moon, and Aquarius Rising, and how these paradoxes are a fundamental part of both tarot and astrology.

Gaby Moreno is a Grammy-award-winning Guatemalan singer-songwriter and guitarist whose bilingual lyrics take listeners on vivid journeys. She was awarded the Grammy for Best Latin Pop Album in 2023 for X Mi (Vol. 1). Her decades-spanning career is defined by a tenderness for her home of Guatemala, as told through folklore in her songwriting. Her ninth studio LP, Dusk, released earlier this year, is a testament to her evolution and transition, from light to dark and dawn to dusk. The desire for change and exploration found in Gaby’s Sagittarius sun is rounded by its placement in the Fourth House, associated with family and tradition — manifesting in both her attachment to memory and her constant refinement of archiving the ache and triumph of her ancestors through her music. Gaby joins host Isa Nakazawa to discuss how the presence of each element in her chart conjures balance.