There are few sound selectors as intentional and as in love with the craft as Sunny Cheeba. A Boricua Bronxite, Sunny’s love for community and culture shines through all she does. A co-founder of Uptown Vinyl Supreme, a Bronx based DJ collective and community organization paying homage to the analog roots of music, party, and dance culture, Sunny’s love of collecting records and playing them began in 2015 after purchasing her first record—Angela Bofill’s self titled album Angie—from a street vendor on 161st and Gerard Avenue, across the street from Yankee Stadium. Ten years later, you can find her spinning at clubs and parties across the five boroughs, transforming dance floors into sacred spaces.

An artist, archeologist, and archivist, Sunny uses her hands to dig through crates and tend to the land. In the Bronx, Sunny serves the community through the Kelly Street Garden and New Roots Farm in the South Bronx. In 2017, she began her farming journey, attending Farm School NYC as a means to learn about herself, take care of her and the community’s health, and as a means to begin developing a relationship of reciprocity with the land. Recently, her, her partner, and a cohort of loved ones founded Ceiba Arbor, a collective of multidisciplinary QTBIPOC artists and urban farmers from NYC who are actively building resilience through community in the face of displacement, homelessness and food apartheid. Over the past decade, these farmers have nurtured a vision of a cooperative grounded in sustainability, and are currently cultivating 16 acres of land in Salem, CT to help actualize their collective vision.

From music to the land, Sunny sees these two aspects of her life as both inseparable and divinely interconnected. Both DJing and farming are conduits of mind-body-spirit connection, tools for healing, and pathways toward liberation. Whether working the land in Salem or preparing for a DJ set in Brooklyn, Sunny remains firmly rooted in the Bronx: a borough that, despite its continuous disenfranchisement, has remained a beacon of creativity. A multidimensional force to be reckoned with, we speak with Sunny about her love of music, archeology, and lessons she’s learned from the land.

*Sunny Cheeba at Record Room. By Jay Esko.*

When did your love with music begin?
It started at a very young age, maybe even from birth. I was raised by two young parents from the South Bronx in ‘91. The music that was coming out of New York City in that era is foundational and deeply embedded in my core and love for music. My mom always said she couldn’t have me and my siblings couped up in a small apartment so we were always outside at a jam in the park with music blaring from someone's boom box, car stereo, home system or pocket radio. My parents told me they used to go to Orchard Beach concerts a lot and I was with them when the Fugees, Blackmoon, and other rising talents performed, even though I have no recollection.

Whenever one has the opportunity to hear you DJ, your selections are always more than just songs. Whether aware of it or not, your sets transform often secular spaces into spiritual experiences. How do you see the intersection of spirituality and music in your life?
I believe music for me has always had a spiritual essence. Seeing the way music transforms someone from an idle state to something euphoric always awed me. Early in my life I recognized its healing power when my mother blasted Ese Hombre by La India to heal a troubled heart or when Aguanile blasted in the sala and transported us all to the jungles of El Yunque. Music has been there for me in every aspect of my life and healed me through the rough times. As a performer and DJ, the power we have to control the entire energetic field of the room is something I don’t take for granted. My mission on any given dance floor is to liberation of the mind, body and soul.

*Sunny Cheeba with her mother, and father. The Bronx, early 1990s. Courtesy of Sunny Cheeba.*

What is Uptown Vinyl Supreme? How did it come to be, and what does its existence mean for you and the community?
Uptown Vinyl Supreme is a DJ collective that I co-founded with my friends in the Bronx in 2015. Our focus and mission is to honor the analog roots of collecting and playing music for the people. It was born at a time where I was co-organizing open mics and music showcases in the Bronx. Shortly after, I saw an opportunity to create after parties for these events and started to teach myself how to DJ at home with 2 turntables and my growing record collection. At the time I was volunteering at a Yoga studio on 161st and Gerard where my comrade Buddy was a massage therapist. I saw his record collection in his studio and always kept that in the back of my mind. I had reconnected with an uptown friend, former member of UVS, Rainey Cruz, and they had just inherited their fathers record collection. Weeks later I put us all in a group chat to pitch the idea of throwing an after party for one of the music showcases. We went back and forth on names, made the flyer and BOOM. After that first one, our community kept asking us when the next one was so we threw another then another then another and here we are about to celebrate 10 years of bringing our favorite records to the people. Funny story, Josh Hubi later joined the group about a year or two after the inception but he actually ended up walking into the first party because of hearing the music from the platform of the 1 train. Josh and I went to middle school together and hadn’t seen each other probably since graduating. He tells me that night inspired him to start playing out again and I’m forever grateful that he walked into the pub that first night.

At the end of the day, the existence of UVS has truly changed the trajectory of my life in more ways than one. Starting off as a way to bring our friends together and evolving into my career is something I didn’t plan out, it just happened organically. For the uptown community it was pivotal in those first 5 years to be able to carve out a space in the Bronx for us, by us. Not only have we been able to build an incredible mycelium network community members but have also hosted workshops, created a Hip-Hop Summer Youth Program in 2017, hosted radio shows, taught people how to DJ, bridged the gap between the old school and new school, and even had the chance to curate our own SummerStage Show in 2019. All because of our love for music.

Opting for vinyl, what do records provide you that digital doesn’t?
I am such an analog girl at heart so 100% it’s the tangibility for me. In a world of high speed technology and access to any song at your fingertips, vinyl gives me a moment to slow down and enjoy the music in a different way.

*Sunny Cheeba. By Buddy, Uptown Vinyl Supreme.*

A farmer by day and DJ by night, your trades are acts of service. Why is being in service to your community such a key pillar of your work?
The two things that always remained constant growing up and being among family and community was food and music. It’s funny how we always circle back to the things we love most. My journey started as a young adult navigating the reality of growing up in a broken system. I wanted to be someone that was part of the solution. I deeply believe that it is our duty to leave this world better than how we found it. Growing food and creating a space for people to feel free is my small part in the revolution.

In 2019, you graduated from Farm School NYC. What led you to begin your journey as a land steward?
I came to a point in my life where my diet was shifting. I was consuming more vegetables and other sources of nutrition that weren't rice, beans, chuletas, and pastelitos. I had moved out of my grandmother's house and was realizing I didn’t know too much about what foods to cook outside of what I grew up with. Shortly after getting into the groove of cooking, I realized that I didn’t really understand how broken our food system is as a whole. How detached we are from what we consume. Who grows it, how it’s grown and distributed. It was one of those spiraling moments but I think it was a good spiral and a necessary one to go down. I had always joked with my friends that we would go off grid and live in unison with the land one day. In my mind I was like, “If I want that to happen I need to learn how to grow my own food.” I had mentioned it to my UVS comrade, Buddy at the time and he told me about an application for Farm School NYC. I applied, went in for an interview, and was accepted to start classes in Fall 2017. I truly don’t know how I survived those years. I was juggling the classes, waitressing, and DJing. No sleep, just pure willpower to answer the call the land had for me.

*Sunny Cheeba at Ceiba Arbor. By Stephanie "Cherry" Ayala.*

As a third-generation Boricua from the Bronx, how has having a relationship to the land informed your identity?
Deepening my relationship with the land has informed my identity in more ways than I could count. Growing up I wasn’t sent to La Isla in the summers to visit family. I didn’t touch the soil of my homeland until I was an adult and had my own money to take myself to the paradise everyone talked about. There was a yearning that was always there. As I started my farming journey I made sure to visit farms on the island, harvesting coffee beans, gandules and citrus fruits. Cutting open a cocoa pod and tasting the candy like flesh that surrounds the cocoa seed. Each touch of the soil brings me closer to my ancestral roots and myself. I’m grateful to have grown up in the Bronx, the borough that has the most green spaces. Van Cortlandt was my El Yunque and Soundview, La Perla. Being in relationship with the land has opened up my world and made me so grateful for all that the Earth gives. To be able to plant a seed and share the fruits of my labor, to be able to grow Aji Dulce and Recao in the South Bronx and share with elders for their sofrito. To be able to bring Bomba y Plena to the community gardens I serve so that home doesn’t seem so far away. To remind us that we are home when we come together.

New York City is home to many community gardens and farms across the five boroughs. A Garden Ambassador at Kelly Street Garden and farmer at New Roots Community farm, why has it been crucial for you to be rooted in the Bronx?
Growing food in the borough that raised me was a no brainer. As someone who understands the impact of redlining and food apartheid on both myself and my community, it was important for me to give back to the place where it all began. Till this day people can’t believe there are farms and community gardens in the Bronx feeding up to 200+ people a week. The Bronx has always been the underdog so it is always imperative that everything I did uplifts the borough.

Hubs of intergenerational knowledge and slow spaces that allow us to detach from the fast paced technological society that is NYC, what does having access to community gardens, farms, and their produce mean for the city’s Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities?
It is a place of respite among the city noise and concrete jungle. A space of many generations and borders with no bounds. A place where we can commune over our ancestral practices, preserve their knowledge and pass down seeds and stories. It’s more than growing food, it’s affirming each other, where we come from, and how we can further support networks of care.

In 2024, you, your partner, and a collective of friends purchased land in Salem, Connecticut to create Ceiba Arbor. What was the impetus behind this move, and what are the hopes for this land?
It truly feels like something that has been written. The way we intentionally planted this seed as a dream and through divine orchestration and dedicated hard work we are watching it grow. We weren’t out actively searching for this land, it found us and we were ready.

Our hopes at Ceiba Arbor are to make this space as open and welcoming as possible to all the QTBIPOC who share this same calling to the land. Our vision has many layers as we are all multi-dimensional creatives but at the very core our vision lies in building a farm, arts and education hub using food as the pathway. We have a little over 15 acres of land, multiple structures, and a vision that is expansive. We’re planning on growing cut flowers and culturally relevant crops, implementing food forests, artist residencies, ceremonies, a photo dark room, glass hot shop, music studio, the ideas are endless. It’s going to take time but as any farmer will tell you, you don’t harvest the fruit the day you plant the seed. We’re also in the process of writing our 99-year grounds lease and my hope is that this project outlives us. I want Ceiba Arbor to be able to support the next seven generations and beyond.

*Sunny Cheeba at Kelly Street Garden. By Stephanie "Cherry" Ayala.*

Sitting at the intersection of earth tending, plant alchemy, and music, what is the correlation between all of these arts in your life? What conversations do these avenues of creativity allow you to have?
These different practices and creative outlets really allow me to tap all the way in. Working the soil, making medicine or mixing two tracks takes me to a place that allows me to transcend the physical while being open to the downloads. Farming has taught me so much about life. When I’m out in the field pulling weeds I also think to myself, what do I need to weed out in my life to make space for growth. When I’m trellising tomatoes I think to myself, what ideas and projects have I started that can use support. When I’m chopping food scraps I’m thinking to myself, what ideas or patterns of thinking do I need to compost to make a more fertile and nourishing life. These tools are a universal language in my eyes that allows me to connect with so many different walks of life.

Both spaces—music and the land—are art forms that allow you to work with your hands more than most are afforded to today. How are digging for records and cultivating the land archeological tools?
When you think of archeology you think about uncovering what's hidden above the surface. When digging for records for me it feels just like that. When I’m deep in my search, hands dirty from the dusty bins, looking for that special track that is hidden in the masses I feel like I’m on a hunt. When coming across older pressings of songs, or albums that came out before my time it is like archiving a piece of history. The stories of that era tucked in between the grooves of the record. Waiting for someone to listen, to be heard. When it comes to the land it always remembers. You can tell so much about a space through the soil, what has happened, what once was. We can pass down cultural traditions, ancestral practices and our stories when we gather to grow food for each other.

A multidimensional multihyphenate, your artistry has been a tool that’s allowed for all to get one step closer to liberation. What does liberation look like to you?
The fall of the US Empire. Until then, liberation to me looks like more power to the people. Moving away from individualism and moving towards building networks of care, support and love. Abolishing systems that were never meant to serve us.

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