Like many Mexicans who are thriving against the odds in the United States, Francisco Gomez cannot believe his good luck. Akwid, the rap duo featuring him and his older brother Sergio, was in the Top ...

At first, Sergio and Francisco Gomez don’t object to the idea of posing for photos on the streets of their old neighborhood, in the mixed black and Latino area near the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

Two years ago, the Los Angeles-based urban rap duo Akwid became the first group to break big with a mixture of Mexican-flavored hip-hop in Spanish that was tagged urban regional. The group sold ...

They are bald. They are brothers. They are vague about their ages. But Francisco and Sergio Gomez are slowly adjusting to their lives as pioneers of the new music genre and phenomenon known as urban ...