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Talent Mgmt • Nightlife Princess @uofpenn @uscedu
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Recent posts
Now that January is almost over and I’ve found myself almost 3,000 miles away from the city, I finally had the time and space to abstract and reflect on 2025.
This year was certainly the year of the carry and the crash. To preface, my Saturn return began in May and let me tell you, she is in full swing. Swinging at me, mostly.
I don’t have a grand philosophical thesis this time around. No perfectly wrapped lesson. Just the honest truth that I had an incredible year filled with so many fun and electric experiences that honestly just a few years ago I would have never believed would happen. A year of movement, rooms I never imagined entering, and moments that felt surreal in the best way. Special credit where it is due to @fashion.faguette for quite literally defining this year and being responsible for 9/10 of the magic.
2025 taught me how to say no, although I still have work to do there. It taught me about self preservation, about choosing myself without guilt, and about how sacred my energy actually is. It was certainly a year of learning how to fall without losing myself, and frankly, finding some light and love in the process. It also reminded me how lucky I am to have a chosen family that shows up when things go sideways, when plans collapse, when I am tired, or cracking open. I was held more times than I can count this year and I will never stop being grateful for that.
A few lessons I did learn:
Potential is not a credential.
Even when someone is taking care of you, pouring endlessly from your own cup will still leave you empty.
It takes nothing to be kind. It takes even less to be empathetic.
It's okay to fall, just don't forget to get back up.
And maybe that’s why Crash by Charli XCX feels so right as the song that defined this year for me. Fast, chaotic, communal, electric, full of heart, and a little self destructive in the way only a truly alive year and a truly alive person can be.
No perfect lesson here. No clean narrative.
Just gratitude for the ride, for the people, for the becoming. with love, derek
29 Jan 2026
pretending it’s not raining in LA right now 😌
27 Dec 2021
fall back
15 Jul 2021
On October 29, I lost my Tío Prinse. He wasn't just my uncle. He was a father to me.
When my mom was raising my brother and me on her own, he and my Titi Carmen stepped in and helped raise us. He came to this country from Pachalum, Guatemala with a work ethic I'll never stop admiring, and he built a life full of love in Bellmawr, the tiny South Jersey town where I was born, with Titi and their three kids, Ashley, Emily, and Noel.
He taught me what it means to be a man and what it means to be a father: to show up, to work hard, and to love and care for your family through anything. He loved me deeply, no matter who I was or who I loved. I have so many memories growing up with him and my Titi, from trips to Guatemala to the thousands of times he made me take a shower when I was a nasty little kid. 😂 Tío, I shower every day now. I promise.
He spent his days as a delivery driver, out in every kind of weather, and he showed up for his family the same way, every single day. He was 57.
Now my Titi and cousins are facing life without him and without his income. If you're able to give, anything helps. If you can't, sharing means just as much. Link in my bio. 🤍
Descansa en paz, Tío. Te amo.
05 Nov 2026
PMT XIII - 11/20
FIFTEEN HOURS. TWO FLOORS.
A COLLABORATION THAT HAS YET TO MAKE LANDFALL....
PMT x???
FIRST RELEASE IS YOURS.
ID - OBJET PETIT A @gbeng.a
EDIT BY @cruelangelsdissertation
VIDEO CONTRIBUTIONS @lauracarella @alaingrpolanco
30 Oct 2026
PMT XII TWO YEAR ANNIVERSARY
HERE WE ARE, GEARING UP FOR TWO YEAR ADDITIONS AND CELEBRATIONS. WE HAVE MORE IN STORE FOR YOU…
INTRODUCING OUR FIRST MOVEMENT WORKSHOP: LED BY CALEB THOMAS AND BIRUK, COME (9PM TO 11PM) AND BE LED DEEPER INTO YOUR BODY THROUGH DOWNTEMPO AND GUIDED MOVEMENT. ADDITIONAL WELLNESS TREATS AND KIIS WILL BE AVAILABLE.
MORE LATER, BUT LETS GET THIS PUMP WHILE FIRST RELEASE LASTS.
SONIC SELECTORS
@alf0ns0.javier
@xskincontact
@ooccttiii
@feoniixx
@concrete___husband
@msbattygyal
@yeskyruh
SYDFALLS
FEATURING
@verbalanimalco
@ya_alaia
@itschristianalexander
@vonmusic
MOVEMENT WORKSHOP + DOWNTEMPO SET
@____biruk
@calebthomas
LIGHTING
@gumgum.studio
SOUND
@uva.testing
PROJECTION ARTIST
@nftdaddii
SAFETY
@tas.safety
FLYER
@cruelangelsdissertation
HAPPY TWO YEARS OF THE UNDERGROUND PLAYGROUND
01 Oct 2026
10.17 TWO YEAR ANNIVERSARY
BACK AND BETTER, HERE WE ARE EMBODYING TWO YEATS OF PLAY ME TECHNO. COME JOIN US IN THE CELEBRATIONS OF OUR RADICAL QUEER LOVE + JOY.
SPECIAL INTEGRATIONS RELEASING SOON. THE UNDERGROUND PLAYGROUND IS LEVELING UP AND LAYERING…. BOOTS.
LINEUP SOON. FIRST RELEASE IS OPEN. LETS PUMP, SWEAT, AND GET OUR BODIES CORRECT.
SHOT BY
@bella_danzi
EDIT
@cruelangelsdissertation
FEATURING
@calebthomas
@kvnlvy
@cemiyon
@thats_so_ragin
STYLING
@leninbetancur
@lenthriftss
28 Sep 2026
this is quite literally the only serious thing I’ve ever written. it would mean not just the world but the entire universe if you gave it a read. it’s mostly a letter to myself. but it’s also a letter to everyone on here who still somehow doesn’t quite understand me — even after years of yapping about my life, my experience, and every minor detail you never asked for but received anyway. especially if you follow me. god bless you, genuinely. what are you doing here. read it anyway. link in bio.🤍
01 Mar 2026
Two years ago, before I left LA, right before I stepped into what would become the most transformative year of my 20s, I went to a psychic. I know corny. but I was a little lost: coming off a huge breakup, another failed relationship, graduating USC, entering a new work phase, and staring down a hundred possible paths without knowing which to take.
The psychic told me many things, most of which have unfolded with uncanny accuracy. One message felt vague and almost mystical at the time: “You need to leave LA. At some point, you need to move to New York because in New York, you connect with all your past lives.”
I brushed it off until June of last year when I moved to New York and met Lenin Betancur.
What’s funny is that three years ago, I stumbled onto Lenin’s Instagram and, in true Derek Cano fashion, shamelessly hit on him for years. Our very first DM was me asking about a random Amazon tank top. Little did I know I wasn’t just flirting with a stranger. I was about to meet the most important man of this chapter of my life.
Lenin is not just my best friend or my twin. He is my brother, my platonic soulmate, my life partner in every way that matters. The only "boyfriend" I will ever need. In a city as enormous and isolating as New York, he has been my compass, my safe harbor, my home.
What makes our friendship rare, especially as two young gay men in similar spaces, is how deeply we root for one another. No competition. No ego. Just pure support, shared values, and love that feels expansive and safe. In only a year of truly knowing Lenin, he has taught me lessons that have permanently shifted my perspective on friendship, ambition, love, and what it means to build a chosen family.
Lenin, you make people feel seen. You make chaos feel navigable. You have turned one of the most daunting chapters of my life into one of the most beautiful.
Happy 25th birthday, my heart. I am endlessly proud of you, grateful for you, and excited to keep building a lifetime of memories together. I love you to Pluto and back. 🚀🖤
26 Sep 2025
invasive island species
24 May 2025
WIRE!!! It’s taken me a minute to fully process just how magical my first @wirefestival truly was. But wow — @tea_abashidze, @kiko.angelovski and @gega_japaridze curated not just a festival or a party, but a spectacle. A celebration. A living, breathing testament to the music that brings us, all of us, from such wildly different worlds, into one sweaty, radiant, sacred space. Thank you thank you thank you for such an incredible weekend. And thank you for providing what was in so many ways the perfect ending to my first year in New York City.
Ooo chile, this city has dragged me, read me, built me, tested me, and, in the most unexpected ways, held me. After bouncing between LA, Miami, and Mexico City, running from whatever internal trauma I've yet to fully deal with, I can finally say: I’ve found home.
Home in a city that sees me in all my messy, multifaceted glory and says, “Yes. You belong here child.” That’s all a young gay boy ever really wants no? To be seen, to be accepted, to feel like he fits.
I remember being 15, fantasizing about moving to New York the second I graduated. But ooof… at that age I was not ready. Not for the chaos. Not for the expansion. Not for the brutal honesty. Not for the way this city breaks you open before it lets you bloom.
Even arriving at 27, it wasn’t easy. I had to unlearn so much. Rebuild my sense of self more than once (def had my share of main character plot twists and cancellations…) But somehow, in her own chaotic divine timing, New York found me exactly when I needed her most. And god, the community I’ve found here…The Stars. Unicorns. Dancefloor Angels. People who uplift me in ways I didn’t even know I needed. Who see the weirdest, softest, fiercest parts of me and say “more, please.”
That’s the real magic of this city. The chosen family. The love that lingers long after the music fades.
As I keep planting roots here, I know the sparkle of the skyline might someday dull, but the love I’ve discovered? The friendships, the freedom, the sense of self? That’s staying. That belongs to me now.
New York isn’t for everyone. But it is so deeply, so unmistakably for me. xx 🖤
23 May 2025
Carry: The Musical
28 Feb 2025
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