Surrounded by the tools of his trade, Ray Roa multitasks across screens—scanning emails, writing stories, and cueing up new music —a nod to where his career first took shape. I first met Ray in 2016, when he joined the alt-weekly newspaper Creative Loafing as music editor. By 2019, he had risen to editor-in-chief, and in 2026, he became part of the ownership group that acquired the publication from San Antonio–based Chava Communications.

Roa also co-hosts The Skinny, a weekly news magazine talk show on WMNF, Tampa’s independent community radio station—continuing to blend journalism, music, and conversation. He is unabashedly left-leaning, and he doesn’t shy away from letting that perspective shape his editorial lens.