Mister Felipe is Philip Handmaker, a teacher of español and música in the community of Taos, Nuevo México. Growing up in New Mexico, he heard a lot of Spanish on the playground, and he studied the language in high school and college . After getting a master's degree in Applied Linguistics and teaching bilingually in Arlington, Virginia for several years, he worked in Guatemala and Peru and fell in love with Latin music. In 2005 he at last moved back to Nuevo México, where he is combining his lifelong passions of music, language, and teaching.