There's multitasking, and then there's Jade Esteban Estrada. He's a Latin

pop singer with an album, "Angel," that includes songs in the English and Spanish. He has done stand-up comedy, performed in a hip-hop group and starred in his own one-man show, "ICONS: The Lesbian and Gay History of the World, Vol. 1." The guy even worked as a choreographer for Charo.

     And he still has time this weekend to help out as host of the Triangle's La Fiesta del Pueblo for the fourth straight year. The Latin festival celebrates its 10th anniversary on Saturday and Sunday with art, entertainment and food at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds in Raleigh.

     Estrada will introduce acts, run dance contests and generally work to keep the crowd excited. He'll do more than a dozen Latin festival across the country this year, including some that draw bigger crowds then the 50,000 expected at La Fiesta. But he keeps coming back.

     "It's definitely my favorite," Estrada said. "The people have a lot of heart."

     He got his start singing as a child in his native Texas. Later he moved to New York on a scholarship to a music and drama school, dipped into stand-up and eventually got that gig with Charo.

     "Working with Charo when I did was the best thing I could have done for myself, because I watched someone who had the same talents I did," Estrada said during a phone interview from New York. "She could do everything--she had to, because she was on stage by herself a lot. She had to be funny. She had to sing, she had to dance."

     He worked with the cuchi-cuchi queen in the late 1990s while she did casino shows in Las Vegas and Atlantic City. Backstage one night, Charo told him something he hasn't forgotten. 

     "She said, 'It doesn't matter what you did today or yesterday or last year or 10 years ago. When you walk onto that stage, you've got to enter through the back door like everybody else.'"

     Estrada keeps that advice in mind whether he's working an off-Broadway show or singing a tune from his CD.

     "I really enjoy the opportunity to perform in front of many different kinds of audiences, which is something that if I'm just a Latin pop singer, I can't do. If I'm just a theatre artist, I can't do," he said. "But because I can ooze my way through these different venues, I have the opportunity to learn a lot more."

     Events like La Fiesta offer a chance to put some of each talent to use. He can sing a little, dance a little an crack a joke when he needs to stretch time between acts. 

     "I love them because you never know what's going to happen," he said of the festival circuit. "I love being a ringmaster and I love being the liaison between the audience and the artists."

     Usually held at Chapel Hill High School, La Fiesta moves the state fairgrounds this year, a more traditional venue that Estrada believes is symbolic of the growing Latino culture in the area. He's looking forward to the change.

     "It's just saying that Latinos are here to stay," he said. "It's like were in a tiny theatre in SoHo and we got moved to Broadway."