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Chico Trujillo

South America’s hottest Cumbia Orchestra

Chico Trujillo is Chile’s most prominent Cumbia band. They are the soundtrack to every party from Santiago to Valparaiso. They can fill stadiums. Their mixture of classic cumbia and hints of rock and ska has assured them audiences from every generation and every walk of life.

Chico Trujillo started as an offshoot of punk/Ska band LaFloripondio in 1999. Thirteen years and five albums later, the offshoot has come to symbolize a uniquely Chilean cocktail. One that is rooted in the cumbias of the pre-Pinochet days and manages to incorporate every aspect of Chile’s popular culture. They have meshed bits and pieces of Chile’s fragemented past with the global influence of alternative culture and merged it all under the pan-latin banner of Cumbia.

It’s the first time since ska erupted out of Jamaican onto the world’s dance floors (three times over) that a a popular musical movement not born in the United States is going global. This time, though, it’s a hispanophone movement, making huge headways in Latin America, Europe and Japan.

“Lollapalooza Chile has introduced me to a world-class party band: Chico Trujillo […] Every party band needs a rhythm, and Aldo Asenjo, the band’s leader and singer, relies on cumbia, the beat heard in countless variations across Latin America.” New-York Times

Ana Tijoux, Chilean Hip Hop Queen

Ana Tijoux

Ana Tijoux is the Chilean hip-hop protester. Her cover letter could well be what media outlets like The Rolling Stones who chose her as the best rapper in Spanish, The New York Times who points to her as the Latin American response to Lauryn Hill, or magazines like Newsweek who ranks her as the most important Latin American rapper on the international scene.

Ana Tijoux was born in Lille in 1977. Her parents went into exile during Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile, which has left a mark on her career, marked by a special sensitivity to political and social issues. Her music dialogues to the sound of hip hop, fused. A feminist and activist in her lyrics, she denounces social and cultural deficiencies.

In favor of women’s rights and against gender violence, in 2014 she highlighted in her album “Vengo” the song “Antipatriarch”. She frequently participate in campaigns against inequality and oppression in the world. Tijoux is committed to defending women’s rights and has denounced gender violence and inequality. Also the inequality faced by artists in the world of cinema, or singers.

Ana is a global artist. About to publish her first book of poetry and her fifth studio album, she dares to go through all the creative processes: she composes, writes and arranges both her own themes and those she develops for different audiovisual projects, from films to documentaries. She has also put herself in front of the camera in films such as La Isla de los Pingüinos or a Chilean series of upcoming premieres and feminist theme called La Jauría.

She has dozens of nominations for various awards such as the MTV, 40 Principales, Indie Music Awards and has eight Grammy nominations (both Latin and Anglo), making her the Chilean woman with the most nominations for these awards.

SON ROMPE PERA

Son Rompe Pera

Born and raised in the deep outskirts of Mexico City, the Gama brothers are keeping alive the rich legacy of marimba music running through their family with their latest project, Son Rompe Pera.

While firmly rooted in the tradition of this historic instrument, their fresh take on this folk icon challenges its limits as never before, moving it into the garage/punk world of urban misfits and firmly planting it in the 21st century.

Originally performing alongside their father at local events since they were kids, they now find themselves at the forefront of the contemporary international cumbia scene with their sonic explorations of the classic marimba. Their absolute unique blend comes from a typical youthful rebellion, when as teenagers they left behind their upbringing on the marimba and began to play in various punk, rockabilly and ska bands.

Now they’ve gone full circle with the marimba back leading the way, and mixing all of their influences together with their energetic take on the popular instrument, giving it a new twist never before seen in Mexican folk music.

Their live shows are a sweaty mess of dancing fans, and this garage-cumbia-marimba-punk band (the only band of its kind in the world) never disappoints on stage. Their authenticity shines through as they give their modern interpretation of Mexican, Peruvian, and Colombian classics, as well as their own original material and some surprise covers. The contrast of the traditional marimba with their youthful attitude and street sense connects the audience to the past while they dance into the future.

Their first album, Batuco, due out on the ZZK label imprint, AYA Records, in 2020, is named after their recently deceased father, and is a representation of everything he taught them growing up, plus their first steps into a new, international career.

UNESCO inscribed the marimba on the 2015 list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

OFFICIAL SHOWCASE WOMEX 2022

KUMBIA BORUKA

Kumbia Boruka

Exciting cumbia from Mexico and beyond

The roots of Kumbia Boruka are to be found in Monterrey, the cumbia capital of Mexico and the place where Hernan Cortés, the accordion player and band leader, grew up in the eighties. He didn’t only learn to play the accordion from the living legend of Mexican cumbia, Celso Piña, but he was also the percussionist in the band of Celso Piña during long international tours.

Besides their own contemporary and festive compositions, the band knows how to bring new flavours to classic cumbias from the sixties, mixing it with influences from reggae, dub, African music and rock, psychedelic electric guitar melodies, an extensive rhythm section and powerful and exciting brass arrangements. The Peruvian cumbia, called chicha, is not forgotten either. The result is a hybrid cumbia, nueva cumbia, with fierce Latin energy that will blow your mind! It’s party time!

With three albums and more than 400 shows, Kumbia Boruka has fulfilled his challenge by making the Old Continent vibrate at the emblematic rhythm of Latin America, the Cumbia.

In addition, the band’s music appears with 5 songs in the soundtrack of the excellent documentary series Maradona in Mexico launched on Netflix last year.

The “Remedio” that Kumbia Boruka offers is an authentic and compelling cure against the evils of our time. To be enjoyed without moderation !

Line up

Hernán Cortés – Lead Voice & accordion
Christian Briseño – Lead Voice
Tadeo Cortés – Congas & guacharaca
Jonathan Cortez Castillo – Bass
Miguel Mino – Guitar
Cyril Gelly – Drums
Clément Buisson – Trumpet
Tristan Darphin – Trombone

Cumbia Mexico

Sonido Gallo Negro

Sonido Gallo Negro (Black Rooster Sound) is a stunning 9-piece, instrumental combo from east Mexico City that channels both the mystique and mysticism of 1960’s Peruvian cumbia. The band integrates styles like Amazonian cumbia, huayno, cumbia sonidera, boogaloo and chicha (Peruvian cumbia) with electric guitars, Farfisa organ, theremin, flute and of course fluid Latin percussion. Spaghetti western soundtracks, psychedelia and surf music also echo in their compositions.

Sonido Gallo Negro’s music proposal enrichens and cultivates this musical genre with its exotic sui generis version that integrates outstanding visuals performed live by designer Dr. Alderete, who illustrates in real time.

WOMEX 2017 official showcase

Cumbia Villera

Damas Gratis

Damas Gratis (Spanish for “Ladies’ Night”, literally “Ladies for Free”), creators of the “cumbia villera” (from the word villa, the Argentine equivalent of Brazilian favelas) is undoubtedly the most important cumbia band in Argentina.

Debuting in 2000 in San Fernando on the northern outskirts of Buenos Aires at the hand of Pablo Lescano, Damas Gratis is considered by many Argentinians as the “Maradona of Cumbia” and is today one of the great names in Latin American cumbia; for its history, its trajectory and the popular craze at each gig.

Eight studio albums, three live albums, almost two million fans on Facebook, sold out concerts in the four corners of the continent and collaborations with the greatest Latin artists are amongst their achievements to date.

Dozens of groups have been inspired by this great band; commonly called “cumbia villera”, having spawned the diffusion of this undercurrent of cumbia, from Mexico to Patagonia, converting it as a standard bearer of the demands of the popular classes. This cumbiera villera, a soundtrack of Argentine ghettos, has for nearly two decades taken the place that the hip-hop movement occupies in our suburbs. Music has become the means of expression of the underprivileged classes.

Pablo Lescano is also the first cumbia artist to play in the famous River Plate stadium “El Monumental” in front of 80,000 people, invited by Los Fabulosos Cadillacs in 2008.