KCRW Summer Nights with LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes

An evening of Cumbia from across the continent. Curated by music journalist Betto Arcos, CUMBIA SOMOS will showcase the rich and diverse sounds of cumbia from its origins in the region known as Montes de María, Colombia, to the urban centers of every Latin American city, including Los Angeles. Bring your dancing shoes, this is an evening that celebrates the most popular dance style in the continent.

The evening will unfold in four different parts: Presentation and talk about the book SOMOS CUMBIA, with music journalists Jaime Andrés Monsalve from Colombia, Enrique Blanc from Mexico and host-curator Betto Arcos; Jaime Andrés Monsalve will comment on the origins of cumbia and introduce the first group, Eduardo Palo Cuero; Betto Arcos will comment on the spread of Cumbia across the continent and introduce cumbia band El Conjunto Nueva Ola ECNO, and finally, Enrique Blanc comments on the significance of the Sonidero culture and introduces Sonidero Luis “La Rumba” Noriega and KCRW DJ Wyldeflower.

This event is all ages.

SCHEDULE
6:00 PM Doors
6:30 PM – 7:15 PM SOMOS CUMBIA Book Presentation
7:15 PM – 8:00 PM Eduardo Palo Cuero
8:00 PM – 9:00 PM El Conjunto Nueva Ola: ECNO
9:00 PM – 9:45 PM Sonidero Luis “La Rumba”
9:45 PM – 10:00 PM Mano a Mano: Sonidero Luis “La Rumba” x Wyldeflower B2B
10:00 PM – 11:00 PM KCRW DJ Wyldeflower

ABOUT LA PLAZA DE CULTURA Y ARTES
LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes is a community hub where people gather to celebrate Latinx culture through transformative exhibitions, music, dance, culinary arts, and multigenerational artmaking and storytelling experiences. An anchor cultural institution in Los Angeles County, LA Plaza centers the Latino experience and provides a space to uplift, share, and preserve the stories of Mexicans, Mexican Americans, and Latinx people in Southern California. Established in 2011, LA Plaza is a non-profit organization and a Smithsonian affiliate museum. 

ABOUT THE SPECIAL EXHIBITION
LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes Presents First Solo Museum Exhibition of Artist Jaime Muñoz. Featuring large-scale mixed-media paintings and ink diagram drawings, Muñoz’s body of work navigates themes of labor commodification, the conflict between colonial history and notions of modernity, and reveals nuanced narratives often overlooked. Through his decorative and symbolic imagery, he challenges myths about the American experience. 

ABOUT EL CONJUNTO NUEVA OLA: ECNO
Directly from the city of hope – Mexico City, Mexico – ECNO “El Conjunto Nueva Ola” was founded in 2009 with one objective and one objective only, to bring the party to every stage ECNO steps a foot on. The infectious fusion of Cumbia, Disco, New Wave and Quebradita is the perfect soil for clever parodies that not only receive laughs and smiles but are also essays in transculturation. 

ECNO’s formula is simple: a dose of humor, a dash of mysteriousness, spiced with irresistible rhythms and attitude. In the words of Urbano López (singer and mastermind behind this CDMX cumbia outfit), ECNO is like being at El Carmen with Charo, Gene Simmons, Sofía Vergara and Paul Stanley, while Spinal Tap is on tv and Weird Al Yankovic is playing in the corner. Bizarre but accurate. 

One very distinctive characteristic about ECNO is their anonymity that is sustained by wearing wrestling masks – a nod to Urbano López’s childhood passion, Lucha Libre. ECNO in 2024 is comprised of Urbano López (founder and singer), Raio Manzares (keyboards), Dante Cienfuegos (percussion), Espiridión Gonzáles (bass), Larry Cañon Garcia (accordion and guitar) and Eusebio Sabio (drums). The group came together by a series of unexpected events but that story will be explained in a documentary that is currently in the making. 

El Conjunto Nueva Ola has shared stages with all kinds of musical acts ranging from Los Tigres del Norte, Kinky, Café Tacuba, Banda Original El Limón, Panteón Rococó, La Santa Cecilia, Los Angeles Azules from Ozomatli to name a few. El Conjunto Nueva Ola is commemorating its 15 years of existence and in the Mexican tradition of a “quinceañera”, it is usually celebrated with a big dress, chambelanes (chamberlains), a flashy chariot and an over the top cake coated with lots of CUMBIA. In 2024, with ECNO, you should expect at least one of these.

Thank you to our sponsors!