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We’re going to drop a bomb for our Global Hit today. A Colombian bomb. Bomba Estereo…a bomb in stereo.

I saw Bomba Estereo at New York’s Bowery Ballroom in July. At first glance, the band looks like they could be a holdout from the 1970s new wave rock scene.

Liliana Saumet is the lead singer of Bomba Estereo. Liliana grew up in Colombia, listening to the traditional sounds of cumbia.

But bassist Simon Mejia, did not.

Simon Mejia: “Cumbia came to me recently. You know I didn’t grow up listening to cumbia. Liliana, for example, yes because she comes from Santa Marta which is a town in the coast, the Atlantic coast, a small town near the sea and cumbia is present all the time in the music carnivals. But in Bogota, for example, this is not common.”
If Simon Mejia brings the rock and the electronic technology to Bomba Estereo, Liliana Saumet brings the authenticity.

Werman: “She’s a real strong presence on stage. I think I fell in love with her that night.”

Simon Mejia: “Yeah, that usually happens. She has this power. I think the power she has really is she combines the power of hip-hop with the power of singing, like cantarora (?). Which are these old women from Columbia that live also in small villages in the coast and carry on a tradition of folkloric music, singing folkloric music. So, she mixes these sorts of things very well.”

Simon Mejia and Liliana Saumet in 2000. They then invited other musicians to join their cumbia rock band. And the sound of Bomba Estereo grew from there.

Simon Mejia: “When we invited the rest of musicians and we began to rehearse, it got a little bit rock sound also. And you hear it and you don’t know if it’s electronica, cumbia, or if it’s rock. But it keeps the essence where it started like the folk rhythms from Columbia, basically cumbia.”

Bomba Estereo’s new album is called “Blow Up.”

Be on the lookout for the band live…they’ll be here in the US next month.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/latinmusicusa

CD Information:
Blow Up
Audio CD (July 7, 2009)
Original Release Date: July 7, 2009
Number of Discs: 1
Label: Nacional Records
ASIN: B002AJQ7G0