Chico Trujillo

Chile's Chico Trujillo is arguably the nation's most popular cumbia band. Their music mixes pieces of the genre's rich historical past with global influences, from rock and ska to hip-hop, dubwise reggae, punk, bolero, and Latin R&B. Their sound is deeply rooted in the cumbias of the pre-Pinochet years and incorporates virtually every aspect of Chile's popular culture, as evidenced by 2001's Chico Trujillo y la Señora Imaginación. Though best-known for live performances (they've toured almost constantly since 2002), they record sporadically, their albums consistently attain critical acclaim and commercial success. Their joyous, irreverent, riotous dance-party concerts have been staged at Lollapalooza on both sides of the Atlantic, and been presented on stages large (football stadiums and festivals) and small (nightclubs) across the globe. 2007's Cumbia Chilombiana, with its singles "The Conductor" and "Lanzaplatos," was their breakthrough outing, though they'd already established a concert following. 2010's Vivito y Coleando, a live set, won a following Stateside, while 2013's Gran Pecador, with its reliance on everything from surf music and vallenato to urban cumbia, psychedelic, ska, and punk, became their most commercially popular outing. In 2019, the band celebrated its 20th anniversary with the album Mambo Mundial (Barbès Records). Over the next five years they traveled, playing clubs across South America, and issued a handful of singles including 2024's "Motivo Real."