bomba y plena
Sunrise, Florida
Photo: Yamila Images
In the Cuban-rich region of South Florida, Plena Es has carved a space for Puerto Rican music by emphasizing the island’s distinctive bomba y plena musical traditions, percussion-driven sounds that reflect the island’s African heritage. Founded by Pierre Ramos in 2004, the band—featuring percussion, trombones, piano, bass, and two dancers—stirs up a high-energy dance music that is a touchstone for Puerto Rican identity. Their name, seemingly simple and straightforward, is in fact a deeply spiritual and philosophical statement embodying that essential connection: Plena Es, or “Plena is ….”
Bomba is a heavily percussive music and dance form that emerged during the late 17th century among enslaved West Africans on the sugar plantations of colonial Puerto Rico. While it served as the accompaniment for their celebrations, bomba also contained often-coded messages of cultural resilience and resistance to slavery and oppression. Central to bomba is the dialog among several different percussion instruments, dancers, and singers. The primary instruments are the barriles, large drums originally made from pickle, codfish, or rum barrels; a maraca crafted from a gourd; and a pair of sticks called cuá.
Plena developed in the early 20th century in the coastal areas of Ponce and Mayagüez, where working people flocked for jobs. Rooted in the bomba tradition, plena also incorporated indigenous Taíno music and jíbaro, the Spanish- and Arab-influenced music of the rural highlands. Among many subjects that plena embraced, it also heralded the history and day-to-day news of the people and community, as well as political commentary, and so became known as el periódico cantado (“the newspaper in song”). Backed by the rhythms of the panderos (hand drums), plena focuses on the story, often improvised, sung by a lead singer and chorus.
As a young boy, Ramos recalls hearing Los Pleneros del Quinto Olivo, a group he credits with helping the plena tradition flourish on the island and beyond through their spirited performances and hot sound. Inspired by the group’s founding members, brothers Eddie and Pepe Olivo, he picked up the pandero and found that plena moved him. “I was born with the music in me,” Ramos explains. “When I decided to play bomba y plena, I picked up a pandero drum, and I practiced until I created my own style. And to this day, I haven’t stopped playing.”
Shortly after founding Plena Es, Ramos, who also sings, was joined by David Lucca, a conga player originally from Ponce, the region many see as the birthplace of plena. Lucca is now Ramos’s partner in the band. The mission of these pleneros is to get audiences dancing and smiling. “The music is so up-beat and dynamic that it will move anyone that listens to it,” Ramos says. “The singer’s interpretation and the lyrics telling those amazing stories are nowhere else to be found. The essence of the instruments, when well-performed, creates such a powerful force that it doesn’t matter where you are from, I bet you will move.”
Plena Es has previously served as the pachanga band for the Miami Marlins of Major League Baseball, and shared stages with Willie Colón, Tito Puente, Victor Manuelle, and other luminaries of Latin music.
Read more about Plena Es: HistoryMiami Heritage Spotlight Series: Plena Es