Mexican marimba and cumbia
Naucalpan de Juárez, Mexico
Photo: Ana Fuentes
Rooted in a rich legacy of marimba music in Mexico City, Son Rompe Pera is taking the world by storm with their explosive blend of traditional marimba music with cumbia, punk, and ska. Bringing together their various musical and cultural worlds into a cohesive whole, the group is a visceral example of a living tradition in motion. “Son Rompe Pera has been developing since we were kids—the music and streets are in our blood,” says bandmember Kacho Gama. “We decided to carry the marimba with us and create this musical project from our own roots, mixing in rhythms which we thought would never be musical brothers … the sounds of our barrios and our everyday lives.”
Mexican marimba music developed in southern Mexico, where the marimba, a wooden cousin of the xylophone, is thought to have been brought by enslaved Africans and adopted into local Indigenous music traditions. It has also flourished in and around Mexico City, where many southern Mexicans have migrated and developed a vibrant culture of marimba street performance. Brothers Kacho, Mongo, and Kilos Gama grew up just outside Mexico City in a city called Naucalpan de Juárez, in a neighborhood full of traditional marimberos. Their father, José “Batuco” Gama, a percussionist originally from Veracruz, learned to play the marimba on Calle Ramos Millán, once Naucalpan’s center of marimba culture. He taught his oldest sons Kacho and Mongo to play, and formed the original Son Rompe Pera— “son” for the Cuban son music he loved, “rompe” meaning “she breaks” in honor of his wife Esperanza’s heavy-handed reputation, and “Pera” for her nickname.
After years of playing weddings, countless street performances, and other traditional gigs with their father, the boys felt the pull of rock and roll. They joined psychobilly and punk bands, and though they continued playing with their dad when they were forced to, “we didn’t want anyone we know we played marimba,” recalls Mongo. “We didn’t appreciate it.” But after a chance encounter with their future agent, in 2015, the brothers were introduced to popular Chilean cumbia artist Aldo “Macha” Ansejo, lead singer of Chico Trujillo, who invited them to perform and record with him. After mourning the untimely death of their father, in 2017 the Gama brothers decided to accept Macha’s invitation to tour Chile as the newly reinvented Son Rompe Pera, solidifying their signature style—reinterpreters of traditional Mexican folk and pan-Latin American cumbias with a punk-rock spirit, and of punk and rock and roll on the marimba.
Led by marimberos Kacho and Mongo Gama, who play the melody and bass parts, respectively, the group also features Kilos Gama on auxiliary percussion, Richi López on drums, and Raul Albarrán on bass guitar. Together, they bring a powerfully cathartic, playful energy to the stage, which is met with frenetic, ecstatic dancing—pulling everyone from cumbia dancers to metalheads onto the same dancefloor. “I always try to transform myself and be what I am, says Kacho. “I always try to get that across to the people.” The way Mongo sees it, “it’s all about sweat, energy, and cumbia.”