Plena and Bomba
Mayagüez, Puerto Rico
Erick Miguel Vializ Montalvo, better known as Kily Vializ, grew up on Cantera Street in the Broadway barrio (neighborhood or community) of Mayagüez, on the central west coast of Puerto Rico. Raised in a family of performers, he began singing and playing plena and aquinaldos traditional music as a child. “Plena is my life. Both my mom and dad played plena,” he explains, “My mom sang and wrote music. When she was pregnant with me, she took guitar lessons. She’d place her guitar on top of her belly. Same when she played the panderetas [handheld drums], she would place her pandereta against her belly, and I was in there.”
In addition to singing, performing, and composing in several different bomba and plena groups in Mayagüez, Vializ is a tireless cultural worker. He is a creative and effusive promoter of bomba and plena, hosting radio programs for years with both national and international audiences. He helps organize bombazos and plenazos (community bomba and plena gatherings) and he teaches workshops to further these musical traditions. In 2023, he apprenticed Maurice “Tito” Sanabria in Mayagüez-style plena with support from the Virginia Folklife Program.
In 2020 Vializ released the album Boricua y de Mayagüez and formed a band with the recording musicians that he continues to direct. Vializ has performed in and outside of Puerto Rico at important festivals such as Bomplenazo in New York and the Heineken Jazz Fest in San Juan with renowned drummer Henry Cole, Fiestas de la Calle San Sebastián, Jornada Betances, Fiesta del Acabe del Café in Maricao, Fiestas de Pueblo, Fiestas Patronales, and in the Campechada presented by the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture. He has performed in cities across the United States including Chicago, Orlando, New Orleans, Eugene, and in Maryland and Virginia. Vializ has also recorded with groups including Plena Mía, Grupo Atabal, Grupo Esencia, and Leró Martinez Roldán, among others.