An evening of Bomba, Plena and Caribbean hip-hop at the bandshell

Miami Herald

15-07-2025

The pairing of Puerto Rican 15-piece bomba and plena big band El Laberinto del Coco and Miami-born and raised rapper Marti at the Miami Beach Bandshell Saturday, July 19, at 8 p.m. is a meeting of evolving old and new traditions.
Led by percussionist and composer Hector 'Coco' Barez, the 14-piece band El Laberinto del Coco updates the sound of Afro-Puerto Rican bomba and plena with elements of jazz, R&B, rock, hip hop, and global influences from the Americas.
Mario Obregon, a.k.a. Rapper Marti, embodies Miami's multiculturalism, performing in both English and Spanish over a sound that seamlessly blends elements of rhythm and blues, NuSoul, and Caribbean grooves. The show is presented by The Rhythm Foundation and Live Arts Miami's MUNDO Series.
'The name El Laberinto del Coco (Coco's Maze) has to do with my entire career,' says Barez in a phone interview conducted in Spanish. 'I worked with William Cepeda (trombonist, bandleader and grandson of folklorist Rafael Cepeda 'The Patriarch of the Bomba and Plena'), I played with Bacilos, a group from Miami, with Calle 13, with (rapper and reggaeton performer) Don Omar, with the Areyto National Folkloric Ballet of Puerto Rico, and all these experiences gave me a certain vision. I kept asking, 'Why can't I hear my music played on the radio or in places where there's salsa, or merengue? This community music has been stigmatized,' he says. Looking for answers 'was like being in a maze.'
Barez recorded his first album, 'El Laberinto del Coco,' in 2017, in part due to a grant from the Puerto Rican Cultural Institute. At the time, he had 'five unfinished songs and was playing with Bacilos. I had to go out and get musicians,' he says. 'There was no band.'
And yet, the result, firmly anchored on bomba and plena rhythms, is an astonishing mix of driving powerhouse drumming, daring horns and brass arrangements drawing from jazz and R&B, rock guitars, and strong vocals. There had been few attempts at exploring the possibilities of the genre with a large ensemble more ambitious or successful. A generation of Puerto Rican jazz artists including Cepeda, saxophonist and MacArthur fellow Miguel Zenon, and saxophonist David Sanchez have called attention, each in his style, to the riches in traditional Puerto Rican music. But Barez´s 'El Laberinto de Coco' evokes the sound and vision of percussionist and bandleader Rafael Cortijo's 1973 masterwork, 'Cortijo y Su Máquina del Tiempo' ('Cortijo and His Time Machine').
Historians date the African-rooted bomba to the 15th century. It emerged along the coastal region and sugar cane fields of Puerto Rico. It features a call-and-response between the lead singer and the group, and a musical conversation between the lead dancer and the lead drummer. The quintessential instruments are the barriles de bomba (the bomba barrels), built from rum storage barrels topped with a goatskin head. The lead drum, called primo or subidor, dialogues with the dancer; one or two buleador drums, which keep the steady pulse, and the cuá, a small, hollow wooden barrel open at both ends, played with wooden sticks, that plays complementary rhythms.
Plena, another major Afro-Puerto Rican genre, originated in the early 20th century as work songs. It features prominently three tambourines, and because of the storytelling in its lyrics, it has been described as 'a sung newspaper.'
But despite their power and depth, these Puerto Rican genres were long overshadowed in the popular music marketplace by Afro-Cuban music in its various manifestations, including salsa.
'The initial spark for me was not hearing Bomba on the radio,' says Barez. 'Why don't people dare to make a whole Bomba album? So, we did. We wanted to show this music's roots and its evolution, to what it can be.'
While Barez is working his innovations within an old tradition, rapper Marti is giving hip hop a Miami accent. He calls his music Caribbean hip-hop.
Born in Miami into a Cuban immigrant family, Obregon grew up 'listening to all sorts of music, but just gravitated to hip hop. I just fell in love with it.' He was especially moved by Tupac Shakur. 'I was young, I didn't know about the specific issues and things he was talking about, but I just felt something, and at that age, it's just about feelings.'
He had heard his parents' and his grandfather's stories about Cuba, 'and Tupac's was a completely different story. Still, it was just a perfect blend of the hip-hop that I loved, plus stories of what was going on in his neighborhood, with his people, and bringing it to people like me who had no idea what they go through.' The leap to adapting the approach to the stories he knew was crucial as he started writing his songs.
'I learned that the majority of people are going through the same things,' he says. 'Even if it's not the exact same way, and they gravitate towards something real, not made-up stories.'
He studied classical piano, then bass, and freestyling for fun with his friend Christian Martinez, an audio engineering student, led to creating a band. 'A drunk night led to an obsession that I can't get rid of,' he jokes with mock frustration. That group became Problem Kids, which was very active in the Miami live music scene and released two albums. Then COVID hit. 'It kind of forced us to do music on our own — and that's when my solo project started taking off.'
Since then, the rapper has released the EPs 'Whispers From a Muse,' (2024) and 'Luck Is for Losers,' (2025), several singles, and created the successful 'Break Bread' music video series, featuring freestyle performances at local eateries such as Miami's Tropical Chinese, Versailles on Calle Ocho, and the upscale eatery in Coconut Grove, Ariete.
'My music was born from what I was raised on, and it just morphed into what it is today,' he says. 'It's Miami, with many different types of sounds and rhythms and the storytelling of hip hop.'
If you go:
WHAT: The Rhythm Foundation and Live Arts Miami's MUNDO Series Present El Laberinto del Coco and Marti
WHERE: Miami Beach Bandshell, 7275 Collins Ave., Miami Beach
WHEN: 8 p.m., Saturday, July 19
COST: $27
INFORMATION: [phone] and MiamiBeachBandshell.com
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