Gato Raton, El cartel de la cumbia was born on the Waiheke summer of 2013 and its ever changing line-up brought together artists from Aotearoa, Argentina, Uruguay, The United States and The United Kingdom. The 10 piece band blends afrolatin rhythms like cumbia, candombe and reggaeton featuring instruments like bass, guitars, guiro, congas, timbales, keyboard, accordion and brass. Taking influences from the coast of Colombia, Gato Raton mixes arrangements of Sonidera, Santafesina and Villera in the realm of cumbia, and from Reggae, Ska, Candombe murguero, and electronic to create a highly sensual, danceable gig that will keep you warm all night long.

El cartel de la Cumbia (from the African word Cumba which means dance) will keep you moving with a tempo of 90-120 beats per minute. Lyrically, the different strains of cumbia would present messages in Spanish ranging from romantic love and sensuality,hope and despair using an elegant vocabulary to more explicit themes, such as sex, alcohol and drug abuse, and the cumbia subculture originated in the slums, or “villas miserias”, of Buenos Aires with odes to misery, poverty and lower class activities such as football and football hooliganism using the language tumbero thug language.

Come to the Fiesta!