The Sunday Music Drop is a weekly radio series hosted by the KQED weekend news team. In each segment, we feature a song from a local musician or band with an upcoming show and hear about what inspires their music.
Leo Nava, guitarist and composer for the Oakland band Louda y Los Bad Hombres, says the band’s music is a blend of cumbia, salsa and several Afro Latin styles.
“We spent a lot of time studying jazz, or classical music in Laura’s case,” said Nava, of vocalist and song arranger Laura Camacho. “But in this band, we’re more free to be ourselves and just express what we want to without the pretensions of school and trying to come from a certain tradition.”
“There’s a lot of the social and political turmoil we all experienced in the last five years,” said Camacho. “We just kind of found a sanctuary in the music that we were making and a place to process all of that.”
Camacho says the song “Deja que Baila” comes from the perspective of a kid who is sick of sitting at the computer for remote learning lessons.
“[In the song] I reference waking up the neighbors by ringing bells and dancing with mom and just really being excited to move,” said Camacho who, at the time the song was written, was studying early childhood education.
The band’s members also include Alex Shapiro-Romano, Jeff Gomez, Dave Eagle and Marley Edwards.
Louda y Los Bad Hombres will be playing alongside the Discos Resaca Collective at The Chapel in San Francisco on Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2023.