La Perla know that serious fun and serious conversations don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Based in Bogotá, Colombia, the trio of Karen Forero, Giovanna Mogollón, and Diana Sanmiguel make effervescent songs that combine folk music from Colombia’s northern coast with other South American and Caribbean styles (including cumbia and rumba) and elements of hip-hop, punk, and pop. La Perla do all this with just percussion, Indigenous flutes called gaitas, and their voices, in harmony and solo (and occasionally beatboxing). Their music is rooted in male-dominated cultural traditions, but they use it to tell women’s stories and fight for social justice; even when they sing about intractable crises such as the deforestation of the Amazon (as they do on “El Sol,” off their 2022 debut, Callejera), they take strength from confronting them together. Over the years, La Perla have toured the U.S., Mexico, Europe, and beyond, and they recently joined forces with a quirky jazz-funk combo from Toulouse, France, called Pulcinella. As PulciPerla, in January the combined ensemble released the album Tatekieto, which plays like a surrealist round-the-world adventure with unusual characters, secret passages, and exciting surprises at every stop. With any luck, La Perla will adapt tunes from Tatekieto for this show, but whatever they play will inspire and energize you.
