Kuukumina

(FIN)
afro-cuban music

Founded at the dawn of the new millennium, the young Helsinki septet carries on the tradition of authentic Cuban son music, both interpreting original masters of the genre, like Arsenio Rodriguez, Benny

Moré and Miguel Matamoros, and doing their own songs in the same vein.

As their new debut album Siempre Palante proves, Kuukumina really knows how to do rumba, changui, bolero and other Cuban rhythms. It’s not that surprising, when one learns that the father

of founders Vili and Tero Rantanen is a founding member of Finland’s pioneering Afro-Cuban band Septeto Son. The records that he brought from his band’s many trips to Cuba nurtured the

brothers’ rhythm hunger literally from the cradle. So this is second generation stuff already. Needless to say, Kuukumina is dance music at its best.