Our celebration of Latin American arts and culture returns for 2024! Fiesta Cultural is a week of vibrant events and performances at the Lesher Center for the Arts.
Activities will include world-class Headliners performances and a free street fair on Saturday with music and dance from the diverse cultures of Latin America.
Las Cafeteras have taken the music scene by storm with their infectious live performances and have crossed genre and musical borders. Their electric sound & energy has taken them around the world playing shows from Bonnaroo to the Hollywood Bowl, WOMAD New Zealand to Montreal Jazz, & beyond!
Born and raised east of the Los Angeles river, Las Cafeteras are remixing roots music and telling modern day stories. Las Cafeteras create a vibrant musical fusion with a unique East LA sound and positive message. Their Afro-Mexican beats, rhythms, and rhymes deliver inspiring lyrics that document stories of a community seeking love and justice in the concrete jungle of Los Angeles.
From Afro-Mexican to Americana, from Soul to Son Jarocho, from Roots to Rock and Hip Hop, Las Cafeteras take folk music to the future.
Using traditional Son Jarocho instruments like the jarana, requinto, quijada (donkey jawbone) and tarima (a wooden platform), Las Cafeteras sing in English, Spanish, and Spanglish and add a remix of sounds, from rock to hip-hop to rancheras. Las Cafeteras use music as a vehicle to build bridges among different cultures and communities, and create ‘a world where many worlds fit’.
They’ve performed in the good company of Mexican icons Caifanes, Lila Downs, Colombian superstar Juanes, Los Angeles legends Ozomatli, folk/indie favorites Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, and Talib Kweli.
LA Times described Las Cafeteras as “uniquely Angeleno mishmash of punk, hip-hop, beat music, cumbia and rock … live, they’re magnetic.”