LA CHIVA GANTIVA
A DECADE OF PUNKLORE!
La Chiva Gantiva plays music without borders! Genre bending and adventurous they’ll make you dance, jump or mosh with their original combination of rock, funk, hip hop and punk with Colombian rhythms, while preserving a jam mentality and multicultural origins.
Known for their live antics and frontman Rafael Espinel’s empathy towards the audience, La Chiva Gantiva are a treat to see live but also an amazing trip around the world when any of their three studio records play at a Colombian party, at a Belgian bar, or at a Mexican radio station.
The band was born in Brussels with a group colombian percussionists playing together in order to feel closer to their homeland. Brussels being an amazing cosmopolitan and multicultural city, the team quickly grew and added musicians from diverse backgrounds but sharing the same passion for live music. The members of the band are from Colombia, Belgium but also Vietnam and Chili.
The result of this cultural soundclash is a unique musical style and explosive on-stage energy, that has lead them on the five continents and the biggest festivals throughout the world.
“They are a frenetic carnival-punk racket that detonates like a Molotov cocktail of rock, rap,
soul and ferociously funky Latin rhythms.”
— The Times (UK)
Despegue.
For their third long player Belgian-Colombian band La Chiva Gantiva joined forces with producers Ivan Benavides (Toto La Momposina, Sidestepper) and Vincent Poujol. The band's recipe, a mix of Afro-Colombian rhythms with influences from punk and rock they baptized punkclore, has remained unchanged, but for 'Despegue' ("launch", "lift-off") the Brussels based band this time invited a number of well-known guests. Arrested Development front man Speech provides some hip-hop vibes in 'Cuero', and Atibalas' Martin Perna struts his sax in 'Fais Comme Si', the only French song in the track list.
Vivo.
While the album's powerful sound reflects La Chiva Gantiva's incredible live energy, their "frenetic carnival-punk racket that detonates like a Molotov cocktail of rock, rap, soul and ferociously funky Latin rhythms (as described by The Times), "Vivo" also contains songs in which the band further explore several musical directions, such as traditional percussion patterns and new sonic territories, while remaining grounded in their trademark rock/afrobeat fundamentals, punctuated by exuberant horn riffs.
Pelao.
Crammed Discs presented “PELAO”, the first full length recording by LA CHIVA GANTIVA. “Pelao” (which equally means “kid”, “hairless”, or even "broke"), includes 11 titles, sung in Spanish, French, and sometimes in a strange mixture of the two languages. In addition to other subjects, the lyrics seek to deconstruct the clichés that circulate about Latin-American cultures.