Banana Mundo – The Kaponga Cumbia Club  3: 49

A Taranaki band which draws from members’ seven different cultures

It comprises French keysanova Severin Thiebaut on hot salsa flavoured keys, brassiliant English tenor and soprano trombone player Tombone Roberts, West Coast Kiwi Robin Wells on jazzy sax, guitar genius Andres Duran, from Uruguay, accordion player Naomi Kuttner, Argentinian percussionist Nico Paladini and Venezuelan drummer Christian Jacobsoni Rangel, fronted by Swiss musician Andre Manella on bass, clave, percussion and lead vocals.

Banana Mundo grew out of house party jam sessions Manella held throughout the winter of 2018, which he says morphed into a band that plays Afrobeat and Latin grooves, somehow named after a popular fruit.

Banana Mundo’s latest single “The Kaponga Cumbia Club” is a song that grew out of the completely-made-up-but-still-true story of the amazing events in the small rural Taranaki town of Kaponga. Many years ago, a farmer decided to dig under a 40 foot container and turn it into an underground Latin Club, where the locals could sample cumbia rhythms and bootie shake all night on the dance floor. “The Kaponga Cumbia Club” is a tribute to this mythical club, a song that will get you grooving.