CAMAGÜEY.- The Cubadisco 2022 Award in the category of rumba and ritual tradition went to Mi rumba no va a parar, the fourth album by Rumbatá and the first by the Bis Music label recorded at the Caonao Studio in this city.

“To celebrate this Cubadisco 2022 Award by extending our art to other dimensions. ¡Soy rumbero, y qué! (I'm a rumba’s artist, so what!) Thousands of thanks to everyone. We'll tell you about it!”, the director of the group Wilmer Ferrán Jiménez posted on Facebook.

Produced by Manolito Simonet, it is dedicated to the memory of the singers Reinaldo Betancourt and Nerina Calderón, and the percussionist Idael Soler, who came to record playing the fifth, the cajon and the batá drum.

The musicologist Heidy Cepero Recoder, in charge of the record notes, qualifies it as "a treasure within Cuban phonography", knowing how to group old and recent rumbas with elegance and deep knowledge, and achieving a plurality in the mix with trova, rap, conga and Caribbean rhythms.

Among the songs is La masa, by singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez, who agreed to participate in a version in the batá-rumba style, with changes in meter and a representation from Columbia.

Rumbatá made the official presentation of the album last February, with a concert at the Casa de la Trova Patricio Ballagas, as part of the actions associated with the Sound of Camagüey event.

Last year, in the special version of Cubadisco adjusted by the COVID-19 pandemic, this group stood out in the audiovisual category for the documentary Rumbatá (2019), directed by filmmaker Isabel Santos.

Previously, they won the 2018 Cubadisco Award in the category of Afro-Cuban tradition, for the album Gracias a la rumba, also produced by Manolito Simonet and Wilmer Ferrán with Bis Music.

Musicologists and universal Cubans have praised the resonance of Wilmer's group, founded in 1996, to the point of placing it among the four great ones of Cuban rumba along with Los Muñequitos de Matanzas, Clave y guaguancó and Yoruba andabo.

“The rumba is not an easy genre to execute. Singing, playing and dancing the rumba demands a lot and they have to do it well. That is the idea of ​​Rumbatá”, said Wilmer, a Camagüey´s citizen with contributions to knowledge and respect for the generic complex declared Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2016.