Bomba Estéreo has made an impression since catapulting onto the worldwide music scene in 2015 with their album “Amanecer” and the hit single “Fiesta,” that includes Will Smith. While they have been nominated a number of instances over time for Grammys, Latin Grammys, and Billboard Music Awards, they’ve but to take dwelling a trophy. This 12 months may very well be their 12 months: Bomba Estéreo is up for 4 Latin Grammy nominations, together with album of the 12 months for “Deja” and report of the 12 months for “Ojitos Lindos,” a collaboration with the most important Latinx star at this time, Bad Bunny. They’re additionally nominated for a Latin Grammy within the class of finest Latin rock, city, or different album for “Deja.” Even extra, they’ve solidified themselves as a drive behind the scenes, garnering lead singer Liliana Saumet and multi-instrumentalist Simón Mejía with album of the 12 months nominations for a second time: Saumet as a songwriter on Bad Bunny’s “Un Verano Sin Ti,” and Mejía as a producer on Fonseca’s “Viajante.”
It’s fairly apparent that the band hailing from Colombia are onto one thing with their soul-rocking music and spirit-moving rhythms. This is why Bomba Estéreo is one among my favourite bands, and never simply because I like their music. I can really feel their music. This is particularly true throughout their dwell performances. I’ve attended two Bomba Estéreo concert events, and at each exhibits, my soul journeyed. It went far past something I may really feel bodily; this was deep. My spirit felt free, shining brightly in several colours and lights. And the good factor was, I knew that others round me had been feeling it, too.
So, how can music, particularly at dwell performances, contact us so deeply on an emotional degree the place we will have profound religious experiences, each personally and collectively? “At probably the most fundamental degree it pertains to our understanding in [the] cognitive science of embodied notion,” says Dr. Alexander Khalil, an ethnomusicologist on the School of Film, Music, and Theatre on the University College Cork in Ireland. He explains that for a very long time it was believed that alerts got here by means of our senses and went into our mind, which then processes the sign. For instance, we see folks dancing, the sign is shipped by means of our eyes to our brains, and we acknowledge that it is taking place.
“Now, cognitive science has moved away from that and moved towards an understanding that our cognition is embodied, which means we predict with our whole our bodies and we really feel feelings with our whole our bodies. So, you sort of hear along with your physique, too.”
“Now, cognitive science has moved away from that and moved towards an understanding that our cognition is embodied, which means we predict with our whole our bodies and we really feel feelings with our whole our bodies,” Dr. Khalil provides. “So, you sort of hear along with your physique, too.”
This made me take into consideration a magical time after I was on a seaside in Puerto Rico with my good friend, Cindy. I shared the profound impression Bomba’s music has had in my life as we listened to “Somos Dos” from the”Amanecer” album. Seconds later, my good friend appears to be like up, and standing a number of toes in entrance of us on that seaside in Puerto Rico was none apart from Liliana, Bomba’s lead singer! We each sat surprised for a second earlier than approaching her and explaining the connection. Her husband merely smiled and stated, “The Universe is talking.”
It most definitely was. Just like Bomba’s music speaks to my soul and I, considering with my whole physique, really believed I manifested her presence on that seaside on that magical day. “Everything is vitality. Everything is vibration,” says Rose Peña, a sound healer based mostly in Jersey City, NJ. “Sound in essence is the purest type of intelligence.” Pair that with the ambiance of a Bomba present, which completely attributed to the religious moments I skilled throughout their dwell performances. In October, at New York City’s Palladium Times Square, Bomba Estereo had an altar centerstage with prayer candles, crystals, and choices. All the devices had been lined with flowers, and you can odor the faint scent of palo santo smoke within the air all through the venue. These points set the temper, however it was the music that sparked the soul journey. At one level in the course of the present, a good friend turned to me and stated, “I do know what you imply now as a result of I really feel it, too.”
“If somebody makes a really intense sound, it instantly maps onto your physique, and you realize precisely how it could really feel to make that sound.”
“If somebody makes a really intense sound, it instantly maps onto your physique, and you realize precisely how it could really feel to make that sound,” Dr. Khalil explains in regards to the collective expertise. “So, you perceive one thing about that particular person’s inside state with out consciously considering, ‘That particular person feels tense.’ You simply really feel it.” The identical exists when somebody is experiencing a religious second as I did at Bomba’s dwell performances. “When folks produce sounds that come from a unique kind of state, like perhaps a really meditative state, which frequently may very well be a protracted vocalization or one thing like that, you additionally really feel how that feels and also you perceive it in an embodied method fairly than understanding it along with your thoughts like, ‘Oh, that particular person is having a religious expertise,'” Dr. Khalil explains. “You really really feel it, and it is mirrored in you as a result of our emotional states on this method are sort of contagious.”
The components to Bomba’s secret sauce embody the gaita flute, a tambor alegre, an electrical guitar, a keyboard, and the magic combination of Mejía instrumental abilities with the hypnotic vocals of Saumet. It’s troublesome to pigeonhole the eclectic band into one style; they convey a symphony of sounds, together with cumbia, reggaeton, electronica, hip-hop, dubstep, and extra. The musical sancocho Bomba Estereo serves up is tasty for the soul, and the mix of sounds solely provides to its sabor.
“Sound has a really highly effective affect to vary your state of being with out you having to do something however hear.”
“Sound has a really highly effective affect to vary your state of being with out you having to do something however hear,” Peña says. “Through your pores, your cells begin to soak up that vitality and subsequently match the frequency of no matter you are listening to.”
Like Bomba Estéreo’s music and dwell performances, Peña goals to boost the vibration within the individuals who attend her sound baths. “Sound works by means of your mind waves and may change the frequency you are on,” she says. “As the facilitator of the sound, it is all by means of intention. Where will we need to take you? Like while you went to the live performance, there was intention behind it when she was carrying her outfit and he or she’s bringing within the religious aspect to it. There’s intention behind it, and that is actually the place all of it begins with a purpose to deliver the gang to that deeper state.”
Peña says we’re largely working from the beta brainwaves, which is a state of go, go, go. But by bringing your state of being to theta waves, then the thoughts, which has a strong impact on the physique, it adjustments your vibration to a extra open, receptive, calm state of being. “When that occurs, your physique relaxes, your cells loosen up, your nervous system relaxes and as soon as that occurs, you unify with that a part of you that’s nonphysical,” she says. “As folks start enjoyable, they’re releasing resistance, releasing blockages, and opening up.”
So, the subsequent time you are at a dwell efficiency of your favourite band or just having a celebration in your kitchen, let go, let the rhythms and sounds take you to new heights, and dance like nobody is watching! It’s therapeutic for the soul.
“You heal at a mobile, religious, and emotional degree,” Peña says. “When you unify with that a part of you that is infinite, that is the place the magic occurs.”
