Conga

Published on 2010 01-14

Polyrhythmic Cuban dance funk. “Shake your body baby.” A hundred drums, a hundred horns, a hundred lines of a hundred dancers. This is “We’re going to party till we see the break of day” music.

The Miami Sound Machine featuring Gloria Estefan had become one of the biggest acts in the world by the late 80’s, having sold something like 80 million records worldwide. And you can see here why they reversed the names a few years after she joined. They were one of the first major Latin acts to get the music industry’s attention, including being the first to ever chart on Billboard’s Pop, Latin, Soul and Dance charts at the same time. All the Lopez’s, Iglesias’s and Shakira’s of the world had the doors kicked open by this Latin singing & dancing fireball.

I bet you can’t karaoke this chorus stone cold sober — let alone sing it in something other than your native language. Estefan was born in Cuba, her family escaped to America during the Revolution, and she joined the Miami Sound Machine dance band in 1984 when she was 27.  Two albums later the local band was playing stadiums all over the world.

MSM had been touring since Conga exploded in ’85, including an intensive 18-month world tour that wrapped up with this "Homecoming Concert" back in Miami.  Brilliantly and luckily, it was filmed. Many players drifted away during the hiatus that followed, but this was pretty much the original all-star line-up, making this a valuable document of a globally influential band at the practiced peak of their performance powers.

In case you can’t catch it all, and wanna sing along,

Come on, shake your body baby,
do the conga
I know you can't control yourself any longer
Feel the rhythm of the music getting stronger
Don't you fight it till you've tried it
Do the conga
Beat

 

— Brian Hassett