Hot songs that rip off The Latin Brothers

I first heard “Buscandote” when my friend Sierra made me a cassette of the soundtrack of the Tarantino-produced film “Curdled”. Mind blown. Cali’s own Piper Pimienta, a personal favorite since that instant, on vocals. Years later, while meeting with master producer (and sweet human being) Mario Rincon in Medellín, he explained to myself and Will Holland that the Latin Brothers (and Wganda Kenya, and Afrosound) were all Fruko’s band, essentially. As if Fruko’s recorded output were not impressive enough. The Latin Brothers were put together to compete with Venezuela’s Dimension Latina, which was making noise in the late ’70s world’s Salsa capital, NYC.

The Latin Brothers signature sound included crisp, insistent trombones, the gorgeous harmonies of John Jairo, Victor Melendez and Joe Arroyo, and the “Tango Piano” of Luis Fernando Meza Velásquez , known as “Tomate” (I recently learned that Tomate had formed part of Medellin’s epic Sexteto Miramar in the ’60s). For more Latin Brothers monster songs, search “Patrona de los Reclusos”, “San Juan de Puerto Rico”, “A la Patrona de Cuba” etc. etc. – meanwhile here’s one that you don’t hear out often but is beautiful and features Meza’s “Tango piano” – “Te Encontré” (also the name of their first LP):

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, here is La Sonora Del Peru’s “El Recluso” (my copy says “Manuel Mantilla”, love to hear if anyone can clarify)

Now I feel dumb for saying “rip off”. This song is badass in it’s own right.

Finally, here is Senen y Su Negramenta’s “No Me Dejes Morir” , with future Quantic/Ondatrópica collaborator Markitos Mikolta on vocals. Couldn’t believe this wasn’t on Youtube yet, it’s amazing: