Héctor Barez is a Puerto Rican percussionist who is best known as Calle 13’s original percussionist during the first decade of their rise. Everyone calls him “Coco.”
Coco is taking Puerto Rican bomba to the world with his project El Laberinto del Coco and the support of some of the most important cultural organizations in Puerto Rico and the United States including the NEA and SXSW.
Written January 6, 2021 | Updated January 20, 2021
Héctor “Coco” Barez
- Puerto Rican Bomba to the world
- Calle 13’s drummer for their first ten years and four Grammy-winning recordings
- Sponsored by the NEA, National Endowment for the Arts
- SXSW 2020 official selection
Modlin Center for the Arts
February 22, 2021 at 7pm ET, FREE ~ Modlin Center for the Arts at the University of Richmond Virginia is streaming a specially recorded performance by El Laberinto de Coco as part of the University Museum’s exhibit “Action & Reaction: Looking at the Art of Social Justice.” Coco recorded the film during the COVID-19 pandemic with 12 musicians in Puerto Rico. richmond.edu
Bombazo
Bomba is a distinctly Puerto Rican drum, song and dance tradition of the African diaspora that has become one of the keys to Puerto Rican identity. It’s also one of the roots of salsa music. Bomba is a folkloric tradition from the time of human enslavement that still lives in Puerto Rico today.
Bombazos (bomba gatherings) pop up at night in town squares all over the island. Many people dance and everybody sings along. Tourists think it’s for them, but it’s really one of the ways Puerto Ricans connect with family and friends.
Bomba has long been kept in the folkloric space, but when you take it out into the pop world, everybody loves bomba. This is what Coco is doing. During his extensive touring, he noticed that when the band plays bomba, people go wild.
Everybody loves bomba. It’s something old, but something new.
Héctor Barez Plays the Sound of the Street
Coco has a BA in Physical Education from UPR, University of Puerto Rico and then studied percussion at UPR, the Inter American University of Puerto Rico, the Music Conservatory of Puerto Rico and the LACM, Los Angeles College of Music.
But his real training comes from the streets of Puerto Rico and some of its most famous folklorists. He’s a student of La Familia Cepeda (Puerto Rico’s 1st family of bomba), Los Hermanos Ayala (2nd family of bomba), Los Pleneros de la 23 and many others. This is Puerto Rican cultural royalty.
This is what you want in a Latin musician, especially a percussionist. You learn things on the street that you’ll never learn in a 100 years of music school. It’s el sabor Latino (Latin flavor).
Coco also came up as a dancer through the National Folkloric Ballet of Puerto Rico (Ballet Folclórico Nacional de Puerto Rico). Tito Puente was a dancer too before he was a percussionist. Since these are all dance musics, you almost have to be a dancer to play them well. When Latin musicians dance on stage, it’s not just for show. They are programming their bodies with the song’s rhythm. In the Latin world, singing and dancing are one and the same thing. Muévelo (Move It).
Coco has some big music industry sponsors too. He is sponsored by Meinl Percussion, Vic Firth Drumsticks, Remo Drum Heads and Paiste Cymbals.
Calle 13 was Coco’s most famous gig. He recorded and toured their first four Grammy wins. Calle 13 is important not only because they won more Latin Grammys and Grammys than anyone else, but because the band expresses the true feelings of the Puerto Rican people in a way that resonates with all Latin Americans.
Coco was part of Calle 13’s house band Los de Atrás Vienen Conmigo for the first ten years. He drums on “Atrévete-te-te,” the hit that launched the group. He also plays on “Latinoamérica” which has become a Latino anthem. These are not just hit songs. They are part of our communal Latin story.
Coco has played with many of the biggest Latin artists such as Shakira, Alejandro Sanz, Don Omar, William Cepeda and many others. He currently plays with Bacilos out of Miami, Bio Ritmo, Miramar Boleros and his solo project El Laberinto del Coco.
El Laberinto del Coco is Taking Bomba to the World
- Puerto Rican Bomba to the world
- Sponsored by the Puerto Rican Culture Institute (Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña)
- Sponsored by the NEA, National Endowment for the Arts
- SXSW 2020 official selection
El Laberinto del Coco is Héctor’s latest project as a leader. He wants to take bomba to the world.
This bomba jazz project has some very heavy-hitting sponsors including the NEA, National Endowment for the Arts, the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture (Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña) and the famous SXSW festival.
We asked what the project title “Coco’s Labyrinth” (in English) really means. Coco is Spanish slang for a head. A dry coconut has three marks that look like eyes and a nose. The project combines many of the musics and the artists that Coco worked with throughout his career. So El Laberinto del Coco is basically a look inside Coco’s artistic head. The title is also inspired by the many twists and turns of life which are a bit like a labyrinth.
Almost as if it had a mind of its own, this project kind of organized itself. A friend told him the NEA was giving grants through the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture, but the deadline was in a week. He had some demo recordings, so he submitted those.
Then he was told to list the musicians. Musicians aren’t normally chosen at the demo stage and Coco works with the best working professionals. He had to get them to commit to the project without any promise of being paid. That they would commit to him is a testament to Coco’s reputation in the music business.
They won the grant, recorded the album and all the musicians got paid. Then SXSW, the influential spring music festival, made the project an official SXSW 2020 selection.
The project keeps growing. The COVID-19 Pandemic put performing artists in a holding pattern. Like everyone else, Coco’s bookings evaporated at first, but things turned around for him quickly and he’s busier than ever now. This guy is hot.
Everybody Loves Bomba!
El Laberinto del Coco is definitely in the jazz framework, but you always hear his bomba drumming underneath. The bomba barille drum has a different sound than congas and of course he’s playing bomba rhythms.
Its a natural fit because Caribbean musicians hear jazz and say, “that’s our music.” Jazz musicians hear Caribbean music and say, “that’s our music.” They’re both right. Jazz is Caribbean music.
Some of the songs on the album, like the title song, sound more jazzy with bomba undercurrents. In others, the bomba roots are more exposed.
“Bombuleria” sounds like North African bomba. That’s historically accurate because North African traditions were carried into West Africa and then brought to the Americas where they even influenced the blues, the root of all popular music of the United States.
“Plere María” (featuring Chamir Bonano) is a song Coco wrote with Puerto Rico’s bomba late patriarch Rafael Cepeda Atiles. Coco takes tradition and makes it very jazzy, but the chorus still takes you back to Africa.
We like “Bomba Jam” because it has a more traditional sound. It feels like a bombazo. When the song speeds up, it feels more Haitian which may be the influence of the Haitian diaspora which spread across the Caribbean and also to New Orleans where it influenced the founding of jazz.
This project comes at the perfect time. One of the impacts of the Black Lives Matter movement is that popular culture is hungry for African culture and artists with an African heritage. Puerto Rican artists are already dominating the popular music industry. Now is the time.
Bomba is part of this trend and “Coco” Hector Barez is one of the leading bomba percussionists working today. He is taking bomba to the world because everybody loves bomba!
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