Tucked behind an unmarked door on Avenue C, Nublu has been one of the East Village’s most essential rooms for global music since 2002. Back in the day, the Alphabet City was edgy and the door was only marked by a blue light bulb. Unlike other clubs, pretty much the only reason you couldn’t get in, was because the place was packed. We used to dance all night while bumping into famous musicians.
Latin and Global Roots Artists at Nublu
Latin Wednesdays
Live Latin bands and DJs
Most Wednesdays
10pm-2am
$22
Julieta Rada: Candombe
Latin Grammy-nominated (Best Folk Album) Candombe jazz by the Uruguayan singer-songwriter, and daughter of candombe rock pioneer Ruben Rada.
Wed, September 7, 2026 | 7pm
$22
On the album, the daughter claims her dad’s rhythms as her own with stellar collaborations including Argentina’s Fito Páez, Cuban New Yorker Pedrito Martinez, Puerto Rican singer iLe, and Rada’s father Ruben. Who might show up, because Nublu is exactly that kind of place. Those who know, know.
Ruben Rada is the most influential pioneer of modern Candombe and Afro-Uruguayan music. His Uruguayan candombe-rock would today be called Latin Alternative, but in it’s time, starting in the 1960s, it was revolutionary.
Candombe is Uruguay’s national music, and though it has African Diasporic roots, most Uruguayans participate now. It’s not a Black, Indigenous, or White thing, it’s an Uruguayan thing. How cool is that?
Uruguay is sandwiched between its bigger neighbors: Brazil and Argentina, but is a cultural powerhouse on its own.
This foundation of Uruguayan Carnival is part of the line of the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomblé, which became Uruguayan candombe, which became Argentine candombe, a predecessor of Argentine milonga, which got Europeanized into Argentine tango after 1913.
The tango nuevo (electro-tango or neo-tango) movement of the early 2000s, was an evolution of Astor Piazzolla’s nuevo tango (classical jazz tango) deeply influenced by Uruguayan candombe. You can hear the candombe rhythms, even in the Argentine tango nuevo bands. It’s great music.
In Latin traditions, musical genius passes down through families because the necessary training starts at birth, so Rada’s “Candombe” is an important work with relevance far beyond Montevideo.
She wants candombe to be recognized around the world like samba and tango. It deserves the recognition.
About Nublu
Founded by Swedish Turkish saxophonist Ilhan Ersahin, the club built its reputation on what regulars call the Nublu Sound, a blend of jazz, African, South American, Caribbean, and electronic music that plays out nightly across a lineup as eclectic as the city itself. For anyone chasing live Latin rhythm, Afro-diasporic groove, or genre-bending jazz in a room with zero pretension, Nublu remains a home base.
In the early days, Ersahin had a Brazilian family and Nublu’s Brazilian Wednesdays was home base for artists like Norah Jones, Brazilian Girls, Forro in the Dark, Wax Poetic, Love Trio, and the Nublu Orchestra. Brazilian Wednesdays has become Latin Wednesdays.
Nublu’s stage-in-the-round layout puts musicians at floor level in the middle of the club rather than up on a riser, keeping the focus tight and the energy close. The booking reflects Ersahin’s own restless taste, moving between straight-ahead jazz, Brazilian and Afro-Cuban rhythm sections, and late-night DJ sets without ever settling into one lane.
The club runs a recurring Latin Wednesdays night pairing a live band with Latin DJs, and its calendar regularly features Latin jazz, Brazilian, and Caribbean-rooted acts alongside the room’s jazz and downtempo regulars.
Nublu also operates its own record label, Nublu Records, and shares its Avenue C building with Studio One Fifty One, a sushi bar and lounge on the second floor.
Nublu is a nightclub, but it feels like a washing machine of creativity. Music, art, fashion, and poetry are all in this machine spinning around, mixing together, getting cleaned up, and turned into something new.
For New Yorkers building a night around Latin and global roots music, Nublu offers something rare: a room small enough to feel the bass in your chest, with a lineup serious enough to have shaped two decades of the city’s jazz and world music scene.