“It’s like, hey, we’re all representing these countries, but we’re here in the Bay Area and in Los Angeles and everywhere in between in California,” said Ivan Flores, the collective’s accordion player and band director. “That’s the beauty of California. We have a whole world’s worth of culture in one place.”
Earlier this year, Discos Resaca Collective was able to share this musical love letter to California beyond state — and even country — lines. In a surreal, pinch-me moment, they performed “Cumbiafornia” at the birthplace of cumbia itself: in San Jacinto Bolivar, Colombia during Cumbia Festival.
“It was very special to perform it [there]. To be embraced in a place with so much cultura for cumbia… it’s very honorable of them to be open and not closed off,” said Deuce Eclipse. “We are ‘Cumbiafornia,’ we do come from all these places, but we honor the tradition of the music as well as try to give it a new voice.”
