Celebrating Latin American music in London

Since the first concert with Ozomatli & Orishas at the Royal Festival Hall in 2001, every April for 23 years, the La Linea festival has brought together artists from different nationalities and promoted multicultural music in London. This year’s 24th edition will take place from 12 to 22 April at different venues in the English capital.

Its full name is La Linea 24 the London Latin Music Festival La Linea and it will bring together the various international Latin stars and local talents of the British scene.

It will be launched on Friday 12 April with a special performance at the Barbican from multi Grammy award winning Mexican-American singer-songwriter and one of the most influential artists in Latin America Lila Downs.

From then on, the artists will bring their art to all audiences. The list is extensive.

It includes the multimillion album-selling Norteño group Los Tigres del Norte (performing their first ever UK show), Argentinian Nu Cumbia singer-songwriter La Yegros presenting her combination of electronica and psychedelic sounds with musical traditions from Argentinian culture, the iconic Colombian multi-instrumentalist Fruko set to perform alongside The Bonita House Band consisting of an all-star line-up of the new generation of London jazz musicians,and French-Chilean vocalist Ana Tijoux who returns to London ahead of the release of her first album in almost a decade.

This celebration of Latin music and culture in London will this year welcome to the Jazz Café on Saturday 20^th April Desta French & Friends as part of Latinas of London – a line-up of independent Latina artists who weave their Latin American heritage and British upbringing into their own unique form of music influenced by jazz, hip hop and cumbia.

On the same night at Lewisham’s Fox and Firkin is female collective Baque Luar (meaning ‘moonlit beat’) who are united by their love of Brazilian and Afro Brazilian roots music, will perform mixing multivocal compositions and arrangements with powerful percussive grooves.

Frequent collaborators, and two of Rio de Janeiro’s most forward-thinking musicians, Domenico Lancellotti and Ricardo Dias Gomes bring a brand new Rio samba sound with elements of funk and psychedelia to Cafe Oto on Sunday 21^st April while fellow Brazilians, and one of the most important groups to come out of the Manguebeat movement in the 1990s, o Zumbi play the Jazz Café on Monday 22^nd April experimenting with rock, punk, funk, hip hop, soul, Pernambuco’s regional rhythms and other forms of Brazilian traditional music.

Created in 2001 by Como No, the UK’s main producer of live events from Latin America, to showcase the Latin contribution to the wider musical world and to celebrate new artists, new collaborations and new projects, La Linea has built a global reputation for bringing together a host of outstanding Latin music artists in London every April.

This, the twenty-fourth edition of La Linea, will be the last to be led by its founder Andy Wood.