L.A. punta group has Latin flavour

One Punta group that made the trek to Belize this year for National Garifuna Day was “Punta Cartel” of Los Angeles. They describe themselves as sixty percent Belizean, forty percent Honduran, and their music as “ancestral” mixed with a little Latin flavour. Band leader Nuru and promoter Rafael Larios spoke with News 5 today.

“Nuru” lead singer, “Punta Cartel”

“We are a basically a part of the punta movement. There are other people who do it, but they do it in their style, we have basically our style.”

“We play mostly for Latinos, people from Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Peru. We try to spread our wings we don’t just be around Belizeans. We play for Belizeans as well, but we have a big, big audience.”

Rafael Larios, Manager “Punta Cartel”

“Well, in Los Angeles we have a home base, a nightclub, it’s a Honduran nightclub, that is our home base and every weekend we also have outside gigs that we always go to. We have been around two and a half years. We’re playing punta without losing the roots, real punta, Garifuna style, but adding a little more Latin style, so it can be a little bit commercial but at the same time without losing the roots. We’re doing very good, people are responding and we are very grateful.”

Karla Heusner

“So do you think you guys might come back for a live performance?”

Rafael Larios

“Oh yeah. That’s the whole idea. I think if we close the deals with the people that are going to be promoting us in the country, and distributing our music, I think that within two, three months we will be here performing for all the audience of Channel 5.”