Minyo Crusaders with Mariposas Galácticas

World Music Institute presents the NYC premiere of Minyo Crusaders. Minyo Crusaders is a Japanese musical group that revitalizes folk songs (min’yō) by blending them with Caribbean, Latin, and African influences. The band’s mission is to reclaim min’yō as “music for the people”, reimagining the traditional form for a new generation. The band was co-founded by Katsumi Tanaka and Freddie Tsukamoto, a min’yō singer, in 2011 in Fussa, a city near a US military base in western Tokyo, where they famously hosted jam sessions in the “Banana House,” which had formerly housed US soldiers.

The release of their critically acclaimed debut album, Echoes of Japan, featuring the hit single “Cumbia Del Monte Fuji”, a collaboration with Frente Cumbiero, led to performances in the US and South America, as well as European tours and festival appearances at WOMAD, Lowlands, and Roskilde.

Supporting act Mariposas Galácticas are an 8-piece Cumbia-Klezmer-Punk band based in Philadelphia, PA. Combining band members’ South American and Jewish ancestries, the band creates a unique diasporic sound that gets audiences everywhere dancing with rebellious joy. By honoring their Indigenous Andean musical roots, blending them with punkified ancient Jewish melodies, the band plays a mix of original and classic tunes that span languages, cultures, and genres.