The “Hanagasa Ondo” is Yamagata Prefecture’s defining folk song, its roots traced back to the working-class culture of the Murayama region in the early twentieth century, where labourers sang to synchronise the rhythmic pounding of earth during irrigation construction. It now drives the Yamagata Hanagasa Festival each August, where ten thousand dancers parade through the city to its swung ondo rhythm. Minyo Crusaders and Frente Cumbiero take that centuries-old chant and run it straight through Bogotá.

The arrangement draws its backbone from “Cumbia en Do Menor,” the cumbia standard, and the handshake between the two traditions runs through every layer of the track. Mario Galeano’s guacharaca scrapes under the groove while Marco Fajardo’s clarinet and tenor saxophone cut through the brass texture alongside the ensemble’s trumpet and trombone. The timbales drive from two directions at once — Sonoo and Bongie Giraldo each holding their own side of the rhythm — and Sebastián Rozo adds euphonium weight from the Frente Cumbiero end. Freddy Tsukamoto delivers the vocal, with ohayashi chanting from Chan-yuka and Kanako Mikado threading the traditional festival-song feeling through the whole arrangement. Keyboards, congas, percussion, and the electric bass of Toshio “Digi” Fujino lock the bottom in place.

The track is the lead single from From Japan with Love, the band’s new album out 26 June via Blue Note Records, reimagining min’yō songs through the global rhythms that have shaped the band. It marks the first time Minyo Crusaders have brought guest artists into a full studio album, with Frente Cumbiero the natural first call: the two groups have been building this conversation since their 2020 EP Minyo Cumbiero.

Listen to “Hanagasa Ondo” and pre-order the upcoming album following THIS LINK