Our last Daily Discovery of the year heads to Bogotá, where nine-piece La Pambelé have recorded their salsa version of “La Burrita”, a Colombian folk standard by Eliseo Herrera that typically appears in December playlists. Recorded in one take at Audiovisión studio in the Colombian capital, in a session that also featured “La Pava Congona” by Andrés Landero, it is salsa brava at its most direct: horns punching, piano tumbling, percussion locked into that familiar clave.

The original “La Burrita” sits in Colombian folk tradition, typically rolled out during the holiday season. La Pambelé keep the melody recognisable but reshape everything around it. Vocalists Miguel Rebolledo and Lorena Contento trade lines over an arrangement that owes more to Eddie Palmieri than to folk tradition, while the rhythm section of timbales, congas, bongos and baby bass drives the whole thing forward with the urgency of classic New York salsa.

La Pambelé formed during the pandemic in Bogotá’s Chapinero and Teusaquillo neighbourhoods, taking their name from Colombian boxer Kid Pambelé, meaning “defender of one’s own” in Bantú. Since their 2022 debut on Brooklyn label Names You Can Trust, they have built a following for their 1970s-style salsa brava, the harder-edged variant that came out of New York, selling out two vinyl pressings and going on to open for Marc Anthony in front of 22,000 people and headline the Salsa al Parque festival.

This take on “La Burrita” shows what they do best: taking Colombian source material and running it through the salsa brava template without losing what made the original work.