If there's one thing we have plenty of in Catalonia, it's rumba legends. Peret, El Pescaílla, Los Amaya, Rumba Tres... the list is extensive and of the highest quality. Time and persistence have proven right those who claim Catalan rumba as our musical and popular genre par excellence. Although today its most classic version may not be experiencing a period of particular momentum, there are a good handful of bands that have modernized it and brought it into their own territory, as is the case with Habla de Mí en Presente or Maruja Limón. It is clear that its footprint in our local iconography not only has a past, but also a present and a future. The singers, the palmeros, Spanish guitars, the fan (the name given to the characteristic guitar technique of rumba), concerts, gypsies, and the revelry: all of this is rumba. But, what about dancing? Well yes, rumba is also danced, and a lot. “You could say it's the most carefree, most festive flamenco style. It's what is danced at major festivals, weddings, and communions,” explains Ariadna Rojano, a professor of this discipline at the Bailongu school, in the Sagrada Família neighborhood of Barcelona.

The musician Delfín Amaya (Oviedo, 1954 - Barcelona, 2026) died on Sunday at the age of 74 in Barcelona, according to the Europa Press agency. Delfín Amaya formed the duo Los Amaya together with his brother José (A Coruña, 1952) in the 70s in Barcelona. Both of Romani ethnicity and relatives of the dancerCarmen Amaya, they became one of the main exponents of Catalan rumba thanks to a musical proposal that combined tradition with more contemporary sounds of the genre and fusion with pop melodies and electric guitars. The duo will always be remembered for songs like Vete and for having performed at the closing ceremony of the Barcelona Olympic Games.

Rumba and the Llobregat Delta permeate Alfred García's new album (El Prat de Llobregat, 1997). I love you if I love you (Música Global, 2025), and it's the first album by the musician from Prat de Llobregat in which the majority of the songs are in Catalan.

It was the summer of 1989 when Francisco Casavella, a major novelist and a true rumba fan, explained how difficult it was for a music "that has been forgotten for years, marginalised by stupid clichés and even more stupid snobbery, to reap the desired fruits in an instant." Francis, as his friends called him, spoke of Catalan rumba –"the rumba that knocks you down"–, and in addition to possessing the best-tuned pen in the city, he seemed to have the gift of predicting the future. The writer did not suspect that the entire world would listen to that music just three years after that statement. It is estimated that some 3.2 billion people connected at some point with the closing ceremony of the Barcelona Olympic Games in 1992. And as is well known, the best was when the rumba sounded from the stadium's loudspeakers and the stage almost fell. It was so heavy and so emotional.