MERCADO NEGRO
MERCADONEGRO’s history
The Mercadonegro project was born when three Latin-American musicians, already met by chance in Europe, met with BIBOMUSIC. Ending up in the old Continent for love, they have kept their musical heart in Latin America, and they decided to spread throughout the world the sounds of their homelands, together with new beats and vibes.
The musical founders of Mercadonegro are:
Armando Miranda Aldama, a.k.a. “El Moro”, born in 1974 in L'Habana, Cuba, the lead singer and the author of many of the songs of Mercadonegro.
Cesar Correa Estrada, the son of two well known Peruvian musicians, was born in 1975 in Trujillo, Peru. Cesar plays piano and keyboards as only few masters in the world can do. He is the musical director of the orchestra on stage.
Rodrigo Rodrěguez Puerta was born in 1974 in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia's most Caribbean town. Rodrigo, who plays timbale and many other percussions, writes, like Armando, some of the most successful songs of the group, and is a very versatile artist and showman.
The three young musicians were separately selected by the Salsa violinist Alfredo de la Fé to play with him in several different tours, remarkably they performed in the last two European tours made by the late Mrs. Celia Cruz, the Queen of Salsa.
In 2000 they discussed and agreed with BIBOMUSIC the project to create a brand new Salsa group, with the aim to write its own music and to establish a distinctive and original sound, in order to become the first orchestra ever to make the highest quality Latin American music from another Continent!
The group was named Mercadonegro, not to forget the roots and the legacy of Afro-American music, and also to describe the difficult pattern, for a group of young and almost unknown musicians, to become popular and appreciated worldwide, starting from an unexpected location and with an independent label.
This first group of friends made then a selection of the Latin musicians living in Europe who shared their views and their inspired tension to the reach of an important and difficult result, creating in this way a twelve-fourteen members orchestra for great live events.
After a long and accurate recording work in BIBOMUSIC ‘studios, was finally written and produced BAILALO!, Mercadonegro’s first CD, whose quality, strength and original style are still undisputed, thanks also to the work made by the sound engineer Josč Mendoza Colmenares, the Venezuelan master engaged for the project.
The CD BAILALO! was dedicated to all the emigrants and to the families and the friends they had to left (ref. song Regresarč, by Rodrigo Rodriguez).
Immediately after its release, Bailalo!’s quality and Mercadonegro’ s original Salsa were discovered and then divulgated by the most qualified DJ’s and web sites, pioneered by www.salsaartists.com and www.descarga.com in the US.A., www.salsa.ch, www.salsa.it , www.ondatropical.it, www.discolatino.com and many others in Europe.
The support from these free and independent websites was the sign of a new era in the communications and in the music system, and the best start for the new born project of Mercadonegro.
During the last two years, Mercadonegro has rapidly become the most interesting new act in high quality international Latin music, participating to the most important Festivals of Latin, Jazz and World Music, often with TV live coverage, all over Europe and the Mediterranean regions.
Mercadonegro have placed and still places many hits at the top of the special tropical charts worldwide.
Mercadonegro is currently recording its second album CD, strongly expected by its many fans worldwide, to be released before the summer 2005 under the BIBOMUSIC label.