Abuela Coca is a band founded in 1991, during the time when Mano Negra´s music passed through Uruguay. Influenced by the wide variety of different styles and rythms of Mano Negra´s music, Abuela Coca was able to create an individual and extraordinary fresh new mix. With the fusion of salsa with rap, rock, hip-hop, jazz, and Brazilian rhythms, it gets its own and modern style in the famous music-scene of Montevideo. They baptized their sound as "Tuco".
They played in almost every possible place in Uruguay, turning the band into a popular phenomenon hardly ever seen. With this process, Abuela Coca opens the path for new bands as “La Vela Puerca” and “No te Va Gustar”.
In 1996 they recorded their first record "Abuela Coca", in collaboration with the musician Ruben Rada with their own record company, Perro Andaluz. The record is an immediate success that can´t be kept a secret to the sharp eyes of the international (still healthy) recordmarket.
Because of its unusual success, Sony Music Argentina hires them to record some more discs. In 1998, they travel to Buenos Aires to record “Despues te Explico”, a powerful work full of hits, which continues the line of their previous record, but with a more professional sound. But, by this time Abuela Coca have to face little borders. Due to the record companies crack, Abuela Cocas work is obstructed, because no money for promotion and support is left in the company. Abuela Coca cancel their contract with Sony Music and decide to try to release their third record “El ritmo del Barrio”, as an independent project. Edited in 2001, this record is a great success among the public. Despite the biggest social, political, and economical crisis in general in that region, Abuela Coca is able to prosper.
By this time, Abuela Coca get invited to perform in “V Mercado Cultural de Bahia”, Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, in front of an audience made up mainly by regional and worldwide producers. The feedback was amazing! The organizers of one of the biggest and most important Musical Festival, the Strictly Mundial, who saw Abuela Coca in Brazil, signed them for its 2004 edition, to take place in Istanbul, with the previous recommendation of the piano player and orchestra director, from the “orquesta popular de Camara de Sao Paulo” Benjamin Tubkin.
Abuela Coca also performed in Recife’s Carnival, in the “Mangue Beat” scenery, sharing stage with Nacao Zumbi (the band of the mythical Chico Science), making success. It was the first international band to play in the biggest rock-festival in Argentina, the Cosquin Rock, for its third edition.
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