La Perla comprises three women from Bogotá: Diana Sanmiguel, Karen Nerak, and Roberta Leono. The present group evolved from a six-member collective that came together in 2014 to participate in the Ovejas Gaita Festival in Sucre. This festival is one of the most important for gaita music, and in 2015 La Perla won first prize, becoming the only group from Bogotá to do so in its 38-year history. The present, smaller group sings and plays cumbia drums as well as a voice octave pedal and a foot pedal. Their main musical influences are the gaita and bullerengue that originally brought them together, but as Roberta Leono says, “Being from Bogotá, we want our music to have a city feel, reflecting the influences we grew up with, such as rock, punk, hip-hop, salsa, and Dominican merengue — music we danced to at teenage parties, and that remains a part of our lives today.” Leono continues, “Drum music generally speaks of the environment in which it originates; that is, it speaks of the countryside, of farming, fishing, the sea, the river — the daily life of its practitioners and those who know and create it. In Bogotá, our reality is being surrounded by concrete and buses. It’s a hard city that requires strength to live in. Therefore, one of our aims is to capture that everyday landscape and the reality of Colombia.