Los Médicos is an Afro-Puerto Rican bomba collective based on the South Side of Chicago, dedicated to honoring and carrying forward Puerto Rico’s oldest living African-rooted music and dance tradition. Grounded in Afro-diasporic memory and practice, this work is not simply performance, but a living tradition of community, resilience, and care.

Our name comes from the powerful Afro-Caribbean practice of el baquiné—a sacred tradition in which the passing of a child was met not only with mourning, but with music, dance, storytelling, and collective presence. In Puerto Rico, the cultural workers who held this responsibility were called Los Médicos. They were community healers—musicians, storytellers, neighbors and elders who tended to grief through rhythm, ritual, laughter, and song, transforming sorrow into shared care.

We carry forward this same practice of building and healing community through Afro-Puerto Rican bomba and the ties that link us across the African diaspora.