La Sonora Dinamita is a Colombia

Colombia

Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...

n salsa

Salsa music

Salsa music is a genre of music, generally defined as a modern style of playing Cuban Son, Son Montuno, and Guaracha with touches from other genres of music...

 group. As one of the first cumbia groups to reach international success, it is credited with helping to popularize the genre throughout Latin America

Latin America

Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages  – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

, and the world.

The original orchestra was formed in 1960

1960 in music

-Events:*January 14 – Elvis Presley is promoted to Sergeant in the U.S. Army*February 6 – Songwriter Jesse Belvin dies in an automobile accident in Los Angeles...

 in Cartagena de Indias under the direction of bandleader Lucho Argaín. It disbanded in 1963, but was re-formed in 1975 under the direction of Julio Ernesto Estrada "Fruko" Rincón, the artistic director of the Discos Fuentes

Discos Fuentes

Discos Fuentes is a record label based in Colombia. It was founded in 1934 in Cartagena, Colombia by Antonio Fuentes Estrada, and was the first Colombian record label. The label was instrumental in introducing African-based genres such as cumbia, fandango, and porro to Colombia...

 record label

Record label

In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...

. In 1981, " While the group's lineup has changed, it has always featured a strong female vocalist to accompany its ten-piece brass instrumentation: Mélida Yará, Vilma Díaz, Margarita Vargas, Susana Velasques a Salvadoran vocalist., etc...

The group continues to perform worldwide under the umbrella of Apodaca Music Group, one of the largest management and booking companies for latin talent.