When Orquesta Akokán burst onto the global music scene, their no-holds barred 21st century take on the venerable Cuban mambo lit up stages around the world with a fierce and unremitting joy. Suffused with a sense of possibility, the band pushes the conventions of "mambo" by drawing from folkloric and religious traditions seldom heard in popular music. The golden sound of Cuban mambo is polished to a luminous, contemporary sheen.