The Brief

“The people were dancing crazy. I couldn't believe what I was seeing,” recalled Pedro Canale — better known as Chancha Via Circuito — of his first Los Angeles show. “It looked like a party in Buenos Aires or Bogotá. I was surprised.”

The digital cumbia pioneer returns this weekend for a late-night DJ set at a secret downtown venue hosted by ZZK Records, an independent label that was founded in Buenos Aires in 2008 and moved to L.A. in 2019.

“[L.A.] is as Latin American as any city in America,” said ZZK Records founder Grant Dull. “Cumbia has always been here, and there’s a demographic of music lovers here in L.A. that is constantly pushing cumbia.”

Born in 19th-century Colombia from Afro and Indigenous rhythms, cumbia spread across Latin America, absorbing local sounds and styles. Today, it’s global — but L.A. may be the best place to experience its freshest, most exciting edge.

How LA became a hub for cumbia

L.A. became a hot spot for acts like Chancha Via Circuito to perform in for two reasons: the internet and migration.

Chanca’s Pedro Canale was part of a new generation of digital cumbieros who, in the aughts, started mixing electronic music with the Afro-Indigenous rhythms of cumbia and sharing it online through platforms like MySpace. This allowed the music to spread more quickly to diasporic communities across the world, including L.A.

Pedro Pablo Canale, better known as Chancha Via Circuito, is an Argentine electronic cumbia producer.

(

Guadalupe Miles

/

ZZK Records

)

Meanwhile, L.A. of the late aughts saw the evolution of another kind of digitally enabled cumbia: cumbia sonidera. Sonideros are a mix of DJ and MC — they talk over the music they’re playing from large and powerful sound systems.

Cumbia sonidera was brought by migrants from Mexico City and Puebla to Los Angeles. Audiences on both sides of the border would live stream these sets and pass messages to loved ones through the sonidero.

Documentarian Alvaro Parra chronicled L.A. sonidero culture in his film Sonidero Metropolis.

“You can literally tap into YouTube and see what sonidero parties are like in Puebla instantaneously,” Parra said.

Sharing the history behind the rhythm

Because of people like documentarian Parra and Dull of ZZK Records, L.A. isn’t just a good city to hear cumbia live but also to learn about its history.

Parra has screened his documentaries at places like the Hammer Museum and LACMA.  And ZZK has started Reina de Cumbia — a series of panels, film screenings and exhibits that showcase the history of Cumbia.

“ In the end, you want people to know where this is coming from,” Parra said. “This is coming from a long tradition. Cumbia in Los Angeles has really been a reflection of the migratory waves of people that come to live in Los Angeles.”

Angelenos to follow to stay in the know

Alvaro Parra, @delaparraproductions
Parra is an Emmy-winning documentarian and one of the preeminent chroniclers of cumbia. He announces screenings through his social media pages.

ZZK Records, @zzkrecords
ZZK doesn’t just announce upcoming shows on its Instagram page, it also provides the context behind the acts that come through.

DJ Sapo, @dogtoad 
DJ Sapo hosts a regular cumbia night at Cha Cha Lounge in Silverlake.

Gary Ganas Garay, @og_ganas 
Gary Ganas Garay hosts a radio show for dublab called “Mas Exitos” on which he features a lot of cumbia. He also hosts a regular dance party at Footsies in Cypress Park.

Cumbiatón, @cumbiaton_la
Cumbiatón is a collective of DJs that throws parties centering queer, femme and undocumented folks.

Upcoming shows

If you want to experience the joy of cumbia live there are multiple upcoming shows:

• Saturday, Chancha Via Circuito, Undisclosed downtown location 

The Argentine digital cumbia pioneer will return to Los Angeles for a special late-night DJ set. Opening for him will be Turbo Sonidero, Cruzloma and L.A.’s Canyon Cody.

• Monday, Noche de Cumbia, Hollywood Bowl 

KCRW is hosting three of the all-time-biggest cumbia bands — Grupo Cañaveral, La Sonora Dinamita and Los Hermanos Flores. The night also will feature the L.A.-based all-women DJ collective Cumbiatón spinning between artists.

• Oct. 31st, Cumbiateca, Undisclosed downtown location 

ZZK and Misterpsychedelia are putting on a Halloween party headlined by Mexican producer and composer Ima Felini — Amantes del Futuro.

The Supreme Court on Monday gave itself more time to consider a national ban on telemedicine access to the abortion pill mifepristone.

Justice Samuel Alito extended an earlier order he issued by three more days, so rules for prescribing mifepristone online or through the mail remain in effect through Thursday at a minimum.

The case at issue

The tumult over the future of telemedicine access to mifipristone started on May 1 with a ruling from the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. That ruling re-instituted prescribing rules from before the pandemic that required patients to receive mifepristone in person in a doctor's office or clinic.

The Food and Drug Administration determined that the rule was medically unnecessary in 2021. The state of Louisiana sued last fall, arguing that telemedicine access undermines the state's abortion ban.

What is telemedicine abortion?

The telemedicine abortion process starts with a patient connecting with a healthcare provider on the phone or online. If the patient is eligible, that provider can prescribe two medications — mifepristone and another pill called misoprostol. Patients can pick up the medicine at a local pharmacy, or providers can mail the drugs to a patient's home.

That access is a big part of the reason why the number of abortions nationally has actually increased since the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in 2022. Now, most abortions in the U.S. use this combination of medications, and one quarter happen via telemedicine.

After the 5th Circuit ruling, some providers said they would continue offering telemedicine access to abortion medication using a different protocol that involves higher doses of misoprostol and no mifepristone.

Researchers say that method is just as safe and effective, but tends to cause more pain for patients and more side effects, like nausea and diarrhea. Misoprostol has other medical uses, such as treating gastric ulcers and hemorrhage, and has been on the market longer than mifepristone. It is likely to remain fully accessible, even if mifepristone is restricted.

Since the FDA's prescribing rules for medications apply to the whole country, a change to the rules about how mifepristone can be accessed has national impact. That means it affects states with constitutionally-protected access to abortion, states with criminal bans, like Louisiana, and all states in between.

States' rights

Nearly two dozen Democratic-led states submitted an amicus brief in this case, writing that the appeals court decision put the policy choices of states with bans above the choices of states "that have made the different but equally sovereign determinations to promote access to abortion care."

There are also stakes related to the power of FDA and other expert agencies to set rules. While the Trump administration's FDA did not respond to the Supreme Court's request for briefs, a group of former leaders of the agency, who served under mainly Democratic and some Republican presidents, wrote about this in an amicus brief.

They defended the FDA's process in approving the medication and modifying the rules for prescribing it, and say the appeals court decision "would upend FDA's gold-standard, science-based drug approval system."

Copyright 2026 NPR

For a decade, LAist has been making navigating elections in California and L.A. easier through our Voter Game Plan guides. More than 3 million people visited the Voter Game Plan during our coverage of the 2024 elections. That’s equivalent to more than half of the overall registered voters in L.A. County.

We’ve heard from so many people who tell us that Voter Game Plan has helped them make their most informed votes ever. You’ve told us that these helpful, plain-spoken and nonpartisan guides are essential in Southern California.

And each election cycle, we strive to find new ways to make them even better. Over the last few elections, we’ve added charts that let you follow the money in key races by tracking campaign finance. We’ve expanded to Orange County, Long Beach and Pasadena. We spun up our popular newsletter, “Make It Make Sense,” which keeps you informed on what goes on after the election. This year, we added a pre-game to the newsletter and brought you up to speed on recent big elections ahead of this primary election day.

What is Voter Game Plan+

Now we’re launching another new experiment. We call it Voter Game Plan+. This feature will offer you a new toolkit of features to enhance your voting research experience. Here's how it works:

• If you already support LAist’s work as a member, thank you. You’ll have full access to these new tools.
• If you haven’t yet taken the step of joining the LAist member ranks, we are asking for a small, one-time payment of $7 for these additional features through the Nov. 3 mid-term election.

All of our voter guides remain free for all to use, and you can still submit your questions to our reporters and we’ll get them answered.

Why ask for money? This nominal fee will help offset the cost of producing these specific guides and tools, as well as the overall Voter Game Plan, which takes the equivalent of at least two journalists working full-time for a year to produce every election cycle.

As part of VGP+, you will be able to match your interests and topical positions against 14 candidates in the L.A. mayoral race through an interactive quiz. And the California governor's race quiz launches later this week.

We’re also offering a way to follow and save your favorite candidates across all races. This tool will be useful if you want a printable list of choices to take to the ballot box, or if you just want to keep track of how you voted when the general election comes around in November. And there are more features to come.

Our ask to you

With VGP+, LAist continues our tradition of working hard to make elections and long ballots less intimidating and giving voters more context and support for making informed decisions.

This is not a paywall, and you are not under any obligation to purchase VGP+. But we are asking this: Has LAist’s Voter Game Plan saved you time and given you confidence at the ballot box? If the answer is yes, we’d be very grateful for your support.