Credits: Saint.E & Mélanie Langonier / KaRu Prod.
In Hasta Cuando, Las Panteras bring together Afro-Cuban chants, Yoruba culture and Latino afro-feminism. The duo comprises Martha Galarraga and Eliene Castillo. They return to French cultural news with an interview published by Libération on June 12, 2026. A concert is also announced for June 13 at Rio Loco in Toulouse.
A Cuban Duo Established Within French Circulation
Las Panteras do not appear out of nowhere. The KaRu Prod profile presents two Cuban singers, Martha Galarraga, known as Martica, and Eliene Castillo. Both have participated in several international collaborations before carrying their own repertoire. The producer situates their music in a friction between Cuban roots and electronic sounds. On stage, two voices and light percussion interact with bass, keyboards and drums.
This trajectory sheds light on the interest the duo has sparked in France. It does not, however, allow the interview to be credited with more than what is publicly accessible. On June 12, Libération publishes an interview with the two artists. Its headline uses this phrase: “Yoruba Culture Has Always Been Alive, It Has Not Stayed Frozen.” In the excerpt available, Hasta Cuando is presented as a record of feminist commitment. Galarraga and Castillo combine spiritual exploration and Afro-Cuban musical heritage.
The next day, Saturday, June 13, Rio Loco schedules them at 7:45 PM on the Garonne stage, according to the official Toulouse Métropole page. The festival takes place at the Prairie des Filtres from June 10 to 14, 2026. Its 31st edition uses the theme “Insulae.” The musical program circulates around islands, from the Caribbean to Japan, via the Indian Ocean and Polynesia.
Hasta Cuando, An Album Against Resignation
Released November 7, 2025 on KaRu Prod, Hasta Cuando contains ten tracks. The Bandcamp page confirms a sequence that goes from Orunmila to Baba Asojuano. It also includes Hasta Cuando, Indeseable and La Vendedora. These titles show that the record is not limited to an Afro-Cuban stylistic exercise. It frames a discourse around violence, work, independence and spirituality.
The title track immediately poses a political question. Without reproducing the lyrics at length, available on Bandcamp, the chorus questions the duration of male domination and asserts a female taking of power. Indeseable moves the subject toward underestimation, control and the refusal to be impeded. La Vendedora, meanwhile, starts from the figure of a street vendor, with her daily economy, her routes and her fatigue.
In November 2025 RFI dedicated a musical pick to Las Panteras. The radio summarized the album as a project of [Afro-Cuban music]-inflected afro-feminism latino crossed by passion and revolt. The phrase is useful if kept attached to the record. For Galarraga and Castillo, feminism is not a word pasted onto the music. It brings bodies, dance and women’s stories into the same sonic space.
Yoruba Culture As a Living Thread
In this article, Yoruba culture is addressed only through the references claimed by Las Panteras. The cited sources concern their album, not a general presentation. Hasta Cuando opens with Orunmila, a title that refers to Orula in the Afro-Cuban religious lineages evoked around the record. Other tracks cite names of orishas or ritual gestures. They should therefore be heard as references worked into a musical repertoire, not as a global definition of a culture.
The headline chosen by Libération, attributed to the artists’ words, goes in that direction. Saying that Yoruba culture has not remained frozen here rejects the image of an immobile heritage. That heritage is not reduced to decorative signs. In Hasta Cuando, these references pass through voice, percussion and forms of collective response. Contemporary arrangements also let in funk, rap, electro, reggae and stage groove.
This tension gives the project its cultural strength. Las Panteras do not merely tell Cuba from France, nor France from a diasporic stage. They build a space where Afro-Cuban heritage is brought into the present, with its memories, its angers and its desires for celebration. The music can thus remain danceable without becoming light, spiritual without becoming folklore, militant without losing its movement.
Visibility To Be Treated With Distance
Las Panteras’ French moment therefore fits several overlapping calendars. There is the album release in autumn 2025, then critical and radio uptake of the project. Next come the Libération interview of June 12, 2026, and then the Rio Loco date. This news can easily become promotional if reduced to a concert announcement. It becomes more interesting when it illuminates an artistic proposition.
In Toulouse, the duo will share the bill with Buena Vista All Stars, Los Van Van, Zily and Cami Layé Okun. F-Mack, Joanne Radao and GЯEG are also on the evening’s lineup. This proximity says something about their place. Las Panteras belong to a musiques du monde programming. Yet their album calls for a finer reading, attentive to the lyrics, to religious inheritances and to gender relations.
Their aim is not only to make roots heard. It is to work them in the present, with two voices that refuse the postcard. That is where Hasta Cuando finds its singularity. The record belongs to the stage, to dance and to transmission. It also carries a taking of speech about what living traditions can still shift.