Sweet-sounding Grupo Control at Crown Center

By DANNY ALEXANDER

This weekend’s three-day-long Fiesta KC at Crown Center offers great music by strong local artists such as Son Venezuela and Las Estrellas as well as norteño giants Pepe Tovar y Los Chacales and Tejano pioneers Little Joe Y La Familia. But for sheer musical joy, it will be hard to beat the Friday night concert by Grupo Control.

Control comes from a little town by the same name in Tamaulipas, Mexico. It’s called Control because it regulated the water flow into the Matamoros. Sweet voiced frontmen, brothers Sergio and Jose Guadalupe Degollado, celebrate their norteño roots with bright dance tracks that have not only earned them the nickname Los Reyes de la Cumbia but also lend yet another level of meaning to the name Control.

Time is tight when Control plays, and their ability to be at once raucous and precise is dazzling all by itself. Though norteño music clings to certain traditional elements such as the accordion as a focal point and often the lead instrument, Control dares to work hip-hop scratching, MC-ing and dancing into their performances. In that sense, they sound like a big part of the future of norteño and, by extension, American music.

To get a feel for Control’s slyly subversive brand of fun, check out this video where they take over a school classroom.