Miami, FL

Sumo

1 upcoming festival

Luca Prodan's Buenos Aires group, who spliced post-punk and reggae into Argentine rock across six years before his death in 1987 — foundational, and still argued about.

Sumo formed in Argentina in 1981 around Luca Prodan, an Italian-born singer raised partly in Britain who arrived in the country at the start of the decade carrying an ear shaped by Joy Division, dub and reggae. The line-up over the years included Germán Daffunchio, Diego Arnedo, Ricardo Mollo, Alberto Troglio, Alejandro Sokol and saxophonist Roberto Pettinato, and Prodan sang in both English and Spanish, often switching mid-song.

The group's records, made across the mid-eighties, set post-punk austerity against reggae and blues, and their live shows built a following well outside the mainstream of Argentine rock at the time. Prodan died in 1987 and the band ended with him; surviving members went on to form Divididos and Las Pelotas. Sumo remains a reference point in Argentine rock, and a subject of continuing argument about what it meant.