Les Leopards

Tumbélé is a French-Caribbean dance music that emerged in Guadeloupe and Martinique in the 1960s. It fuses the steady, guitar-driven pulse of Haitian compas, the interlocking guitar lines and high-energy breaks of Congolese soukous, the 3–2/2–3 rumba clave and call-and-response of Cuban guaguancó, and the Creole horn-and-percussion swagger of local biguine. Typically mid- to uptempo and built for street parades and club floors alike, Tumbélé foregrounds syncopated percussion (ti-bwa/tibwa sticks, hand drums, cowbell) against a tumbao-style bass, off‑beat compas rhythm guitar, bright soukous‑style guitar “seben” passages, and punchy horn riffs inherited from biguine. Vocals are often in Antillean Creole, with catchy refrains designed for dancing and communal singalong.