Gipsy Kings

Gipsy Kings (originally Los Reyes) are a musical group founded in 1979 in Arles, France. The band, whose members have Catalan heritage, play a blend of Catalan rumba, flamenco, salsa, and pop. They perform mostly in Spanish but also mix in Catalan, French, and languages of southern France, such as Occitan.

Although the group members were born in France, their parents were mostly gitanos (Spanish Romani) who fled Spain during the 1930s Spanish Civil War. They are known for bringing rumba flamenca, a pop-oriented music distantly derived from traditional flamenco and rumba, to a worldwide audience, and for their interpretations of English-language pop hits.

In the 1970s, José Reyes and Manitas de Plata were a duo who played rumba flamenca in the southern French town of Arles. When they split up, Reyes began performing with his sons, Nicolas, François (Canut), André, Patchaï, and Paul (Pablo), as José et Los Reyes (as well as being their family name, reyes means "kings" in Spanish). After their father's death in 1979, the brothers continued to perform, joined by their cousins Diego, Paco, and Tonino Baliardo (nephews of Manitas de Plata), as well as French Moroccan musician Chico Bouchikhi, who was then married to Marthe Reyes, José's daughter. Traveling around France and playing at weddings, festivals, and in the streets as a gypsy band, they adopted the moniker Gipsy Kings, with Nicolas as lead vocalist and Tonino on lead guitar. Later, they were hired to play at upper-class parties in such places as Saint-Tropez.

Their first two albums, Allegria (1982) and Luna de Fuego (1983), attracted little notice.

Success came for Gipsy Kings with their self-titled third album, released in 1987 (1989 in the United States), which included the songs "Djobi Djoba", "Bamboléo", and the ballad "Un Amor". The record spent forty weeks on the US charts, one of few Spanish-language albums to do so.

Pablo Reyes left the group in 1988, due to hearing problems.

Chico Bouchikhi, one of the group's founding members, left in 1991 due to financial disagreements with their then-manager, Claude Martinez, and went on to start his own group, Chico & the Gypsies.

Between 1989 and 2013, the band released nine studio albums: Mosaïque (1989), Este Mundo (1991), Love and Liberté (1993), Estrellas (1995), Compas (1997), Somos Gitanos (2001), Roots (2004), Pasajero (2006), and Savor Flamenco (2013). Their latest, Evidence, came out in 2018. Savor Flamenco won a Grammy Award for Best Global Music Album in 2014. In 1992, they issued the concert album Live.