Introducing: COLECTIVA

The eponymous debut EP from rule-breaking, all-female Afro-Latin jazz ensemble COLECTIVA channels themes of empowerment, solidarity, healing and community. Genres that draw from African and Latin American diasporic traditions are fused with metal to jazz, resulting in a lively horn-and-percussion-led style that the group have coined ‘tropicaliente’ (hot-tropical-jazz).

Their story begins in 2019 with the desire to create a female-only group in London’s salsa and Latin live-music scene. “That was the first idea, just to have women support women and create a space that none of us really experience as a default,” explains conga player and founding member Lilli Elina. From this simple, powerful concept, the group grew in number, each member bringing new sounds and styles of play into the mix, honing their performances by playing gigs around their home city and even crossing the ocean to play SXSW in Austin, Texas, in 2022. COLECTIVA is now four core members, but they frequently play with other female musicians. “When we started, I don’t think many people were approaching the Latin style in the same way we were,” states Lili, who explains that while London’s contemporary jazz scene is very fusion heavy with the likes of Desta French and Ezra Collective, Latin music and jazz were still largely separate in the city’s live music scene when they started out. “Bookers never knew where to place us,” laughs Lili. Despite the difficulties of breaking new ground, the group found freedom in the genre. “If you call something jazz, you take away a certain critical eye that might call your music out for doing something which isn’t salsa or cumbia”, she continues. “But it’s jazz. We can do what we want.”

Resisting genre norms hasn’t been the only struggle that COLECTIVA have had to overcome. “Growing up in Venezuela, I had to battle against my family, because drum kits are for boys”, explains drummer Lya Reis Guerrero. Whenever she was told she couldn’t do something, such as leaving her country to pursue her dreams, it only fuelled her ambition more. “That’s the petrol,” she says, adding: “The passion comes from being a rebel.” Lilli, originally from Finland, also experienced a backlash in the UK. “There’s a huge difference in how people relate to me depending on what instrument I play,” she says. “Groove and rhythm instruments are still very much considered to be men’s instruments – but piano is fine – that’s for girls,” she adds, laughing.

Each member of COLECTIVA share a similar story. “We came on the scene with a fair amount of justified anger. We’d all been minimised because of our gender, so there was a real sense of: we want to show what we can do. We want to play fast, we want to play loud,” says Lilli. And you can feel this feminine rage running through the EP, on tracks like ‘Maliciosa’, which draws on folk tales of the “hechicera poderosa” (powerful sorceress) to inspire women to channel their divinity. The band’s inherent anger is most compellingly expressed on ‘Ayu Ayú’, whose fiery horns and questioning chorus – ‘¿Dónde se fueron?’ (Where did they go?) – harnesses the rage the group felt after the senseless murders of sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman in a London park, the tragedy of their deaths further exacerbated by racist police misconduct.

In December 2025, the UK government declared violence against women and girls (VAWG) as a national emergency, stating that over the previous year, “One in every eight women was a victim of domestic abuse, sexual assault or stalking”. It’s a situation that fuels COLECTIVA’s urgency and will undoubtedly continue to filter into their music. As statistics for VAWG continue to worsen, the sentiment of the band only intensifies. As Lili says: “The rage is bigger.”

+ COLECTIVA is out now on jazz re:freshed. ‘Ayu Ayú’ features on this issue’s compilation, track 14