Minyo Crusaders to Make NYC Debut at The Sultan Room, Presented by World Music Institute

World Music Institute will present Minyo Crusaders, a Japanese band blending traditional folk songs with Caribbean, Latin, and African influences, for their NYC debut at The Sultan Room in Brooklyn, with opening act Mariposas Galácticas. The performance will take place on Tuesday, September 22, 2026.

Minyo Crusaders are a Japanese musical group that revitalizes traditional folk songs (min'yō) by blending them with Caribbean, Latin, and African influences. The band's mission is to reclaim min'yō as 'music for the people', rebelling against its recent popularity among the upper class despite its working-class roots. The band was co-founded by Katsumi Tanaka and Freddie Tsukamoto in 2011 in Fussa, a city near a US military base in western Tokyo, where they famously hosted jam sessions in the 'Banana House,' which had formerly housed US soldiers.

The release of their critically acclaimed debut album, Echoes of Japan, featuring the hit single 'Cumbia Del Monte Fuji', a collaboration with Frente Cumbiero, led to performances in the US and South America, as well as European tours and festival appearances at WOMAD, Lowlands, and Roskilde.

Mariposas Galácticas is an 8-piece Cumbia Klezmer Punk band based in Philadelphia, PA. Combining band members' South American and Jewish ancestries, the band creates a unique diasporic sound that gets audiences everywhere dancing with rebellious joy. By honoring their Indigenous Andean musical roots, blended with punkified ancient Jewish melodies, the band plays a mixture of original and classic tunes that span different languages, cultures, and genres.