If you’re not from Peru or the surrounding countries, you may have never heard of Quechua, let alone Q-pop or Urbano Quechua. Quechua is an indigenous language family originating in central Peru that spread across other South American countries along the Andes. It is today the most widely spoken pre-Columbian language family in the Americas, with an estimated 8–10 million speakers in 2004.

Now, this language is being brought to a wider audience through pioneers in the Peruvian music scene, who combine contemporary music genres like K-pop, Urban, and Reggaeton. We speak with two different artists who explore this merging of cultures in their unique ways: Lenin and Avril Navarro.

Lenin approaches this fusion through Q-Pop and has been pioneering the genre, whilst Avril Navarro, who once featured on La Voz Kids Peru (Peru's version of The Voice), explores the Urban and Reggaeton influences. Both artists have powerful messages they want to share from their indigenous backgrounds.

1: How would you define Quechua Pop / Quechua Urban Fusion, and what differentiates it from other pop music genres?

Lenin: I feel that Q'pop / Quechua Pop, unlike other pop music genres, has a particularity, and that is not being afraid to embrace where it comes from. What do I mean by this? Well, I am a Peruvian artist, I am 25 years old, I am fusing my ‘Ancestral’ Andean culture  with pop.


Coming from a country with such traditional thinking and with ways of seeing the world from a slightly more, perhaps predominantly religious perspective, or with slightly more rigid ways of thinking.


I see it as a career and I see it as an opportunity not only to unite generations or to unite eras, but to unite people, to unite stories, to unite identities, to unite ways of expressing oneself.

Avril: I feel that what makes this Urban Fusion in Quechua special is the union between modern genres such as urban, reggaeton, pop, etc. With this motivation to revalue, prevail, capture and merge with love and respect our identity, origins, Andean instruments, our mother tongue Quechua (language of the Incas) and our Andean cultural heritage.

Lenin: Q-Pop, Quechuapop, probably started when I was born. I am the son of an Andean music artist in my country, Yolanda Pinares, that's her name, she is an Andean music artist, who has been doing fusion for more than 30 years. I am an only childand my relationship with my mother has been very close. My mother is a single mother, and it was a high-risk pregnancy, so our closeness was so close that I think the love I have experienced from her has taught me to continue through art, through Andean music. So art has always been in my life.


When I first listened to K-Pop at school, in high school, to be exact, I tried to explain to my mother this musical experience that I was living at school, in a very complicated stage of my life, which was the bullying that I lived through. And I was trying to somehow translate the things I saw in K-pop into my musical work. That's probably where these two currents were merging.

Avril: From a very young age, I was connected to my roots, music and culture through Ayacucho music and the typical dances of Ayacucho, Peru.  At the age of 6, 7 years old, I started to interpret our Ayacucho music, our Huayno Ayacuchano and many of the songs that I interpreted were in QUECHUA.  

Huayno Ayacuchano is a regional variation of huayno, a traditional Andean music and dance genre, especially popular in the southern highland city of Ayacucho, Peru.

 In the year 2021, when I arrived at the singing contest program La Voz Kids Peru - LATINA (one of the most important programmes that takes place in Peru) I took with love and pride our identity and roots, interpreting our Huayno Ayacuchano in Quechua, using as clothing - the majestic traditional Huamanguino costume.

Through this experience, I felt how that connection with what is ours was strengthened even more. A year later, I discovered this love for urban dance. So I decided to merge different genres from Peru and our mother tongue, Quechua, with contemporary, modern genres such as urban, reggaeton, pop, etc.

3: What inspired you to combine Quechua language and culture with modern pop music?

Lenin: In my first musical era, I made 2 singles that were inspired by very evident traditions of the Andean culture, such as the diablada (Imaynata). I recorded the music video for Intiraymi on December 7, 2022. Well, when I recorded the video clip, there were social conflicts in my country.  When I was prevented from promoting a song that celebrates my Andean traditions, I realised that singing in Quechua is not only singing in a language, but also trying to be conscious and feel for the people you are representing. It is precisely there where I launched the idea of the first part of the album AMARU, and in this first part of Amaru, I try to get out of my current reality that can be full of stigmas and labels and understand that what we are living now unfortunately has been cyclical and we have lived it in other times. Either with Túpac Amaru II, with the arrival of the Spanish, or with terrorism in the 80’s and 90’s. So this power struggle that we have in our country is so cyclical and so repetitive that we need to understand it, to see it with reality in order not to repeat it, but not to see it from fear or from taboo.

Diablada (Imaynata) – also known as the “Devil’s Dance” – is a vibrant and dramatic folk dance from the Andean regions of Bolivia, Peru (notably Puno), Chile, and Ecuador. It symbolises the timeless struggle between good and evil.

Túpac Amaru II (born José Gabriel Condorcanqui, c. 1738–1781) was a prominent indigenous leader and revolutionary in 18th-century Peru who led the largest anti-colonial uprising against Spanish rule in South America prior to independence.

And I don't pretend to be a Western pop artist. It's not the vision I have of what I do if I don't try to embrace the difficulty, the adversity, the precariousness from which I am born from, as that's what I have to contribute to the world.

Avril: What inspired me was the musical heritage, Andean culture that my parents and grandparents left me, also to see that what made me unique was to be an Andean woman so this motivated me to merge my identity with modern genres in order to motivate more young people to learn together our mother tongue Quechua.

Lenin: Ironically, musically speaking, I've been refraining a lot from the idea of what it means to be Andean. If you listen to my first songs, there can be much clearer references like some Zampoñas, some brass from the Diablada, or a violin from the scissors dance, then the Andean reference is much clearer. But when you listen to the new songs and the latest songs that we are going to release, I start questioning myself what it means to be Andean, if I need to play a purely Andean instrument to say that I am making Andean music or the simple fact of being born with this tradition, of being born of this land and carrying my music, no matter what musical genre I do. I'm still Andean, I'm questioning these things a lot, and that's why in the latest songs there are many voices. There are many voices of mine, doing many types of voices because it is my way of saying that I am Andean, not because I have to say it, but because it is in my sound. The sound that is in my voice, the one that carries Quechua, is the one that carries the feeling of Q'pop.

Scissors dance: Traditional Andean ritual dance is known for its intense athleticism, spiritual symbolism, and dramatic performance. It is practised primarily in southern Peru, especially in Ayacucho, Huancavelica, Apurímac, and parts of Cusco.


My music is evolving because it's always moving forward in terms of questioning these ways of thinking that we think are the traditions, that we think are the norm. Questioning these ways of looking at our own culture and pushing the boundaries of art and music, pushing them to explore these new boundaries and through this new exploration. Bringing better sounds, bringing more diversity and bringing more fusion. I think that's what makes the songs that I'm doing and the new songs that I'm going to be releasing interesting.


And something that I've been much more conscious of in these latest songs that I've finished producing in Cusco is to produce them in Quechua, thinking in Quechua, not thinking that I'm just going to translate the lyrics into Quechua, but to produce them from a cosmovision.

Avril: The Quechua I use is ‘Chanka’ because I was born in the beautiful department of Ayacucho and the Andean sounds are the ones that will always inspire me the most, because I feel that they are part of me the most, because I feel that they are part of me, they have always been present since my childhood so they are and will always be part of my Andean identity.

Chanka (or Chanca) refers to an indigenous Andean people and culture that flourished in the highlands of what is now southern-central Peru, especially in the regions of Ayacucho, Apurímac, and Huancavelica, before and during the rise of the Inca Empire.

Lenin: Only seeing it as an opportunity to not want to embrace the depth of things and not wanting to embrace it with depth ends up being opportunistic; it ends up feeling like something merely commercial and mercantilist. And I think that Q'pop is not characterised by being that, but I think it has a message. So in these 10 years I’ve set myself a limit. I want to take care of cementing the foundations of what this platform is so that future generations take into account at least these ways of making music, Q'pop (Quechuapop). 

Avril: I firmly believe that music tends to have a great impact on people, which is why my musical proposal (Urban Fusion in Quechua) has the objective of reaching our new generations so that Quechua can continue from generation to generation. Because something that is happening is that Quechua is no longer being spoken in my generation and that is what we don't want, my musical proposal has the objective of prevailing, conserving and spreading our language, Quechua.

Lenin: Well, there is an artist who inspires me a lot, who is Rosalía with her album ‘El Mal Querer’. It was an album that inspired me a lot for the creation of this album, Amaru. Through the collective imagination of the Andean cosmovision and Inca mythology, I try to tell the story of this character, Amaru.


Another artist who inspires me a lot is my mother, Yolanda Pinares. She is an artist of Andean fusion music and has been doing fusion for 30 years, and I have seen her explore the world of music and what it means to be Andean.

Avril: Damaris, William Luna, and Uchpa are some of my Peruvian references. I admire their determination, courage and love for what is ours and how, even though their music is always evolving, they never stop spreading our identity, culture and Peruvian music through fusion.

Lenin: I try to translate all this from a historical vision, but also from a more current social vision, without being alien to pop. For example, I released this song LA LLAQTA with a lyrics video, with people here in Lima, holding posters with the lyrics of the song. My idea was just that people connect with the message of the music beyond just the choreography. It has a message, and that's ultimately at the heart of what I do.

Avril: The most IMPORTANT thing is that the LYRICS of my songs seek to give a different alternative to young people to what today gives us in urban or modern music, as they will always find in my lyrics messages of joy, hope, motivation, strength, values, because my music has a purpose that is to plant seeds in the hearts of young people, to achieve that in the future if God allows us to have a generation with purpose, that can swim against the current, realising all the problems we have today, not letting the bad be seen as good and the good be seen as bad, also being aware of our present, knowing that we are needed, our people are being destroyed because the values are being lost, we need to unite to achieve a real change and thus have a different future.

Lenin: I think that Q'pop Quechuapop for people who are outside the Andean culture see it as an opportunity, an opportunity also to fight for their dreams. I feel that it is a beautiful message of hope. For my own people, it is a vindication, a vindication of what it is to be Andean for the new generations. When they listen to my music, they reconnect with their own traditions, they reconnect with their own culture, and they reconnect with their family. They also want to learn their own language and culture, so in that way, this project becomes a bridge.


In the tour in Asia, it was much more amazing because we were not only talking about the Quechua culture, but we were talking about the cultures of the world, and we were continuing to unite and embrace. It is the Qhapaq Ñan that we talk about in our culture, the Inca road, the network of roads that unites human beings. That is what I basically do.

Qhapaq Ñan (Quechua for "Noble Carretera" or "Great Inca Road") was the main highway system of the Inca Empire—an enormous network of trails and roads that connected the vast territory of the Tawantinsuyu (the Inca Empire), stretching over 30,000+ km (19,000+ miles) across six modern countries: Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Chile, and Argentina.

Avril: They tell me how they feel that our music takes them back to their childhood when they heard their grandparents and relatives speak Quechua, So I feel that it is also very important to continue with this motivation, because in this way we will also break the discrimination and if God permits, in the future, speaking Quechua or being indigenous will not be a reason for discrimination, but on the contrary.

Lenin: This new song, LA LLAQTA, took a year to finish being produced; in fact, the BBC followed this song for almost a year. It is one of those songs that is discarded from its first demo, because it’s not powerful enough.  But I was at a point in my personal/artistic life where I had to make a very important decision (which has to do with some news that I'm going to reveal in these months). At that moment, I thought that it might be the last song in which I could be free creatively


We took this song and pushed it to the limit, and it ended up being the song that it is now.

Avril: Having sung from a very young age our traditional genres such as the Huayno in Quechua and also listening to my grandparents, parents and family speak in Quechua, dancing and enjoying our typical traditional dances was what connected me with my identity and my roots. So this motivated me to create music that unites my identity with modern genres.

Lenin: It excites me to be able to collaborate with artists that I admire, like Rosalía, or maybe BTS, the well-known K-pop group. Which in some way is evidence that the Korean language or music can be taken to a much more global market.  I'm not afraid to dream big, and that's why it excites me a lot to collaborate with future projects that are going to be possible, because I know that by working consciously, as I have been doing in these three years, the doors will open.

Avril: Something that gives me great excitement is to be able to collaborate with William Luna, Damaris would be a dream come true and also to continue my artistic training to consolidate my musical career, to be able to continue sowing seeds in people's hearts.

Lenin: I have set a 10-year limit to be able to build this platform in a way that ensures its persistence, and that it lasts in time, and the decisions that I have made have always been thinking about that responsibility.


I was in South Korea for my tour, not only to do concerts but also because I had very important decisions to make. If I made these decisions, I made them by always thinking about my platform and how to give it more visibility and give it more influence and be able to contribute to the world. I am in this fight, which has been very complicated, it has been very complicated but it is making me stronger and stronger, and it is helping me to learn much more about myself, to understand that I am able to push the limits of things, and I am not forcing them. Instead, I am building, building my own path.


It’s a way of uniting the Western cosmovision and the Andean cosmovision without stigma, without stereotypes and without labels. Embrace them from modernity, from tradition, from culture, from globalisation, without fear of what they will say about this message. That has been the same since it began, and it will be the same until the end of my days - love and freedom.

Avril: This great objective of making our cultural heritage, our native language Quechua, traditions, customs and culture prevail, and be preserved from generation to generation, since this musical proposal not only represents me but all of our people and country.



We thank both interviewees for this interview, exploring the depths of what it means to be from culturally rich indigenous backgrounds. Showing how important it is to keep cultures like this alive through the means of language. They are doing this by reaching new younger audiences, whether it be through Q-Pop or Urban Quechua Fusion. Both artists have used their platforms to promote awareness of the struggles and division their communities have faced and how they propose to create unity across Peru and beyond.