When Pérez Prado was not the Mambo King
His Panart singles tanked.
Pérez Prado, “Panamá”/”Ko Kou”
Dámaso Pérez Prado has gone down in history as the mambo king, the iconic image of the exuberant Cuban showman. But when he walked into the Panart offices with some pages of sheet music in hand, he was just one of the many forward-thinking musicians in Havana who was working on a new sound.