Eye-catching quality
The Tony Succar Signature Collection is more than an eye-catching splash of colour.
The Tony Succar Signature Collection: Salsa's New Star Gets His Own LP Line
Over the years, Latin Percussion has left its mark on a huge share of the world's percussion gear – and now they're launching a full collection together with one of the most talked-about names in Latin music right now: Tony Succar. The result is a line that stands out from across the room, but that has far more going for it than colour.
The Artist Behind the Line
Tony Succar was born in Lima in 1986 and moved with his family to Miami at the age of two. He grew up in a family of musicians – his father a pianist, his mother a singer – and started playing the Peruvian cajón at just three years old. As a teenager he moved behind the drums in his parents' band, and from there the path led through timbales and the drum kit to a bachelor's and master's degree in jazz performance from Florida International University.
His big breakthrough came with Unity: The Latin Tribute to Michael Jackson (2015), where he re-arranged Jackson's songs in a Latin style with more than a hundred musicians involved. The project topped Billboard's tropical chart and became a televised PBS special. In 2019 he won two Latin Grammys – Best Salsa Album and Producer of the Year – becoming the youngest to take both categories in the same year. He continued to collect honours, and in 2025 he won a Grammy for Best Tropical Latin Album together with his mother, singer Mimy Succar.
In other words: a musician with one foot deeply rooted in salsa and the Afro-Latin tradition, and the other in modern, genre-crossing production. That duality is exactly what LP set out to capture in this collection.
The Design – Colour With Substance
The first thing you notice is the finish. The line wears a so-called Rainbow finish – a bold, colourful look that breaks with the more traditional, restrained aesthetic that usually defines congas and timbales. Paired with Black Nickel hardware, the instruments get a stage presence that carries all the way to the back of the room.
But the visuals are only half the story. The congas are built with New Zealand Pine stave shells – vertical wooden staves glued together into a shell, much like a barrel. The construction delivers a bright, open and punchy tone. It's a sound that suits the dense, fast patterns of salsa, where every stroke needs to cut clearly through the mix – but that works just as well in the studio when you want a defined, present attack.
A Tour of the Collection
The line is unusually complete for a signature collection, covering most of what a Latin percussionist needs:
- Congas – the heart of the line, in the classic Quinto, Conga and Tumba sizes. This is where the pine stave shells and the signature tone live.
- Bongos – the natural companion to the congas, for the higher, faster figures.
- Cajón – a nod to Succar's very first instrument, the Peruvian cajón.
- Salsa Snare and Micro Snares – snares that add extra crispness and attack to your setup, perfect for layering on top of the core groove.
- Timbalitos, Timbales and Thunder Timbales – timbales in several versions, from the smaller timbalitos to the more powerful Thunder models with greater volume and depth.
That means you can build a complete setup within a single line, with a consistent visual and tonal identity – something that isn't always a given when you piece percussion together from different sources.
Who Is the Line For?
The collection is most obviously aimed at the active salsa and Latin percussionist who plays live and wants instruments that both sound and look the part. But the clear, punchy tone of the stave shells makes the congas interesting for the studio too, and for drum-kit players looking to branch out into hand percussion, here's a line that holds together from top to bottom.
And then there's the purely aesthetic side. For anyone playing on stage, a colourful instrument is part of the performance – and here LP has made a clear choice to let Succar's energy and expression set the tone, quite literally.
In Summary
The Tony Succar Signature Collection is more than an eye-catching splash of colour. It's a thoughtfully designed line where pine stave shells and a complete set of instruments meet a strong visual identity, all anchored in an artist who represents the next generation of Latin music. If you play congas, timbales or other Latin percussion, it's one of the more exciting signature collections to appear in a while.
If you're looking for congas, timbales or other LP percussion, you'll find our range here at Trumslagaren – feel free to get in touch if you'd like help putting together the right setup.
