La Heroica is a cumbia band from Paysandú, Uruguay, that emerged in early 2025 when vocalist and guitarist Víctor Ruiz developed a charanga-style project with Montevideo producer Toby Gómez, backed by the One Play label and conceived as a tribute to their “heroic” home city. After an intense period of rehearsals the group made its official live debut on 12 June 2025 at 330 Bar in Paysandú, then quickly took its show to venues such as La Bámbola in Salto, Café del Bosque in Colonia and clubs in San José and Maldonado. In early June 2025 La Heroica released its first digital single, a cumbia version of Obie Bermúdez’s ballad “Antes”, which surpassed 150,000 streams in its first week and moved toward half a million within a month. The band followed with a cover of Alejandro Sanz’s “Amiga Mia” on 27 June 2025 and a cumbia take on “Cuando Estoy Junto a Ti” on 8 August 2025, the latter passing 200,000 plays while consolidating their formula of reimagining romantic Latin pop for the dance floor. By August 2025 La Heroica had already announced an upcoming collaboration with veteran Argentine romantic cumbia outfit Banda Uno and a first Argentine tour planned for the end of the year, while also earning a slot at the Plaza Prado stage of Expo Prado in Montevideo on 10 September 2025 alongside Matías Valdés. On 4 September 2025, they issued the single “Bailando sobre los Escombros”, and from 5 September onward they focused on branded collaborations with One Play, releasing cumbia versions of Xabier San Martín’s pop hit “Ni una Sola Palabra”, “Como Te Voy a Olvidar (En Vivo)” on 23 September 2025, the Estéfano and Julio Reyes composition “No Me Enseñaste” on 8 October 2025 and “Perdóname” on 7 November 2025, by which time La Heroica was active on the national cumbia circuit as a new representative of Uruguay’s interior dance-music scene.