Gipsy Kings are a band of Catalan rumba, flamenco, salsa, and pop musicians, founded in 1978 in Arles and Montpellier, in southern France, who perform mostly in Catalan but also mix in Spanish with southern French dialects.[1] Although the group members were born in France, their parents were mostly gitanos (Spanish Romani), who fled Spain during the 1930s Spanish Civil War. They are known for bringing rumba flamenca, a pop-oriented music distantly derived from traditional flamenco and rumba genres, to a worldwide audience. They were originally known as Los Reyes.

History
Beginnings
Gipsy Kings, born in France but brought up within Spanish culture, are largely responsible for bringing the sounds of progressive pop-oriented flamenco music to a worldwide audience. The band started out in Arles, a town in southern France, during the 1970s, when brothers Nicolas and André Reyes, sons of flamenco artist Jose Reyes, teamed up with their cousins Jacques, Maurice, and Tonino Baliardo.[2] At the time, Jose Reyes and Manitas de Plata were a duo who triggered the wider popularity of rumba flamenca. When Reyes split from Manitas de Plata, he started a group made up of his sons, which he called Los Reyes (as well as being their family name, reyes means "kings" in Spanish).

Los Reyes started out as a gypsy band, traveling around France and playing at weddings, festivals, and in the streets. Later, they were hired to add color to upper-class parties in such places as Saint-Tropez, but their first two albums attracted little notice. At this point, the Gipsies played traditional flamenco invigorated by Tonino Baliardo's guitar playing and Nicolas Reyes' voice