Latin Percussion honors founder Martin Cohen with mini conga release

Latin Percussion’s new Martin Cohen Limited Mini Conga is aimed at players who want more than a desk ornament. LP has built it as an 11-inch miniature replica of a full-size conga, and the company’s own framing makes the point clear: this is a keepsake with real percussion hardware, not just a novelty with a logo.

The compact instrument carries a 1970s-inspired Champagne Sparkle finish, a vintage badge, chrome-plated hardware, a Mini Comfort Curve rim and a tunable 4-1/2-inch rawhide head. LP lists the Martin Cohen Limited Mini Conga at $149.99, placing it in the range where collectors, students and working percussionists can justify it as both a display piece and a playable compact percussion option. The Siam Oak shell gives it the look and construction cues LP fans expect from the brand’s fuller-size instruments.

The founder tribute is what gives the release its weight. LP says the Martin Cohen Limited Collection honors Martin Cohen, who founded the company in 1964 after he could not buy the Cuban drums he wanted because of the U.S. embargo. LP’s history also ties the brand to the mid-century New York City Latin jazz scene, the same musical world that shaped Cohen’s approach to instrument design.

That background matters because LP is not a random name trying to sell a small percussion collectible. The company says its instruments have appeared on thousands of famous recordings, spanning classic salsa to classic rock, and points to artists such as Santana and Sheila E. as part of that wider cultural footprint. The result is a release that works on two levels: as a visually strong tribute to LP’s 1970s-era identity, and as a compact instrument that can sit on a shelf, live in a studio, or be used when space is tight.

LP’s founder biography adds another layer to the story, saying Cohen first encountered Latin jazz at Birdland in 1956 and later received recognition from the Percussive Arts Society for helping develop instruments that created a market for percussion products. Cohen died in 2015, but the Mini Conga turns that legacy into something physical and immediate. For LP, the release is less about shrinking a conga than about condensing a whole chapter of the company’s history into a small, playable form.