Music producer Janne Bogdan at Soneros Records enjoyed the group at the Stockholm and Gothemburg concerts in 2006 and puts his experience of the group in this way: "La Barriada is one of the most well-rehearsed bands I have listened to and seen from Cuba, with a modern and fresh sound, and a rhythm section that is steaming with energy and new thinking. One of the group’s strongest sides is the three lead singers who sing, entertain, and make the concert into a real show. La Barriada is pure and simple energy of Afro-Cuban rhythms with tasteful popular features."

Last time we saw La Barriada was in Scandinavia in the summer of 2006 with the tour “Salsa Goes Nordic!” [“Salsa så in i Norden!” ] Everybody was invited to a first-class experience of salsa and a group that sounds better than ever. As Pedro de la Hoz, one of Cuba’s most prominent music and art critics, puts it in his review of La Barriada’s latest CD “Adiós a la tristeza”: "Definitely, La Barriada sounds timba, but without exceeding the norm. Apart from getting the newest of the newest, the dancer is given the blessing of safe and sound rhythmics to release his or her expert choreography. Apart from a virtuoso deliverance, the listener gets pleasure from the touch of actuality that runs through the music scales. Because in Juan Kemell’s understanding, the most important thing is to connect to the desires of the audience and their demands for an explosive music that, nevertheless, does not betray the generic patterns of the son."