Batalá New York

In 2011, Stacy Kovacs experiences Batala DC at Brazilian Dayin NY. She decides it’s time to start her own musical group, for women, playing drums. After a few months of communication with the men who run Batala as an organization from Brazil, she went to Brazil to participate in Carnival with Cortejo Afro, an Afro-Bloco in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil. At the time, she brought back 35 Batala drums to New York and put them together. Batala NYC took off.

For 5 straight years Batala NYC continued to play at more and more events. They were becoming known as a party band in NYC, a wedding band in NYC, and an event band for all types of events. It was a great run.

The summer of 2016 proved difficult for members of Batala New York. A small group of women within the band became frustrated with Stacy’s leadership style, and quietly gathered supporters to oust Stacy from her position as Director, without having a direct conversation with Stacy, nor letting her know they were upset. What they forgot, was that Batala NYC was a business registered in the state of New York. All of the equipment including drums, belts, drum sticks, and costumes were owned by Stacy and Batala NYC LLC. They ultimately refused to return the equipment, because they wanted to continue Batala with new leadership, under the same "name", flying off the coat tails of all of Stacy's hard work, love, and heart she put into Batala New York.
Stacy was left no choice but to hire a lawyer to retrieve all of her equipment. After that, she shut down Batala NYC and rebranded it to FogoAzul NYC.