Cándido Camero Guerra (22 April 1921 – 7 November 2020), known simply as Cándido, was a Cuban conga and bongo player. He is considered a pioneer of Afro-Cuban jazz and an innovator in conga drumming. He was responsible for the development of tuneable conga sets, as well as the combination of congas and bongos, and other instruments such as the foot-operated cowbell.

After moving to New York in 1946, Camero played with Dizzy Gillespie, Billy Taylor and Stan Kenton, and from 1956 he recorded several albums as a leader. His biggest success came in 1979 with his disco recordings for Salsoul. He continued to perform until the late 2010s, recording several albums for the audiophile label Chesky Records, including Inolvidable, with Graciela, which earned him a nomination at the 47th Annual Grammy Awards.

Cándido Camero Guerra was born in San Antonio de los Baños, near Havana, to Caridad Guerra and Cándido Camero. His interest in music began at the age of 4, when his maternal uncle Andrés, a professional bongosero for the Septeto Segundo Nacional, taught him to play bongos on condensed milk cans. At a very young age, he moved with his family to Cerro, a neighborhood in Havana. Camero’s father taught him how to play the tres, a type of Cuban guitar. While focusing on the tres, he also learned to play bass and percussion, mostly bongo and conga. In 1935, at the age of 14, Camero began to play tres professionally for various son ensembles such as Gloria Habanera, Sonora Piñón and Conjunto Segundo de Arsenio Rodríguez(Arsenio’s backup band). The increasing popularity of the conga drums—promoted primarily by Arsenio’s conjunto—and the fact that Camero could not read sheet music, led him to switch to the conga, which became his primary instrument, although he would also record with other percussion instruments, especially the bongo.