Mother cumbia: how Colombia's best fever conquered the world

This beat is currently made in lands as far from its homeland as Japan. How did it reach so far?

Source: Alcaldía de Barranquilla

By Diego Montoya Chica

Published in Revista Credencial

When that letter was sent to King Philip II from the distant Caribbean in 1580, the Spanish monarch held so big a power that his name resonated throughout much of the world. He was not only sovereign in Castile, Navarre, and Aragon—his domains also included Portugal, the Netherlands, Naples, Milan, Sicily, and some North African cities. His name had even been revered —albeit with some resistance— in England and Ireland, where he ruled as long as his wife, Mary I, daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, lived. In addition, the Iberian presence in America had already developed for almost a hundred years, and so the coffers of the crown grew with no shame.

It is hard to imagine what the King though when he read, in that piece of paper, the words of the governor of the Province of Santa Marta, Don Lope de Orozco. They were reproduced by Colombian researcher and writer José Guillermo Daniels in a 1998 publication: "The Indians imbibe and make merry with a small flute fashioned from cane, which they place between their lips and blow upon, thus creating a melody that seems as though it emanates from the very depths of hellfire".

According to Daniels, Don Lope de Orozco may have been referring to a predecessor of cumbia. And, if so, little the Iberians knew that such an 'infernal music' was to serve as a primordial seed for the most exuberant sounds that Colombia feels proud of, today, four centuries later. Not only Colombia: since the mid 20th century, Latin America as a whole has the rhythm close to its heart, which pumps to its happy marching.

"It has been a humble, working-class sound that has traveled all over the continent (...) doing for Colombia what no one else has done; only Gabriel García Márquez", says anthropologist Darío Blanco, author of the book La cumbia como matriz sonora de Latinoamérica (2019). "It has become our most powerful cultural representative, and Colombia ows it that recognition".

A GLOBAL BEAT

At the 2019 Colombia al Parque festival, Bogotá met the Japanese band Minyo Crusaders. One of their cumbias is called “串本節”. If it weren't for those written signs and for the language they so cheerfully sang in, the tune could have easily been recorded by people from Barranquilla. In 2020, the Colombians of Frente Cumbiero released a single in collaboration with Minyo Crusaders: La cumbia del monte Fuji, a brilliant version of a song composed by the Cartagenan Pedro Laza.

"The maximum cliché of the universal language of music is just true: it was our only vehicle for communicating. The resulting record has a super nice energy," says Mario Galeano, musical leader and producer of the Bogotan band and also a manager for the projects Los Pirañas and Ondatrópica (please, listen to their Cumbia espacial).

There’s a broad curiosity in Japan around Latin American music. There, a DJ collective called Tokio Sabroso throw crowded parties of tropical beat. This is a particularly distant reach in a chain of conquests made by cumbia at the global level, a journey with many stops, but in which three major appropriations stand out: the ones in Peru, Mexico and Argentina.

According to Galeano, in the 1960s, the rhythm found fertile ground in Peru, where "it crossed with the experiences of young 'surfers' and 'garagers' who listened to rock music. This gave rise to 'Amazonian cumbia' and 'chicha', characterized by its organs and electric guitars. Examples of this tradition are the bands Los Destellos, Los Mirlos, and Los Shapis."

Meanwhile, the Mexican case represents a significant turn in cumbia culture. It is attributed to Luis Carlos Meyer, from Barranquilla, having introduced cumbia to Mexico in 1943. This happened just as the 'golden age of cumbia' was sprouting in Colombia, led by figures like Esther Forero, Lucho Bermúdez, and José Barros. It is said that the first cumbia recorded in Mexican territory was Meyer's version of Cumbia Cienaguera, which marked the beginning of a tradition that not only produced musical legends like the y deceased Celso Piña —a major exporter of the rhythm, even contributing a song to the soundtrack of the film Babel (2006)— but also gave rise to subgenres.

Source: Marcianos.mx

Perhaps the most picturesque of these manifestations is found in the northern city of Monterrey, where the urban culture known as "Kolombia" developed unique dress codes: oversized buttoned-up shirts, wide trousers, and, above all, meticulously styled and sculpted hairstyles. It was there, as a result of an accidental manipulation of a turntable, that the so-called “slowed-down cumbia” (“cumbia rebajada”) was born: a version with fewer revolutions per minute and deep, low pitched sounds, characterized by a bold, and cheeky cadence. Experience the amusing Cumbia de Satanás, in its “rebajada” version. The entire scene from Monterrey is portrayed in the film Ya no estoy aquí (2020), available on Netflix, and in the documentary La Kolombia Regia (2013), by Vice.

The third significant wave is the Argentinian, whose explosion occurred in the 2000s, giving rise to what is known as 'Cumbia villera' since the Buenos Aires group Yerba Brava released an album with that title. “Villera” refers to what are commonly called “Villas miserias”: low-income neighborhoods in the country's main cities. "It is heavily influenced by the Mexican 'sonidero' style and adds a dimension of street lyrics dealing with marginalization, drugs, weapons, prostitutes, and nightlife," comments Galeano. One of the pioneering artists is Pablo Lascano, who, after popularizing the genre with his band Flor de Piedra, now leads another with almost two million monthly listeners on Spotify: Damas Gratis.

MARGINALITY

Credencial magazine delved with experts Galeano and Blanco into the reasons why cumbia quickly and successfully became popular beyond Colombian borders. Galeano attributes a fundamental role to distribution mechanisms: "It has to do with the 20th-century record industry, primarily the role of Discos Fuentes, which started exporting that sound by forming alliances with record labels from other parts of the continent (...).

The latest wave of internationalization is related to two things: internet allowing, since the 2000s, bypassing the filters of the record and radio industry —which, as is well known, are mafias with the interests of a few—. And also a series of DJs worldwide started collecting Colombian, Peruvian, and Mexican records, revitalizing a repertoire that was kept in oblivion", Galeano said.

The musician also identifies a key power in cumbia, stemming from the so-called 'triethnic' nature: "It is perhaps one of the most balanced genres in terms of contributions from Black, Indigenous, and European elements. In that sense, it adapts to many realities across different geographies of Latin America." According to this view, Indigenous elements are present in wind instruments, including the majestic male and female "gaitas" and the "millo" cane; Afro influences are found in percussion, particularly in the use of the “alegre” drum and the “llamador” one, while European contributions are in the singing, as well as in the traditional attire of the dancers: the lush, embroidered or sequined skirt —almost Sevillian— for women, and white pants, pañuelo, and hat for men.

Professor Blanco doesn't entirely differ but questions the glorification of the 'triethnic' concept: "It is a common place, an interesting one, to support an idea of equality and multiculturalism between the branches. And it may occur in these empty, mythological discourses, but it is not effectively fulfilled: there is racism, there are distinctions and cultural problems of non-homogeneity, of inequity", he says. According to the anthropologist, there is a key factor that made cumbia find solid ground throughout the continent, related to the idea of marginality mentioned by Galeano when describing the Argentinian Cumbia villera: the cultural clash between urban elites and farmers when the latter group, throughout the 20th century, migrated from provinces to capital cities.

"These migrations have ethnic aspects, as happened in the cases of Peru, Bolivia, or Mexico. But migrants encountered Anglophile and Europhile elites who didn't like their arrival: they identified them with bad taste. In that dispute, what we now understand as 'popular culture' is created," explains Blanco. And he continues: "The music that worked best for these migrants was this one because it brightened their lives, was easily danceable —much more than salsa, which is challenging for many, especially when we move away from the tropics— and because it narrated things related to their city life."

Could it be that the same reasons —joy and adaptability to marginal life— have made the cumbia fever not only exclusive to Latin America but a global one?

It might be nice to send King Felipe II of Spain a sample of the heritage derived from that demonic tunes that scandalized Governor Don Lope de Orozco in the 16th century. Perhaps playing Colombia Tierra Querida in front of his urn in the Royal Crypt of the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial would serve as such. There, in front of another twenty or so monarchs —each in their mortuary niche—, they might even wriggle in their tombs as their afterlife is brightened.

AND WHAT, AFTER ALL, IS CUMBIA?

Beyond the historical or geographical characteristics of the cumbia narrative explained in this article, for Professor Blanco, this genre is not an overly specific type of music but rather "a large generic one, with a certain 'beat,' one that is increasingly lost in digital versions but is identified with that famous onomatopoeia of the “guacharaca” (an instrument played by scratching it): ch, ch-ch-ch, ch-ch-ch, ch-ch-ch."

Mexican musician Celso Piña