MUSIC OF COLOMBIA – CONTEMPORARY
Among the numerous cultural attractions that Colombia has to offer, music is possibly the most representative. A long list of dances and musical styles is part of Colombian heritage and remains, to this day, central to its culture.
The Andean nation enjoys a diverse repertoire of music styles, rhythms, and dances, each of which has its peculiarities in each region.
Colombia, a country known for its rich musical heritage, is experiencing a sonic revolution with artists who are reshaping the soundscape by blending traditional rhythms with contemporary influences. While traditional Colombian beats like cumbia, salsa and champeta continue to be cherished, a wave of musicians is pushing boundaries and taking the nation’s music to new heights.
These dances come from diverse backgrounds, as the country has been influenced by centuries of migration and colonisation, absorbing and mixing European, African, Indian, Andean, and even Persian cultural influences. This exotic blend is evident in Colombia’s exceptional musical mix.
Colombia has more than thirty typical dances and rhythms, making it an important music exporter to Latin America and the world. Nonetheless, three dances stand out for their popularity and resonance in today – cumbia, vallenato, and, although originally Cuban, the extremely celebrated salsa.
In general, Colombian music blends European-influenced guitar and song structure with large gaita flutes and percussion instruments from the indigenous population, while its percussion structure and dance forms come from Africa.
Colombian music reflects a wealth of musical influences that have given birth to a dynamic musical environment. Some of the most popular music genres that have marked Colombian music with special relevance are the cumbia, vallenato, joropo, salsa, bambuco, rock, pop, and classical music.
Cumbia is perhaps Colombia’s most popular music genre. It originated as a courtship dance among West African slaves. Initially, it was performed using only drums and claves, then over time it incorporated other influences, including those from the indigenous Kogui and Kuna tribes (flutes and percussion) and those from Spaniards (European guitars) and Germans (accordion).
Cumbia thus emerged from this musical and cultural syncretism between Indians, Africans and Europeans in the Magdalena delta region. Cumbia combines the contributions of these distinct cultural groups. It is performed in groups by couples who dance in a circle to the beat of the drums, while holding a lit candle in their hands.
The principal dances are the Garabato, which represents a mystical battle between life and death, while The Congo represents African tradition with its movement and also the memory of slavery.
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN TRADITIONAL AND MODERN CUMBIA
Cumbia has evolved in many ways from its beginnings on the coast of Colombia to today:
- Instruments: Early cumbia music used many types of drums, including the tambor alegre and llamador (single-headed drums) and the tambora (double-headed drum) as well as a flute called a gaita, maracas and a gauche, a tube filled with seeds.
Modern cumbia music includes instruments like accordions, new types of drums, guitar, and horn instruments. - Rhythms: Traditional cumbia uses a rhythmic pattern called the clave, which is common in Afro-Cuban music. Examples are reggaetón and reggae, which have a triple-pulse or duple-pulse.
Modern cumbia will often use the Latin alegre style with offbeat rhythms and improvisation.
- Vocals: Traditional Colombian cumbia was almost always instrumental and had little to no lyrics, only traditional cumbia dances, while modern cumbia adds lyrics and vocals, including African, Spanish and other languages. Today, mainstream pop music is commonly heard throughout the country, albeit with a Colombian twist. Cumbia is a popular music that has made its way out of Colombia and can now be heard and danced to all over the world.
The Cumbia originated as a courtship dance along the Colombian coast near the border with Panama and has since been exported to other countries, which have adapted both the music and the dance. Cumbia has become the new punk and just like punk decades ago, Cumbia offers new generations of young Latin Americans their own music that they can reinvent in their own style and create a positive identity
Five Popular Cumbia Bands and Artists
There are many artists who have popularized cumbia and transformed it into what we know today:
- La Sonora Dinamita:
A Colombian band that was formed in the 1960s and became one of the first popular cumbia music groups. The band has a history of featuring women lead vocalists, including Vilma Díaz, known as La Diva de La Cumbia, and Mélida Yará.
- Luis Carlos Meyer Castandet:
Luis is considered the one who brought cumbia to Mexico and made the genre popular with songs like La Historí and La Cumbia Cienaguera.
- Los Ángeles Azules:
A Mexican cumbia group that plays cumbia sonidera, a form of cumbia that incorporates synthesizers and electronic music styles.
- Aniceto Molina Aguirre:
A Colombian musician of cumbia whose songs, such as La Cumbia Sampuesana, became extremely popular in all of Latin America.
- Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto:
A traditional folkloric music group that began playing cumbia-style music in the 1940s. They are considered one of the few bands that have preserved the original traditions of the cumbia style.
Even for those who have never visited Colombia, undoubtedly you have heard Cumbia beats and seen Cumbia dance. Shakira, one of the country’s most recognized artists, has been an amazing ambassador of this genre.
Both Vallenato and Cumbia were born in the fertile soil of Colombia, a country that has borrowed and made Caribbean salsa its own. Vallenato, born a century ago, is based on the accordion.
A polka-inspired folk music that originated in the Caribbean coast of Colombia, the name comes from the city of Valledupar, where the music was first popularized.
Vallenato is a combination of the accordion, the cajav (a small drum), and the guacharaca (a percussion instrument). This type of music, whose name literally means from the valley, originates from the Caribbean coast of Colombia. A fusion of Spanish minstrel music and West African griots (storytellers) sung by local farmers, this music attracted huge popularity during the 20th century.
Vallenato has gone beyond the borders of its region of origin to conquer the hearts of Colombians and music lovers the world over.
This genre is characterized by its literary content and narrative style. Vallenato was considered for years the music of the lower classes and farmers.
However, as mentioned earlier, after the mid-20th century, it gradually started infiltrating every social group.
Artists such as Carlos Vives, one of the most well-known modern Latino musicians, have played a crucial role in popularising Vallenato, fusing its traditional rhythms with modern genres such as pop and rock. These artists have begun mixing vallenato with contemporary rhythms, developing a modern variant. It has been transformed into a vibrant pop rhythm and spread throughout the country and much of the world.
Champeta is now more than a music genre or a dance – it has become a movement. Champeta began in the early ’80s among Afro-Colombians, mainly around Cartagena de Indias.
The word champeta originally described a knife used in the region at work, in the kitchen or sometimes as an offensive weapon. Over time, the term champetudo started to be used by the elites of the city to refer to those residents of the more outlying districts of Cartagena, who tended to be poorer and of African descent.
Champeta is a fusion of rhythms from Africa (soukous, highlife, mbaqanga, juju), the Antilles (ragga, Haitian music) and those of Indigenous and Afro-Colombian origins (bullerengue, mapalé, zambapalo and chalupa).
Champeta also has evolved over the last few decades, being passed from being a music genre and dance of the so-called poor, to being even one of the favourite music genres of the middle and upper classes in Colombia.
Bambuco is a folk genre that originated in the Andean highlands and is a fusion between Spanish and indigenous styles, although there are some African roots as well. It is traditionally performed with a bandola, guitar or mandolin and a small 12-string instrument known as a tiple.
Rhythmically, Bambuco is related to the Currulao, which is at times referred to as Bambuco Viejo (Old Bambuco). However, Andean Bambuco has a much more melancholic spirit.
Bambuco was popular all over Colombia in the 1920s and the 1930s; however, its popularity has not been sustained and nowadays it is not as it used to be. Even so, its rhythms have influenced many other modern genres.
Interestingly, over recent years, traditional music has regained much of its popularity thanks to young musicians. One of them is Katie Jaimes, who was born in Ireland but at two years of age her family moved to Colombia, where she grew up and lives presently.
Salsa spread throughout the Caribbean and landed in Colombia at the end of the 1960s. Since then, Cali and Barranquilla have become the main bastions of Salsa in Colombia, which is nonetheless heard throughout the world and is the most popular music in nightclubs.
When most people think of Salsa, they associate it with Puerto Rico or Cuba. So why would a city in Colombia call itself the World’s Salsa Capital?
Cali, in southwestern Colombia, adopted Salsa music as its own in the 1970s and today this urban metropolis claims to be the epicentre of the genre. While many see Cali as one of Latin America’s biggest consumers of Salsa music, most do not know that the city has its own Salsa dance style, distinct from the more widespread styles originating in Cuba.
As salsa spread, much of Colombia started dancing along in a similar style to the Colombian Cumbia, a folkloric courtship dance. Cali went a step further. The result? An exhilarating dance that feels more frenetic, playful and explosive than it does romantic or graceful.
Salsa Colombian style is really all about the fast footwork. Since those days, the style has permeated all of Colombia, including Medellín, where the whole world and their wife dances Salsa in the way trail-blazed by their neighbours in Cali.
Colombia today has countless Salsa bands and many excellent salseros (salsa singers). Blue-chip names include Joe Arroyo, from the Caribbean coast and the group Niche from Cali.
Today, thanks to its widespread popularity, the Grammy Awards now have a category for Best Cumbia/Vallenato. Other popular folk music like the porro, pasillo (a Colombian waltz) and the currulao have been widely appreciated.
Salsa, reguetón and merengue are other Colombian musical styles that are heard in late-night venues and other locations. World-famous artists like Shakira and Juanes have helped propel the music of Colombia all over the world.
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