Cumbia

Dance music from Colombia's Caribbean coast, where gaita flute, scraper and drums braid three traditions

Related

ModernAccordionSyncopation

Cumbia is dance music from Colombia's Caribbean coast, where gaita flute, scraper and drums braid African, Indigenous and Spanish elements.

Origins and era

In the nineteenth century musicians along the Magdalena river and around Barranquilla and Cartagena combined African drums, the Indigenous gaita flute and Spanish melody into cumbia; it was first played at festivals, funerals and river gatherings before it entered dance halls. In the 1940s Lucho Bermúdez and Pacho Galán expanded it into a wind band and took it into dance halls in Medellín and Bogotá. Through the 1950s and 1960s records carried it to Peru, Argentina, Chile and Mexico, where it became chicha, cumbia villera and sonidero.

What you hear

Tempos mostly run from 90 to 110 BPM in 2/4 or 4/4. The scraper rasps continuously off the beat, drums hold a steady step, and the bass plays short figures on the strong beats, usually in two-bar phrases that end off the beat and push forward. Melody comes from gaita flute, accordion or brass, phrases repeat at the end, and a chorus answers. The feel is cyclical and built for long dancing, with sections marked by instruments entering rather than by a hook.

Key figures

Lucho Bermúdez and Pacho Galán made cumbia a big-band music, Andrés Landero carried the accordion into dance halls and records, José Barros wrote a large repertoire, Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto kept the rural gaita version, and Totó la Momposina carried Caribbean coastal singing to the world stage; in Peru Los Mirlos made chicha with electric guitar.

Lineage

Caribbean Colombian drumming and gaita traditions, Spanish melody and African rhythm feed in; chicha, cumbia villera, Mexican sonidero and digital cumbia come out, with sonidero turning it into street sound through huge speakers and remixes in the 1970s. It was among the first Latin American dance musics to travel across borders.

Common misunderstandings

Cumbia is not one fixed rhythm, since national versions differ widely. Nor is it a catch-all for tropical pop, as the rural Colombian line-up and the ballroom wind band are two different things. The accordion is not the only lead; gaita flute and brass matter just as much.

Sources

• Héctor Fernández L'Hoeste and Pablo Vila, Cumbia! Scenes of a Migrant Latin American Music Genre（Duke University Press, 2013），用于核对各国分支
• The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., entry Cumbia，用于交叉核对乐器与年代

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.