CHAPTER 1

Cumbia Music in Colombia

Origins, Transformations, and Evolution ofa Coastal Music Genre

Costeño Music and Its Sociocultural Context

The Caribbean coastal region of Colombia is called the Costa, and its inhabitantsare referred to as costeños. The música costeña (coastal music) is a productof tri-ethnic syncretic cultural traditions including Amerindian, Spanish,and African elements (List 1980b, 1983), a merging that begins with thecolonial period and continues into the republican period on the CaribbeanCoast. Traditional music from the Colombian Caribbean coast expressesits tri-ethnic costeño identity in various vocal styles and musical forms andthrough its type of instruments and the way they are played. In this chapterI describe the aspects and circumstances under which cumbia, a coastalmusical genre and dance form of peasant origins characterized by an African-derivedstyle, has spread from its local origins in the valley of the MagdalenaRiver to acquire a Colombian national identity, becoming in a few years atransnational musical phenomenon.

Through its heterogeneity, coastal ethno-organology reflects the differentethnic and cultural contributions that shape costeño culture. Instrumental ensemblesare the product of this process of hybridization. They usually combineinstruments of indigenous origin, such as the gaita (vertical duct flute) andthe maraca (rattle); African origin, such as the tambor alegre and the llamador,single-headed drums of different sizes, the tambora (double-headed drum), thecaña de millo (a millet-cane transverse clarinet), the marímbula (a large wooden-boxlamellaphone), and the marimba de napa (musical bow); and European origin,such as the accordion and the wind instruments of the brass bands.

Most of the ritmos (as the musical genres for dancing are called) of Colombia'sAtlantic coastal region—such as tambora, bullerengue, chandé, mapalé,cumbia, porro, puya, fandango—show some "Africanisms" present in theirmusical structure:

The basic concept operative in most cases is the underlying reiterated cycleof pulses or time-span.... African influence is therefore to be found in thecomplex framework built above this foundation, involving pervasive offbeatphrasing, overlapping of call and response patterns, specific uses of thehemiola, and the employment of both disjunct and irregular cycles in the realizationof the underlying time-span. These traits plus the density of rhythmicstructure displayed in the performances of percussion ensembles relate costeñomusic to that of sub-Saharan Africa. (List 1980a: 16-17)

There are various occasions during the year when music is traditionally performed:during Catholic festivities, such as Christmas and Easter, on patronsaints days, and at carnivals and folk festivals (e.g., Festival Nacional de laCumbia at El Banco, Festival de Gaita in San Jacinto, Festival de la Tamborain Tamalameque, Festival del Porro in San Pelayo, and Festival de la LeyendaVallenata in Valledupar).

On the Caribbean coast, musical groups, or conjuntos (small instrumentalsets with four to five elements), represent a further metamorphosis or evolutionof the earlier tambora, which, spread among the black communitiesalong the Magdalena River, stands as an archetype. The tambora ensembleconsists of percussion and vocals only, including a conical drum with a singlehead (currulao), a cylindrical drum with a double head (tambora), and chantin the form of a call-and-response pattern performed by a male or female solosinger alternating with a chorus of women (cantadoras) and accompanied bythe palmoteo (hand-clapping) or beating of the tablitas or palmetas (woodenpaddles) of a chorus of women singing the refrain (Carbó Ronderos 2003). Itsrepertoire includes the bailes cantados (sung dances) — such as bullerengue,tambora, chandé, berroche, guacherna—and songs in call-and-response form(with a solo singer and chorus), accompanied by drums and handclap.

As an expression of Afro-Colombian music culture, tamboras are quitecommon in the region considered the birthplace of cumbia, the Mompoxarea. Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, many palenques, villagesformed by fugitive slaves (cimarrones) during the colonial period, sprangup in this area. In fact, from the organological point of view, the line-up ofcoastal conjuntos consists of drums that make up the tambora, to which thetransverse clarinet, the caña de millo (cane of millet), or two vertical...