Cumbia dancers at the Barranquilla carnival of Colombia
A highly rhythmic style of music whose origins lie in a West African, 19th-century slave dance, Colombian cumbia is considered to be the mother of most dance music from northern South America. It embraces the area’s Native American, African, and European influences
The term “cumbia" comes from the Mandingo word cumbe. The cumbe originated in Guinea in the Bata zone of Africa, where it was performed by workers on banana plantations using traditional percussion and cane flutes. Holding candles, the workers danced to the slow beat of the music. (The shuffling step supposedly originated in the attempts of slaves to dance while wearing leg irons.) Also known as the cumbiamba, the dance was introduced into Colombia during slave times by the blacks living on the Atlantic (Caribbean) coast. During the colonial period, the cumbia was found primarily within the provinces of Cartagena and Santa Marta, and the valleys of Sinu and Magdalena. Over the years, European and Native American influences changed the cumbia, transforming it into a mixed cultural tradition. Between 1940 and 1950, local bands decided to increase the tempo of the traditional cumbia, and by the 1960s it had become a popular dance music throughout northern South America.
Characterized by a compulsive, irresistible backbeat, the cumbia combines European melodies, African rhythms, and Native American harmonic components.
Photographer: Jairo Alberto Castilla Bedoya
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