Cumbia [ˈkumbja] is a music genre popular throughout Latin America. The Cumbia originated in Colombia's Caribbean coastal region and Panama, from the musical and cultural fusion of Native Colombians and Panamanians, slaves brought from Africa, and the Spanish during colonial times in the old country of Pocabuy, which is located in Colombia's Momposina Depression and in the northeast of Panama, in the ancient palenques of the Congo nation.
Cumbia began as a courtship dance practiced among the African population, which was later mixed with Amerindian steps and European and African instruments and musical characteristics. Cumbia is very popular in the Andean region and the Southern Cone, and is for example more popular than the salsa in many parts of these regions.
It is mainly asserted that cumbia's basic beat evolved from Guinean cumbé music. However, this basic beat can be found in music of Yoruba (in the rhythm associated with the god Obatala), and in other musical traditions across West Africa. Cumbia started in the Caribbean coast of the south of Central America and in the north of South America, in what is now the northern coast of Colombia, mainly in or around the Momposina Depression during the period of Spanish colonization and on the northeast of Panama. Spain used its ports to import African slaves, who tried to preserve their musical traditions and also turned the drumming and dances into a courtship ritual. Cumbia was mainly performed with just drums and claves.
Slaves in Colombia were later influenced by the sounds of New World instruments from the Kogui and Kuna tribes, who lived between the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and the Montes de María in Colombia. Millo flutes, Gaita flutes, and the guacharaca (an instrument similar to the güiro) were instruments borrowed from these New World tribes. The interaction between Africans and Natives of the New World under the Spanish caste system created a mixture from which the gaitero (cumbia interpreter) appeared, with a defined identity by the 1800s. (These gaiteros are not the same as the Venezuelan Zulian gaiteros.) The European guitars were added later through Spanish influence. According to legend, the accordion was added after a German cargo ship carrying the instruments sank as the cargo of accordions washed ashore on the northwest coast of Colombia. However, it's more likely that German immigrants brought the instrument to Barranquilla in the 19th century, and it was later adopted by the local population. Cumbia is often played in modern African celebrations.
In Panama, the processes that shaped the culture and idiosyncrasies of the Colombian Caribbean through the three aspects (Hispanic, black and Indian) from the Spanish colonial period until today, also occurred in the isthmus. Research in the field talks about their appearance in the Colonial era. Slaves in Panama sang the cumbia in Spanish and African dialect, with the accompaniment of drums only. The Mejorana a type of guitar and the Rabel were added later through Spanish influence. The Indian influence will came in form of the Saloma, a modulation of the vocal cords, a rudimentary high sonority cry that forms musical melodies.
The Cumbia is mentioned in many historical references, travel diaries, and newspapers of Panama during the 19th century. The oldest news that exists in Panama of the Cumbia, dates from the early 19th century, from the family of Don Ramón Vallarino Obarrio, where slaves dance Cumbia in his living room. This story was passed from generation to generation since Doña Rita Vallarino Obarrio to Doña Matilde Obarrio, who published it in his "Sketch of Panama Colonial Life" in the early 30th century the XX.
The basic rhythm structure is 2/4. Due to its origins, both African and New World Native influences can be felt in Cumbia.
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