What is "cumbia"

n. A traditional style of Colombian dance and music, or a piece in this style

Cumbia is a dance-oriented music genre popular throughout Latin America. It began as a courtship dance practiced among the African population on the Caribbean coasts of Colombia and Panama. It later mixed with Amerindian and European instruments, steps and musical characteristics and spread throughout Latin America and abroad. While other genres of Latin American music have remained associated with specific countries or regions, cumbia has grown to be one of the most widespread and unifying musical genres to emerge from Latin America.

Cumbia is a folkloric rhythm and dance from Colombia. It has components from three cultures, principally indigeous and Black African and, in lesser extent, white ( Spanish), fruit of a long and intense interbreeding between these cultures during the Conquest and the Colony. The researcher Guillermo Abadía Morales in his "Compendium of Colombian folklore", Volume 3, # 7, published in 1962, states that "this explains the origin in the zambo conjugation of musical air by the fusion of the melancholy indigenous gaita flute or caña de millo, i.e., Tolo or Kuisí, of Kuna or Kogi ethnic groups, respectively, and the cheerful and impetuous resonance from African drums. The ethnographic council has been symbolized in the different dancing roles that correspond to each sex." The presence of these cultural elements can be appreciated thus:

• In instrumentation are the drums of African origin; maracas, guache and the whistles ( caña de millo and gaitas) of indigenous origin; whereas the songs and coplas are a contribution of Spanish poetics, although adapted later.
• Presence of sensual movements, distinctly charming, seductive, characteristic of dances with African origins.
• The vestments have clear Spanish features: long polleras, lace, sequins, hoop earrings, flower headdresses and intense makeup for women; white shirt and pants, knotted red shawl around the neck and hat for men.

From the 1940s, commercial or modern cumbia spread to the rest of Latin America, after which it became popular throughout the continent following various commercial adaptations, such as Argentine cumbia, Bolivian cumbia, Chilean cumbia, Dominican cumbia, Ecuadorian cumbia, Mexican cumbia, Peruvian cumbia, Salvadoran cumbia, Uruguayan cumbia and Venezuelan cumbia, among others.