![]() In the '50s, he recorded what many think was the first cumbia recorded outside of Colombia, La Cumbia Cienaguera. Luis Carlos Meyer Castandet moved to Mexico, where he worked with orchestra director Rafael de Paz. Its shuffle spread throughout Latin America on this week's show, we get a visit from Eduardo Diaz, director of the Smithsonian Latino Center, who tells us, among other things, about how cumbia was brought into Mexico and cultivated as part of the Mexican identity.Ĭumbia is one of the sounds of Mexico today, but it wasn't always like that: It took a stellar Colombian musician showing up with a suitcase full of tunes and beats. Brought to Colombia around the time it became a Spanish colony, it was heavily influenced by the instruments of native tribes, such as the gaita flutes and the guacharacas. Felix and I are very different - we are far apart in origin and culture and generation - but our musical backbone is the same.Įngraved in each vertebra of cumbia is the history of Latin America itself. ![]() At every party and gathering, it was there, blaring, sometimes in the background, sometimes enjoyed in song and dance. He said it was always part of him, through his parents. I asked co-host Felix Contreras when he fell in love with cumbia whether he rejected it and came back to it.
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