An Ever-Evolving Musical Genre, Cumbia Has Been Embraced By Latin America
You’ll hear it on the streets of Buenos Aires, in the towns of northern Mexico and also in the Hispanic immigrant communities here in Atlanta. It’s called Cumbia, and it’s one of the most popular musical genres in the Latin American world.
But while Cumbia is part of mainstream music culture in many Latin American countries today, it started out as the music of only the lower class in Colombia’s Caribbean coastal region.
So how exactly did its popularity grow? That’s part of what Hector Fernandez L’Hoeste will address in his upcoming lecture at the Atlanta History Center as part of the American Sabor program starting at noon Saturday. He directs the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at Georgia State University and is also the editor of a recent essay collection called, “Cumbia!: Scenes of a Latin American Music Genre.”
WABE’s Stephannie Stokes sat down with Professor L’Hoeste ahead of the lecture to discuss Cumbia and its migration across the Americas.
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