African Diaspora and Colombian Popular Music in the Twentieth Century Author(s): Peter Wade Reviewed work(s): Source:

Black Music Research Journal, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Fall, 2008), pp. 41-56 Published by: Center for Black Music Research - Columbia College Chicago and University of Illinois Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25433805 . Accessed: 25/01/2012 17:45
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African

Diaspora in the Music

and

Colombian

Popular

Twentieth Peter Wade

Century1

In this paper I argue that the concept of disapora is problematic insofar as it implies a process of traffic outwards from an origin point (usually seen as geographical, cultural and/or "racial"). This origin is often seen as being a key to the definition of diaspora?without into it, the concept descends want incoherence (Brubaker 2005). I generalized inwhich of a concept of diaspora, usefulness the a space of (which is not to say that imagination itmay also be that) and in which the connections are as important, or more of the diaspora points between the outliers to argue for the continued as "origin" is understood it is imaginary, although between the "outlying" so, than the connections

and the origin. from simple concerns Analytically speaking, diaspora has to be distanced with uni-directional outward dispersals from a single origin point (which I think the connotations). may also carry certain masculinist Specifically, but one where concept of diaspora points at a kind of cultural continuity "cultural continuity appears as the mode of cultural change" (Sahlins 1993, For theorists such as Hall and Gilroy, diaspora serves as an antidote to 19). what Gilroy calls "camp thinking" and its associated essentialism: diasporic identities are "creolized, and chronically syncretized, hybridized impure
as part of the Center for Black Music 14-17, 2008, in the ses Chicago, February sion "Black Diaspora Formations: Musical and Historiography." I am Identification, History, to the CBMR for the invitation to participate in the conference. grateful form 1. This paper was Conference in abbreviated first given on Black Music Research,

Research's

Peter

Wade

lications Ethnicity (Chicago

include

is a professor Blackness

in Latin America University 2002). Press,

of social anthropology at the of Manchester. His pub University and Race Mixture Press, 1993), Race and (Johns Hopkins University Race and Nation: M?sica (Pluto Press, 1997), Music, Tropical in Colombia 2000), and Race, Nature and Culture: An Anthropological Perspective

(Pluto Press,

Black Music ? 2008 by

Research

the Board

Journal Vol. 28, No. 2, Fall 2008 of Trustees of the University of Illinois

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which cultural forms" (Gilroy 2000,129). This is an important perspective, term refers to the everyday the analytic is both analytic and descriptive: on of identities as they exist in the world. But the emphasis phenomenon runs the risk of sidelining is right to say that continuities. Hall hybridization the rich cultural roots from Asian and African aesthetic traditions that feed context "re-experienced U.K. black experience are, in a diasporic through the categories of the present" (Hall 1996, 448), but this does not entirely those roots by the that is often accorded capture the sense of continuity are interpreting their own lives. people who For Brubaker (2005), diaspora as "thing" does not really exist as an ana form lytic concept; instead the analytic term should be used in adjectival stance or attitude adopted by to refer to the phenomenon of the diasporic or create identities that refer to a homeland. people who seek to maintain it reflects the notion of cultural continuity This is also important because or sameness, which may persist alongside of?in the (or rather because sense of mutually cultural change. The point about diaspora constituting) as an analytic concept is that it reflects that continuity, both in terms of an of people who insider perspective (as one might expect) interpret cultural in a selective and appropriative that way, and in terms of grasping change as a result of these interpretations, as something that, partly continuity Tradition is a term that creates a real cultural complex of interconnections. but, rather in passing, he gives fairly comprehensively, Gilroy deconstructs it some residual room that I think isworth repeating here:
[I]t may evasive, as a way that from arise make rninimal sense to try the the to reserve that make the these idea of tradition for the nameless,

qualities to speak about as much from

apparently transformation cultures

the affiliation

of diaspora

possible... of connectedness processes magical cultures of Africa by disapora the traces of Africa to Africa and

diaspora

conversations

as that

those diaspora

cultures enclose.

(Gilroy 1993,199)

should refer to what Gilroy admits as I think the very concept of diaspora routes and roots, of a tension between tradition here: rather than conceiving of existence of routes. the possibility the roots constitute that Iwill present here indi As the history of Colombian popular music a series of multilateral cates, musical processes are characterized by exchang these exchanges are dynamic and often unpredictable. However, es, which in specific ways, by different sets of are always being read and interpreted are interested certain in constructing who and commentators, audiences an important role. Diaspora ones in which often narratives, origins play and sameness, may then serve a function as a narrative about commonality it is an empirical question as to the within diversity and difference, although and concepts that appear in such a narrative: diaspora may not terminology

Wade

African

Diaspora

and Colombian

Popular Music

43

appear as such. From an analytic point of view, diaspora can also serve such an analytic concern with a function, cultural connec identifying framing tions of a kind that are not captured by terms such as transnationalism, which in a continuous that cross national boundaries tends to refer to processes fashion and may create a kind of third non-nationalized space; or global refers to the globalizing spread of some economic, ism/globalization, which and cultural processes and their interaction with "local" spaces; or political captures a specific kind of political project. Pan-Africanism, which in and musical This paper will explore the idea of diaspora exchanges in Colombian that from the relation to changes popular music, specifically Caribbean coastal region of the country, often identified as more or less Af Itwill trace changes that occurred from the 1920s onward, rican influenced. with the commercialization of cumbia and porro and related styles, and look around champeta, currulao, and rap. also at more recent developments

The Early Twentieth Century and Bambuco

a in Latin America were beginning In the early twentieth century, nations with extensive rural-urban migration and process of rapid urbanization, of urban space into class stratified zones. These societies the differentiation became internal frontiers were pushed back in ag capitalized: increasingly national industries grew, and economies were linked gressive colonizations, more and more into global circuits of exchange. Cultural nationalism was and expressed itself in musical nationalism. Part of this was widespread in art music the appropriation of "traditional" elements circles (B?hague of national popular music 1996), but more important was the emergence samba and maxixe in Brazil, danza in Puerto Rico, styles: tango in Argentina, ranchera inMexico, son, rumba, and guaracha in Cuba, and so on. In many these were musical in the working-class barrios ways, styles that developed of Latin American often by adapting European cities, styles and combin lesser extent Amerindian) (and to a much ing them with African-derived aesthetics and rhythms, and that were then fastened upon by the middle and made into acceptable national sym classes, "cleaned up," modernized, bols.2 "In the typical pattern," writes Manuel, "lower class syncretic forms more musical and gradually percolate upwards, acquiring sophistication

2. This process has been widely for different et described styles. See, for example: Manuel al. (1995) for the Caribbean in general; Pacini (1995) and Austerlitz (1995) on bachata and meren notes that the gue; Savigliano (1995) on tango; Moore (1997) on son in Cuba. Pacini (1995,232) of working-class musics is a common emergence popular processes phenomenon following of urbanization and that styles as varied as U.S. blues and laika and polka, Nigerian juju, Greek Trinidadian "have eventually up into the mainstream." calypso percolated

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come to be eventually enjoyed by the upper classes," perhaps also gaining the status of national music (Manuel et al. 1995,15). This gives us a general pattern which is useful for comparative purposes, it rather oversimplifies at work. the processes It is necessary to although the very syncretic nature of the lower-class fed off forms, which appreciate a host of different musical currents. This helps us to avoid falling into an inwhich model the musical is formed entirely oppositional style in question subaltern classes, located "in the barrios," and then taken and modernized by class. There is no simple opposition between the local and by the middle the national these and the global), nor between the traditional (nor between and the modern. "in the barrio" was actually created Instead, the music in complex processes of interchange, class mediation, and appropriation in ambiguous that worked between and city, between social spaces country classes and, not infrequently, between the national and the international. In Colombia, the music that took pride of place from the perspective of was the Andean the bambuco, a style in 3/4 or 6/8 time capital, Bogot?, played by string ensembles (Varney 2001). Itwas said, by some, to be of in one sense, denied Africa and blackness were, Spanish origin. mainly in this type of musical in another sense, they were both nationalism, yet, I have argued elsewhere that Latin American absently present. ideologies link nation-building and the formation of national and fusion, driven of racial-cultural amalgamation fundamentally by sexual relations across racial and ethnic barriers, but also by inter-racial conviviality?while they seem to deny racial diversity in the image of a homogenous mixed and culture (Stutzman population reiterate the presence of such diversity (Wade 1981), in fact constantly roots are perpetually evoked and, although 2005). Black and indigenous such ancestral reference may marginalize actually existing populations, to the presence of blackness there may well also be a constant reference in not infrequently and indigenousness within the contemporary nation, and racist terms (Wade 1993). highly negative Thus in Colombia, the dominance of bambuco was challenged by other provinces, who saw themselves being sidelined by central Bogot? politi itwas also cal control (Santamar?a Delgado 2007), but more importantly or absence of African some debate about the presence influ the subject of to ences in it (Mi?ana Blasco 1997; Ochoa 1997; Wade 2000). References nascent nationalism from the start: the bambuco date from 1819 and evoke one during a battle against in 1824, a Colombian regimental band played forces in Peru (Varney 2001, 128). One of the earliest references Spanish for starting the sup later blamed to the origins of bambuco?a reference in Jorge roots?was that bambuco had African notion unfounded posedly in Hispanic which became an important work Isaacs' novel Maria (1867), of mestizaje?which identity to processes

Wade

African

Diaspora

and Colombian

Popular Music

45

in the African romantic literature. He talked of the bambuco as originating and seems to have the Senegal-Mali of Bambuk borderlands) (on region set the tone for common opinion from then through to the early twentieth to that century: "The bambuco being a music which bears no resemblance nor to to assert of the American airs, it is not flippant aborigines Spanish from Africa by the first slaves" (Isaacs, cited in A?ez that itwas brought 1970 [1951], 25).3 this version of events, but others at the No one seems to have contested time did not specifically refer to it. The politician and essayist Jos? Mar?a wrote an elegy to the bambuco in a women's El Hogar, magazine, Samper in 1868 and his emphasis was on its national character: "[There is] nothing more national, nothing more patriotic than this melody counts all which its authors.... It is the soul of our pueblo [people, na Colombians among into melody" tion] made (Samper 1868). Yet Samper was very inclusive in his approach, and his piece runs through most of the regions of Colombia, variants of the style and intoning: "every race, every mestizo describing has given it [the bambuco] variant, every group of our diverse populations to the Cauca region, their particular character." He refers, for example, where he says "the men have remembered Cain too much"?a likely refer ence to the idea that the mark of Cain was blackness in of the skin?where the local bambucos "one can feel the groan of the black man, once a slave... one can perceive the imitative character of the mulatto." (It isworth noting that Samper does not include the Caribbean coastal regions of Colombia? see below.) there was a polemical debate about the origins By the 1920s, however, one member of the style and in a backlash movement, of the Academy of stated bluntly: "The version which holds that the bambuco might be History African is absurd" (Enrique Otero D'Costa, 1932, cited inA?ez 1970 [1951], later recounted in his book on bambuco, the polemic 37). Jorge A?ez, who "The black Continent to do with has nothing the bambuco, either agreed: or musically" (1970 [1951], 38). historically as the soul of the nation in the literate elite, who Represented by elements were not averse to theories of African or at least included black peo origins view by the (albeit "imitative") of the style, the dominant ple as exponents or absent. Yet even influences were minimal 1930s debate was that African reiterated the possible presence of blackness in the nation. Even denying direct African origins, "Africa" was being invoked through has a heavily concepts such as syncopation?bambuco syncopated rhythm this was already a diasporic Africa, as the 1930s debate (Varney 2001)?and was in a context inwhich musical was in transnationalism being conducted when
3. All translations from Spanish are my own.

this debate

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recording industry. From the 1910s, in the United and records, mostly made imported gramophones music from Cuba, Mexico, Argentina, the United States, and Europe States; was listened to in private and radios public places. In the 1920s, short-wave broadcasts from abroad, and after 1930 radio stations were started picked up in Colombia itself. The more or less perceptible presence of blackness in U.S. Cuban son, and Argentinean also subject to debates, de jazz, tango??though cases?was in the Latin American thus part of the nials, and white-washings for discussions in Colombian music in the 1930s. about blackness backdrop As we will see below, by the 1940s, there was public concern in some circles about the influence of black music on Colombian society, and itmay well be in bambuco by Otero, DaCosta, that these rejections of blackness and A?ez were a reflection of those concerns. One would need to delve more deeply into the varied discourses about these musical styles in different countries, a but Iwould hypothesize about what "African" or perception widespread like inmusic, "black" influences sounded ideas clustered around the drum, the importance of rhythm, the presence of syncopation, and so on. This would an constitute space. imagined diasporic The of Cumbia and Porro

full swing Colombia

in the form of the international

Emergence

a form of about bambuco were basically Debates about ancestry. Although in the Colombian bambuco existed as a contemporary Pacific coastal style "black region" par excellence under of the nation; marginal, region?the into the and about 80-90 percent black?this entered barely developed, It has been seen as a totally different kind of music debates. by folklor and drums (Abad?a Morales marimbas ista, played on African-descended 1970; Marulanda 1983; Davidson 1979), and I have not seen it referred to on bambuco. However, at all in earlier writings about black discussions and bambuco were, by the 1930s, taking place in the context ness, Africa, and Europhile for light-skinned of contemporary?and elites, much more in popular music. of blackness disturbing?manifestations ensem From about the 1930s, styles of music associated with peasant to be orchestrated town brass bands began and provincial bles by local in line-up to those performing all over the Americas, similar "jazz-bands" which were playing an international repertoire of styles linked to specific countries?Cuban tango, Brazilian maxixe, U.S. fox guaracha, Argentinean trans so forth?and trots, and effectively styles that had already become and were simply labeled canciones (songs). These peasant and nationalized in the Caribbean coastal region of Colombia brass-band genres originated but and were known by various labels: cumbia and porro came to dominate, others terms such as gaita, mapal?, and fandango were also common. From

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African

Diaspora

and Colombian

Popular Music

47

of the interior of the country, the Caribbean coastal region and still is, seen as a relatively black place, in keeping with its tropical climate and its location on the Caribbean basin. These musical cumbia and mapal??were thus also associated not only styles?and especially with peasant and provincial but specifically with black origins. Indigenous in the gaita (a Spanish term influences were also said to be strong, especially meaning "pipe" or "horn" but used to refer to a particular type of vertical cane flute of indigenous but also the cumbia, which was represented origin), as being a fusion of black and 1962). ancestry indigenous (Zapata Olivella In their jazz-band orchestrations, it into the elite social these genres made coastal cities, such as Cartagena clubs of the Caribbean and Barranquilla? some conservative action directed at the perceived vulgar despite rearguard thence into the clubs of the cities of the ity and blackness of the music?and interior such as Bogot?, Medell?n, and Cali, where they also met some stiff in the 1940s was distinctly resistance at first. Press coverage at unfriendly times. One columnist referred to "An explosive African-sounding orchestra the feeling and simplicity typi [which] now threatens festivities from which are absent" (El Tiempo, December celebrations cal of previous 17,1940, p. 5). One letter-writer accused the music of the Coste?os from the Carib (people bean coastal region of the country) of being "noisy and strident rhythms, of the savagery and brutishness manifestations of the Coste?os and Carib beans, savage and backward peoples." He added later that the styles were "savage and deafening noises, and they express neither feelings, nor sadness, nor longings, nor happiness they may express an orgiastic and (although bacchanalian rather on the contrary these airs imitate very well happiness), in the jungle or the forest by a pack of the racket made parrots monkeys, or other wild animals" {Semana, November 15, 1947, December 13,1947). Another writer, Jos? Gers, described dances in Bogot? where contemporary "the drums beat, the gentlemen of the orchestra screech with a tragic fury, as if they were seasoning a joyful picnic of some 'mister' [i.e., a white boss] in a jungle in Oceania" (S?bado, June 3,1944, p. 13). This columnist, at length on "The Civilization of Jos? Gers, was writing Color." He argued that "the blacks have decided to avenge themselves of the bitter destiny that they have inherited"?that from Africa, is, abduction "But now," he went on, slavery and exploitation. the perspective as a whole was,
[I]n our on their times, praise advancement be to God!, and when the whites the blacks begin had congratulated to wreak their themselves long-awaited for

culture,

vengeance
previous has been orchestra cumbia,

in a subtle fashion, and they direct the attack against the thing their
held most black dear: art. infiltrated with the by maracas, the against In any and their social drums art. Modern music, worth gathering is indispensable. (S?bado, June example, an its name, Bring p. on 13) the

masters

timbales swing,

rumba,

the currulao.

3,1944,

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He goes on to praise the "admirable race, the strong race," which has pro duced "great [Colombian] poets," such as Jorge Artel and Candelario Obeso, and other Americans Carver" and the artists such as "the learned Washington and sportspeople, and Josephine Baker. "Time," Joe Louis, Marian Anderson, than they he says, "has given you your revenge!": whites, less "invulnerable" seemed, have taken it into their heads to "imitate the blacks and obey them": in the swanky clubs, is "[T]he culture best received these days, especially that which has the acrid smell of jungle and of sex." In short, "modernism requires this: that we should dance like blacks in order to be in fashion" (S?bado, 13). More clearly now than in the case of bambuco, we can see the reference to a the diaspora black African diaspora by the writer of this piece. Interestingly, includes do is rooted inAfrican origins, slavery, and exploitation?which mestic of the "strong race" was service, as one of the features of the women towhite children and "enchanted them with that they acted as nursemaids and fantastic": these are all classic features of the tales of deeds historical in the Atlantic. More African diaspora interesting yet, the black diaspora and modern. The reference is seen as both savage (the jungle of Oceania) seems mysterious in this context, but it serves to alert us to the to Oceania in the decades discourse of primitivism, international which, leading up to and modernity?in this link between this time, was constructing savagery link between savagery and sex, now reworked part via the well-established in light of the idea of sexual liberation as modern (Barkan and Bush 1995; Price 2002; Rhodes 1994).4 ideas about Africa here is a space imagined by this writer?his Diaspora the importance he gives and cultures in the Americas, and black peoples shared by many it is also an imaginary to music, drums, dance, sex?yet contra with varied and very possibly albeit others, black and nonblack, in linking different elements of the role of music The dictory perspectives. "black Atlantic" has been widely in the Americas African diaspora and/or the point of view of everyday black and from noted, for example?whether observers of different nonblack stripes (Gilroy 1993; people or academic uses the notion columnist The Colombian Herskovits 1966; Lomax 1970). an African diaspora to establish an only partly ironic narrative of threat, of of one civilization the undermining by another, the savagery, vengeance, traditional morality. But his diasporic "stance," to use Brubaker's collapse of is not just a stance: it refers to, draws on, and conjures up a set of phrase, are never free from discursive and links, which, however, real connections
construction.

4.1 am grateful this context.

to Sally

Price

for pointing

out

the function

of the reference

to Oceania

in

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African

Diaspora

and Colombian

Popular Music

49

evoked diaspora as threat, others saw If the letter-writers and columnists different, but related possibilities. Gilard (1986,1994) argued in the 1940s that a kind of negrismo emerged in literary circles in the Caribbean coastal region, in the interior of the country. Black poet intellectuals which also influenced a volume of verse, Tambores en by Gers?published Jorge Artel?mentioned the black culture of the la noche (Drums in the night [1940]), which portrayed Caribbean coastal region as full of sensuality, music, and rhythm, as well as including, one imagines, pain and sorrow. Itwas read by Bogot? intellectuals, coastal and folklorist from the Caribbean novelist Gers. The black medic, Manuel Zapata Olivella, was also an influential figure in these trends; region, of Coste?o "folklore" in Bogot? and published novels he staged presentations coastal region. From 1940, his brother, Juan, hosted a about the Caribbean "La hora coste?a" (The Coastal Hour), which show Bogot? radio program, cased popular Coste?o music. Zapata Olivella was linked to the Grupo de a group of writers and journalists that emerged in the 1940s and Barranquilla, at that time a journalist on a Barranquilla included Gabriel Garc?a M?rquez, and Enrique Grau used Coste?o painters such as Alejandro Obreg?n paper. sometimes themes of sensuality and bright color in their paintings, including of black women (Medina 1978, 367). All this referred to a very local images Coste?o folklore and culture, with blackness an uneven presence, sometimes sometimes more blackness, mentioning talked of Artel as a "black patriarch mea a drum," a "a suring the pulse of the fever in the belly of accompanied by fruit-like mulatta, made from the same wood as the gaitas" (Garc?aM?rquez 1981, 94) or another Colombian poet talked of Artel's evocation of a world in which "the drums and accordions play and the tame, resigned pain of race slips by" (Carranza 1944). But the diasporic references are the shadowy of drums, of pain, and "fruit-like" implicit in the imagery of primitivism, of blackness that resonate across these are images and stereotypes women; the Americas and the black Atlantic. Commentators such as Garc?a M?rquez were using these images and their connotations to connect Colombia (or its currents of modernist Caribbean region) to transnational primitivism. as medi It is among the musicians themselves (and their productions to a black diaspora are ated by the record industry) that explicit references a Lucho Berm?dez, for example, actually most masked. key band-leader in the popularization one famous number of cumbias and porros, composed called "Fiesta de Negritos" form, which many (note the diminutive identify as a condescending but this was one of the only direct references usage), to blackness in his oeuvre. Another musician of the period, Cl?maco Sarm a porro titled iento also composed No Te Vayas," but again this "Negro, was an isolated mention. Berm?dez listed his musical influences as Pedro as when Garc?a M?rquez hidden, Caribbean coastal region, without as when Garc?a M?rquez explicit, wrote about the accordion music of the

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Biava (an Italian immigrant to Colombia who ran the Bellas Artes school in Barranquilla), Ernesto Lecuona and Rafael (awhite Cuban composer), Hern?ndez Blackness was also only in (awhite Puerto Rican composer). in the personnel of the orchestras: in the sometimes present termittently in section; occasionally percussion among the vocalists. What was evoked this music was tropicality, sun, sea, partying, and alegr?a (fun, happiness); blackness was an unspoken linked to referent, evoked by these meanings these elements?meanings context not, of course, confined to a Colombian but common in the Americas, of the music with the Ca by the association ribbean coastal region itself, and by the "hot" rhythm the music was felt to have. In the 1960s, when the music was adapted to smaller, more electric the album covers frequently deployed line-ups, images of sex, sun, and sea, but rarely blackness. I think a diasporic blackness was felt, by musicians and record producers, to be part of this music's popularity, but itwas muted and evoked only indirectly.

Huellas De African?a, Multiculturalism

and Gente Afro

From the 1970s on, a series of changes occurred in the profile of blackness in Colombia and its diasporic connections. Black organizations appeared, run students, protesting by small groups of black university against rac African-Caribbean ism, inspired by U.S. antecedents, n?gritude, African and antiapartheid but also adapted to the Latin decolonization, struggles, American context by the iconic figure of the cimarr?n, the escaped slave, a who was used to symbolize Latin American and Caribbean specifically resistance the African diaspora was in part (Wade 1995). For these groups, a distinctive in Africa, as contributing to Co the idea of origins heritage lombian black people, but was I think more circuit the idea of an Atlantic of connections, built on the idea of resistance and antiracism. A few pioneering Colombian academics began to focus on black culture in and Arocha (Friedemann 1984; Friedemann 1986), concentrating on the Pacific coastal region, as the real home of a distinctive black mostly culture in the country, and developing the concept of huellas de african?a and more derived in part from Herskovits (traces or imprints of Africanism), from Mintz and Price's model of creolization (Mintz and Price important the concept of diaspora was strongly rooted 1976). For these academics, in real, historical cultures and Colombia links between African (Arocha Colombia 1998). to be In 1991, constitutional reform, which officially declared Colombia to the passing in 1993 of a law directed led and multicultural, pluriethnic to land title claims for at "black communities," the way which opened

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located in the Pacific coastal region of the country. The from in Colombia had shifted its centre of gravity location of blackness Wade 2002). From to the Pacific (Escobar and Pedrosa the Caribbean 1996; the point of view of the state, it seems clear that the idea, at least at this to this region?and indeed its time, was to limit the notion of blackness as an "ethnic group" in were recognized black people rural parts. While in the the law really targeted "black communities" the nation as a whole, were sidelined in this approach connections Pacific region. Any diasporic and governable. in order to make blackness more manageable were moving in a rather different direction. For a start, things Musically, a phenomenon in Cartagena in the Caribbean emerged based mainly region, around street sound systems called picos (pick-ups, i.e., turntable needles), which played African and Caribbean popular music on imported vinyl. This came to be known as champeta, after the name given to a small machete, carried around dances allegedly the adherents of these street-system which Pacini Hern?ndez and Provensal them (Cunin 2003; Mosquera with 2000; 1996). In due course, local bands began to play champeta with Spanish-lan seen as "black"?and may guage lyrics. The music and its fans are generally also be seen as lower-class, vulgar, immoral, violent, sexually licentious, and identification with black there is little overt ethnic-racial noisy?although as a political category, for example in the lyrics or among the fans identity these communities (Cunin 2003). that taps into a strong sense of African diaspora. Yet it is clearly amusic come from the village of and principal Some of its pioneering exponents in colonial times was a palenque, or commu de San Basilio, which Palenque and has retained slaves that resisted colonial domination, nity of escaped a specific identity ever since, including a unique cre?le language, and dis tinctive funerary rites and musical practices. Strong claims are often made roots of Palenque's cultural practices. More generally, about the African was originally based on listening toWest African music. And, in champeta a similar way to what happened with cumbia in the 1940s, the blackness of is seen by observers as linked to stereotypical the music of sexuality images and noisiness that are common currency inmany areas of the Americas. As is seen as a threat to morality with cumbia, the music and order. The fans seem to revel in those images and that threat as a subversive themselves common with large segments of are identified as such. Cartagena's working classes?yet they persistently Cunin argues that champeta is reduced to a kind of biological determinism: a racial biology it is seen as a natural expression of instincts and urges force. They avoid identifying (Cunin 2003). A different musical current revolves around means black Colombians always performed by rap and hip hop, by no but strongly associated as Negro?in

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in cities such as Cali, which has a large black popula them, especially tion (Barbary and Urrea 2004; Wade with black 1999). The identification ness ismuch clearer and more self-conscious here, with frequent references to the "ghetto" as a social condition and a life-style. The diasporic elements are also very evident, with to U.S. and Caribbean links made explicit X and Bob Marley, and famous black figures, such as Malcolm musics, invocation of "Africa" as a kind of icon (e.g., as a map image frequent in Rasta colors) rather than a real geographical location. painted en from the Pacific coastal region has not unexpectedly Finally, music a boom, with the nearby city of Cali setting up a festival de M?sica joyed and "modernized" versions of Pacific del Pac?fico in 1997 for "traditional" a central genre. A number of new of currulao, coastal folk music, especially which bands have emerged, such as Grupo Bahia and Choc-Quib-Town, with of Pacific coast music (Bi experiment with fusions and "modernizations" In addition, some migrants and displaced renbaum Quintero 2006). people classes in the cities of the inte from this region set up music and drumming rior such as Bogot?, recruiting clientele from sectors such as the middle-class The diasporic connections here are highly varied: the student population. share many of the same cultural spaces hip-hop oriented Choc-Quib-Town currulao with other hip-hop and rap groups. The more and connections in which marimba is a key the African-descended oriented Grupo Bahia, more of an African but their fusions with evoke connection, instrument, towards the U.S. parts of the black diaspora. Even the jazz look northwards are folkloric groups, usually made up of older participants, "traditional" aware of the place of Pacific coastal culture often well-traveled performers and in the nation and in the continent. The advent of land-title legislation work has spurred many official multiculturalism "consciousness-raising" a diasporic vision and shops about black history and culture, which promote local people to identify themselves with other black groups. The encourage recent interest of U.S. foundations (Ford, Inter-American), multilateral agen Bank [IADB], UN) and the cies (World Bank, Inter-American Development in "Afro-Latins" and "Afro-descendents" Black Caucus U.S. Congressional of the Pacific coastal region, this kind of mental has fomented re-positioning the region itself. and outside both within state is also loosen that the Colombian there are indications Interestingly, centered on the "black communi of blackness, its restricted definition ing census carried for the first ties" of the Pacific region. In 1993, the national of identifying the possibility included time an "ethnic question," which The term was still very new, of a "black community." oneself as amember the implications were: and what is really meant and few were clear what identified to the question were risible: 1.5 percent the positive responses as belonging Over the next ten years or to such a community. themselves

Wade

African

Diaspora

and Colombian

Popular Music

53

the question, about how to reformulate so, there was intensive discussion some of it funded by the IADB and theWorld Bank, and in the 2005 census a very different question was included with a number of different "ethnic" was the category "black, mu categories: a key option for self-identification or Afro-descendant." This quite inclusive category latto, Afro-Colombian, a result with some much smaller "black" categories) produced (together of 10.5 percent of the total. to a more North American The question of definition clearly responds is not to say that itwas a U.S. imposition or example of the hege black, which racial reasoning (Bourdieu and Wacquant mony of post-imperialist 1999); the inclusive category was pushed formainly by Colombian black organisations, with their roots firmly in the Pacific coastal region and the land-titling agenda In any event, this new definition? there, and by some influential academics. amore "racial" than "ethnic" one in its invocation of arguably phenotypical and genealogical labels rather than local "communities" (Ng'weno 2007)?*s reflected in the emerging usage, albeit thus far in limited intellectual circles, of the term "afro" to refer to "black" people (e.g., una persona afro?which a short-hand is probably for afrocolombiano or afrodescendiente). It seems just a to me to correspond that recognizes quite well to a notion of blackness "Afro" in this usage is, inmy view, not really invoking diasporic connectivity. Africa as a real historical and cultural place (or set of places); it is invoking a of Africa by diasporic space which arises "as much from the transformation cultures to Africa and disapora cultures as from the affiliation of diaspora the traces of Africa that those diaspora cultures enclose" (Gilroy 1993,199). It is a space shaped fundamentally by music. Conclusion I think the concept of diaspora has a useful analytic role to play in under forms and understandings of black music in Colombia. standing changing At every turn during the twentieth and into the twenty-first centuries, black music has to be placed in relation to a wider set of connections, imagined and real (but with the "real" always already within both with discourse) Africa and, especially, with other black cultural spaces in the Americas. are not simple facts but instead The connections of complex interweavings and concrete relationships and practices. The columnist Gers imaginations made wild and improbable connections that linked cumbia with jungles in as well as with uncontrolled Oceania, sexuality. Yet his imaginative wan made sense?and had discursive terms of transnational derings power?in fashions inmodernist and long-standing and widespread ideas primitivism about black sexuality that reverberate around the African A group diaspora. of "traditional" folklore musicians playing currulao in the Festival de M?sica

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del Pac?fico in Cali must equally be understood?and arguably also under of black musical stand themselves?in relation to a continental complex These local iterations of, and around, blackness are constituted by practices. inwhich to a broader diaspora the circulation of meanings their relationship than the elements of the complex are more significant the outlying among to a putative point of origin. relationship
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