Transculturation: Cuban Music and Worldwide Rumbas

In Cuban Music, Maya Roy points out that Cuba has produced countless musical rhythms that have become popular worldwide in their original or adapted forms, from “rhumba” to conga lines, from chacha to mambo # 5. He also poses a good question: why have such rhythms transcended the island while others Cuban musical creations remain rather obscure to foreign audiences (for example, trova, guaguancó, son montuno, and charanga)? (ix). Furthermore, I wonder, what happened to the genres that did become internationally popular once they left the island and converged with other cultures? Cuban musical forms emerged from the transplanting of African musical traditions to Cuba and their merging with Spanish, thus giving birth to entirely new phenomena, a process defined by Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortiz as “transculturation” (1995 [1947]). In an extension of the same process, newer musical formations have risen from the subsequent transculturation of Cuban music abroad.

Roy also highlights the importance of African roots in Cuban music. On page 29, she sates: “This polyrhythmic and poliphonic language, which is specifically African, is found, with some modifications and in varying degrees, in all of Cuban folk music.” As we have already seen was also the case in Brazil and the Dominican Republic, as these Latin American countries gained independence and began reaffirming a national identity “everything African was considered by the dominant elite to be lowly, vulgar, and uncultured” (30). She goes on to describe how, also in Cuba, these traditions nonetheless survived among the oppressed, through oral transmission, despite repression.

Roy tells of genres as beloved by Cubans of our times as son which were once considered lower class type of music. During the early 1900s when son was played by non-professional musicians to enliven neighborhood parties, judicial chronicles were replete with sentences of “the practice of immoral dances with African instruments” (Blanco, 1992, p. 16 as cited on page 120). However slowly, nonetheless, the local bourgeoisie started to be attracted to son, and eventually fully embraced it. In fact, Roy talks about the contemporary apparent glorification of a golden era of son and bolero perhaps best represented by the 1990s Buena Vista Social Club phenomenon. The phenomenon begun with a recording, filmed performance, and documentary made with veteran Cuban musicians, and named after a legendary dancing and music members club of the 1940s and ‘50s. Roy qualifies the Buena Vista Social Club phenomenon as the exocitization of an idealized golden era that was not so golden but rather tinged with racism and inequality, but that happens to satisfy the foreign nostalgia for the retro and the picturesque (194).

Of all the Cuban rhythms I could possibly explore, I have chosen Rumba, because it is a perfect example of 1) a dance with strong African roots that climbed the social acceptance scale to become official national folklore and internationally popular; and 2) a genre (whether the rhythm or the term) that was taken up by other cultures that transformed it into their own transcultured phenomenon.

Rhumba hopping: de rumba en rumba

The term Rumba is used to refer to a family of percussive rhythms of Afro-Cuban origin. Rumba includes a series of music and dance forms that combined the musical traditions Spanish colonizers and African slaves brought to Cuba. Rumba is often described as the most African of Cuban folkloric music and dance genres. However, unlike other African-rooted genres, Rumba is completely secular, with no religious connections. The noun “rumba” also means “party” in Spanish. Additionally, Rumba has been used, particularly by Europeans and Americans, as an umbrella term for Latin rhythms, much like “salsa”. The term spread in the 1930s and 1940s to refer to the fast paced music coming from cuba, particularly after the classic the Peanut Vendor was released in the U.S. described as a Rhumba – probably because it was an easier term for Americans to understand than son.

Cuban Rumbas

Rumba developed in the Cuban provinces of Habana and Matanzas, as well as other cities and rural areas with large African communities. It is dated back to the late 19th century. It was considered by the upper class of Spanish descent to be dangerous and vulgar, and it was often censored. Traditional Cuban Ruma songs often begin with ‘dianas’, melodic meaningless syllables sang by a soloist, often a male singer. Then, he begins to ‘decimar’, improvising ten-line stanzas about the reason for the gathering. Other singers sing the somewhat fixed lyrics of traditional songs. More modern Cuban Rumba also contains elements from jazz and hip hop, and continues to be a popular street dance, especially among Afro-cuban neighborhoods. Unlike its internationalized counterparts, it is an exclusively percussive music style, with no melodic instruments, except the singers’ voices. Nowadays in Cuba, it is also performed by folklore dance troupes.

There are three types of Cuban Rumba: Yambú, Columbia, and Guagancó. Rumba Yambú is the oldest form, with a slower pace preferred by older generations. It is danced by both genders, independently or together. Columba is a faster type of Rumba, accompanied by a 6/8 rhythm. It is traditionally danced by men, who challenge the drummer to imititate their movements, which are often syncopated, difficult, or even acrobatic. There is also an on-going competition among consecutive solo dancer who display their strength and ability through their movements, which now a days are influenced by hip hop. Finally, Guagancó is the fastest and more rhythmically complex of the three types. The percussion features three drums with different pitches and playing different rhythms, and often also palitos (two sticks hit on the side of a drum). The lead singer also often accompanies with clave sticks. After the beginning lyrics followed by a call and response, the dancing begins. Guaguancó is danced by a couple. The flirtatious dynamic of the dance feature movements through which the woman both entices and keeps distance from the man, who is looking for an opportunity to perform a hip movement towards the woman called ‘vacunao’. Sometimes the sexually symbolic ‘vacunao’ can also be a movement of the leg, arm, or a handkerchief. Guaguancó is the most internationally popular type of Cuban Rumba, performed in the U.S. by popular artists, such as Gloria Stefan and Celia Cruz, in her hit ‘Químbara’.

There and back: Rumba Flamenca

Rumba Flamenca or Flamenco Rumba emerged from the influence of Cuban Rumba brought back to Spain on Flamenco music. It is often played with guitars, hand clapping, castanets, and sometimes a cajón, instead of drums and claves. It has been internationally popularized by artists such as Paco de Lucía, Tomatito, and The Gypsy Kings.

Recycled Terms: Ballroom Rumba

In international ballroom dance competitions, Rumba is the slowest of the hip-swaying Latin dances. However, the music it is performed to is actually Cuban bolero-son at about 120 beats per minute. The inaccurate terminology is perhaps due to the marketing advantage of the term rumba. The movements derive from 1940s and and 1950s La Habana dance moves, layered with more complex competition figures (Lavelle 1983).

Blanco, Jesús. 80 años del son y soneros en el Caribe 1909-1989. Caracas: Fondo Editorial Tropykos, 1992.

Roy, Maya. Cuban Music. Translated by denise asfar and Gabriel asfar. Markus Wiener PUblihers. Princento, NJ 2002 ( 1998)

Orovio, Helio. Cuban music from A to Z. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004.

Daniel, Yvonne. Rumba: dance and social change in contemporary Cuba. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1995.

Lavelle, Doris. Latin & American dances. London: Pitman Publishing,1983.

Ortize, Fernando, Cuban Counterpoint: Tobacco and Sugar, trans. Harriet de Onís. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995 (New York: Knopf, 1947).

Religious Zeal to Urban Ghetto Global Phenomenon: From Jamaican Reggae and Dancehall to American Rap and Latin Reggaeton.

Many Jamaican rhythms have enjoyed worldwide recognition –from mento and rock steady, which predated reggae, to the more recent uprising of dub, to the numerous waves and reincarnations of ska, from the ‘60s Skatallites to Brittish 2 tone, to ska punk, all the way to South America. The borders between these styles can be blurry and their definitions tend to mutate with time. In the introduction to the book Reggae, Rasta, Revolution: Jamaican Music from ska to dub, editor Chris Potash states: “Today, ska is a tag used to describe such a range of pop music sounds that it’s about as exact as reggae” (xxiv). In spite, or perhaps because, of their mutable nature, these Jamaican rhythms have had lasting ripple musical effects all over the world.

JAMAICAN REGGAE

Reggae in particular, is a fascinating cultural and religious phenomenon with myriad social and political implications – race not being the least of them. Especially during its period of highest popularity, from the late ‘60s through the ‘80s, it was considered black music, especially by the Jamaican ruling class. And yet, particularly outside of Jamaica, it was predominately white middle class people who embraced it, purchased the records, and crowded concerts. When asked about this apparent contradiction, Bob Marley, reggae’s biggest star, said: “Yeah, man. It’s a black people’s music. But I prefer all people to like our music” (xx).

One of the reasons why reggae was considered black music is because of its clear African musical roots. This is evident not only in its drums and rhythms, but in its spirituality. The spirituality that drove reggae in its inception was not, however, any of the traditional African religions. It was the bible-based Rastafarianism, which presented black Africans as the chosen people and encouraged their return to the homeland, seeing Ethiopia as Zion. As Kenneth Bilby remarks in his article From “Jamaica”:

“Reggae’s lasting qualities parallel those of African-influenced traditional and folk forms in that like them, reggae includes a great deal of emotionalism, spiritual vitality and gnomic function. For instance, nowhere else in the world is the popular music a basically religious music. And nowhere else is the popular music an integral part of the people’s way of life as is reggae in Jamaica” (11-12).

This is also particularly interesting from a cultural perspective, because it means that Rastafarians all over the world, particularly present in the Jamaican Diaspora across the Americas, consider reggae music their own. Thus, reggae becomes truly a transnational music, not just because of its international popularity, but because, as Bilby states, it becomes more about a spiritual than a national identity (13).

Although there is a clear parallel between reggae and other Afro-Caribbean spiritual practices based on dance and music, such as Candomble, Santería, and Voudun; the music from those religions has not become popular worldwide. Not even in their own countries have they transcended the particular subcultures to which they belong to and crossed into the mainstream. In that, reggae is undoubtedly unique. As Isaac Fergusson points out in his article “So Much Things to Say”: The Journey of Bob Marley, Rastafarian musicians saw music as the medium through which they spread their message to the entire world.

Artists like Bob Marley and the Wailers were immensely successful at this. In that same article, Fergusson quotes Jamaica’s ex-prime Minister Michael Manley commenting on this achievement: “Marley took what was a subculture in Jamaica and elevated it to a dominant culture. He took a folk art and he elevated it into a universal language of communication” (55). Fergusson also points out that the universality of the Rastafarian message, pro-black but not racist, was pivotal in allowing reggae as a music genre to transcend barriers of race, color, class, and, I would add, nationality or even ethnicity (55). It still remains clear, however, as Lester Bangs points out in his article How to Learn to Love Reggae, that the varieties of musical genres that have emerged from Jamaican rhythms are more or less accepted by outsiders depending on their “level of tolerance for the musical other … from styles close to American soul to very African drums” (76).

Because it is such an African-identified rhythm, particularly with its connection to Rastafarian spirituality and repatriation ideals, reggae was at first a marginalized music genre in Jamaica. Upper class Jamaicans disapproved of it and associated it with a criminal urban lower class, dangerous behavior, and violence. In her article Reggae, Rastafarianism, and Cultural Identity, Verena Reckord states that Bob Marley did not expect reggae to become popular internationally, because in the beginnings so many were trying to hold back the genre’s popularity. She also points out that the success of reggae and its stars is a “self-perpetuating Garveyist prophecy” that has “encouraged artists like Brazil’s Gilberto Gil, Zimbabwe’s Thomas Mapfumo, and Gil Scott-Heron to explore their African roots” (xxviii). Thus we see that the acceptance and growth of reggae had a subversive effect, not only with black musicians in Jamaica, but around the world.

DANCEHALL

Perhaps one of the largest worldwide influences of Jamaican music comes from the 1960s practice of Jamaican DJs who, at sound systems, talked over the rhythms of popular songs, stripped from the vocals into pure beats. It is said that this practice, known as toasting, was taken to New York, where it became rap (Lelland 187). Rapping spread from there to cross-fertilize numerous music styles the world over. Back in Jamaica dancehall became the rage in the 1970s and ‘80s, particularly ragamuffin style, in which lyrics were rapped over electronic beats, often created through sampling.

Dancehall is the faster and barer descendant of reggae, with often violent ragga-rapped lyrics, of famous performers, such as Yellow Man, Shabba Ranks, Ninjaman, Mad cobra, and Buju Banton. The dancehall movement was centered around urban daily life struggles. In his article When Rap Meets Reggae, John Lelland quotes a dancehall artist saying the style was “all about the hard core: survival, facts of life” (187). Lelland, writing in 1992, calls dancehall “the vernacular, often sexually nasty sound of Jamaican dance clubs … that has become harder, simpler … and more conspicuously market wise.” He also states that dancehall “all but eclipsed the more spiritual ‘cool reggae’ of Marley … as kids became less Afrocentric and more New York-centric” (187).

Dancehall, ragga, and rap, in countless fused and refused styles, quickly spread around the world in the last decades of the 20^th Century. As Louis Chude-Sokei states in his article, Postnationalist Geographies: Rasta, Ragga, and Reinventing Africa, in Jamaica and the Afro-Caribbean diaspora “the narratives of dancehall investigate the … street-level intricacies of a postcolonial underclass navigating a global network of immigrant communities” (218). A similar reality was rapped about by youngsters in Latin America and other Third World countries, as well as by the inner city minority youth in developed nations.

Although there has always been a more or less strong presence of socially conscious rappers, reggae, and hip hop artists, particularly in the Jamaica of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, the dancehall lyrics focused on gun talk, gangs, crime, “ghetto morality”, and “graphic depictions of murder” or “very explicit and pornographic details of the bedroom” (218). Chude-Sokei argues that although “outsiders tend to find these narratives rude, crude, scatological,” the truth is they only reflect a lived reality. I would have to argue that music, like any other art form, not only defends but influences and, in this case, condones and perpetuates a particular reality. When it came to ‘90s dancehall lyrics, gun violence, physical and sexual aggression, and homophobia, raged rampant.

Nonetheless, Chude-Sokei presents very interesting thoughts about how it came to be that Jamaican youth and their popular music strayed away from the ideals popularized by roots reggae. He points out that the Rastafarian principles early reggae musicians preached about were drastically out of touch with Jamaican youth’s quotidian experiences. The emerging music reflected rebellion as Rastafarianism began to lose momentum. Chude-Sokei argues that for the youth of the time, Africa was less important – in fact it got “on the way of contemporary Third World ghetto life.” He quotes a British rudie that told him: “Africa nah go mek me bullet proof.” This reality spread from “gun-loud poverty Kingston” to South London to “that place Raymond Williams located as the center of the modern exile – New York City” (219). Thus it appealed to youth not only in Africa and Latinoamerica, but in what feminist scholars have termed “the Third World within the First World.” I can’t help but wonder, could raw exposure of oppressive lifestyles, even as it seems to exalt them, also be a form of protest?

In his article, Chude-Sokei skillfully depicts his perception of the sound-scape of cultural identity created by the dancehall reality about which inner city youth the world over rapped:

“Here we can witness an attempt to connect the various points of black/Afro-Caribbean disembarkation into one transnational, commodity-based space. One postnationalist city of blackness – but with many, many, suburbs. Maybe this is the only Zion possible: a place where the subversion and redefinition of First World Technology and the loosening bands of racial/nationalist ideologies allow dancehall to create a new ‘Africa’ within the postmodern networks of multinational capital; a virtual ‘black’ community informed by the very arbitrariness of the racial signifier itself. And, like the Rastafari before them, they use sound to invent this space of black belonging. Sound which conveys cultural and historical meanings encoded in beats, grooves, and samples: digitalized culture production” (221).

I find it important to point out that the discourse presented by these dancehall narratives was particularly aggressive towards women. It was charged with explicit depictions of sexuality and testaments to male domination. The mostly male rappers were most certainly concerned with the female body, often perceived as dangerously alluring or even threatening. Chude-Sokei argues that Jamaican dancehall youth saw the black female body as “an aggressive and predatory figure to be guarded against and in some cases catered to” (222). The music, he says, articulated a world “devoid of sentimentality or intimacy.” He presents poignant examples of dancehall lyrics of the time:

“titles raging from ‘Want a Virgin’ and ‘Love Punaany Bad’ (Punaany it is so nice/Punaany it is so slick/Come put your lips on a twelve inch d**k), and …. horrific celebrations of male sexual aggression (‘Me ram it and jam it till the girl start to vomit’)” (223).

Chude-Sokei argues that to “Western liberal feminists … these lyrics … seem very sexist and objectifying of women” because they are “boldly heterosexual and disdainful of bourgeois sentimentality.” However, he argues, it is a form of power, which he describes as a rare and prized commodity in postcolonial reality. He further states that “it allows [women] the freedom and security to navigate in and around a world of beauty, violence, and economic privation” (222). In fact, he states that women purchased most albums and thus set pace for the market, and even that women who picked up the mike only sustained the discourse by demanding that their men “ride and provide” (223).

I don’t deny that sexual attraction can be yielded as a form of power – and the dancehall discourse of obsession with controlling the female body certainly reeks of fear. However, the truth is that a widespread mentality of not mire admiration but outright possession of women’s bodies and sexualities (not to mention the simplification of whole women to mere bodies and sexualities) is no fertile land from which to harvest the ability, much less the freedom, to navigate the world with any semblance of safety, security, or integrity. Why should women settle for such demeaning illusions of power?

REGGAE IN HISPANOAMERICA

Of course, the spread of reggae and its popularity beyond Jamaican borders, quickly created a number of reinterpretations and fusions that pushed the boundaries of what was considered reggae. I grew up in Panama, where there is a strong Afro-Caribbean presence. The country is now home to the descendants of numerous Jamaicans who migrated to the country, particularly during the construction of the Panama Canal. Not surprisingly, in the 1990s one of the popular rhythms on the streets in Panama was homegrown reggae. We called it plena (not the Puerto Rican rhythm) or regué (written phonetically in Spanish, as the accent was placed on the last, not the first syllable). I have now come to understand it was actually an offshoot of what Jamaicans called dancehall. The reggae and rap being performed by Panamanian artists like Nando Boom and Chico Man, and to a certain extent even Puerto Rican hip hop rapper Vico C, was unique because its lyrics were in Spanish. Thus, it has also come to be known as Spanish reggae or Spanish dancehall. One Panamanian musician in particular, El General, became internationally famous with a distinctive calypso influenced style of rapped reggae, and international hit songs, such as Te Ves Buena and Muevelo.

Just a few years earlier, much further South in Argentina, reggae had mutated into another similar Latin version, sometimes denominated reggae rock. It dates as far back as the ‘80s and ‘90s bands Sumo and Todos Tus Muertos, but became particularly famous with the success of Los Pericos, who sold record albums and placed international hits like Me Late and Parate y Mira throughout the 1990s and into the 21^st Century.

Another Argentinean band that reached international success is Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, interpreters of such international hits as Matador and Mal Bicho. Although they are known for mixing rock with other rhythms, such as reggae, cumbia, punk, samba, and salsa, they are perhaps best identified for their fusion with ska. Cadillacs, however pivotal, is only one of the many bands that have starred in the Latin ska phenomenon, with internationally renowned bands such as Venezuelan Desorden Público, Maldita Vecindad from Mexico. Although ska was rather quickly replaced in its native Jamaica by many rhythms that followed it in sequence, it clearly found fertile soil, not just in the U.S. and Europe, but also in Spanish speaking Latinoamerica.

There are a few more internationally successful Latin reggae and roots reggae bands that deserve to be mentioned here. One of them is Puerto Rican Cultura Profética, whose first album was recorded in Bob Marley’s Tuff Gong studios and whose social and political protest lyrics continue reggae’s legacy, adding a 21^st Century environmental consciousness spin. There is also the Chilean band Gondwana, as well as Argentinean band Los Cafres, just t mention a few.

Meanwhile in Panama during the ‘90s and into the 2000s, the reggae-rapped-in-Spanish genre continued to flourish with a second and third generations of artists, such as a Aldo Ranks, Papa Chan, Ness, Kafu Banton, Danger Man, Wassabanga, DJ Black, and Jam & Suppose. Their music was still characterized by violent lyrics, but it was soon followed by the beginnings of what is today known as romantic style, with artists such as Tommy Real and El Roockie.

Meanwhile, a slightly more hip-hop influenced genre continued to develop in Puerto Rico, known as underground, with artist like Ivy Queen and DJ Playero (in fact, I have been told that the genre as a whole was known as “playero” in Honduras at the time). By the late ‘90s Panamanian musicians, such as El Chombo, Lorna, Los Cracker Jacks, and La Factoría, produced the first large scale international hits, such as the singles Papi Chulo and El Gato Volador, and the Los Cuentos de la Cripta albums. By the mid 1990s a new genre, called reggaeton had emerged in Puerto Rico. It mixed their reggae-hip-hop “underground” and Panamanian Spanish-reggae “plena” utilizing a particular beat known as Dem Bow. The beat comes from a 1991 dancehall song by Shabba Ranks, but was popularized in Puerto Rico by Panamanian artists, such as Nando Boom, who utilized it after El General recorded a Spanish version of Shabba Ranks song, called Son Bow.

Reggaeton became an international hit through all of Latin America and the U.S after the success of N.O.R.E.’s single Oye Mi Canto quickly followed by Daddy Yankee’s Gasolina in 2004. As far as discussion of pan-Latin identity in the U.S., Oye Mi Canto, is a tangible example (or tactful marketing scheme, depending on interpretation) of a growing identification between Latinos of different nationalities. The song calls out women to women from numerous Latinoamerican nations with a list of gentile nouns. Honoring long lived stereotypes of Latinos obsessions with the curvy female body, the song’s popular music video showcased a line of Latinoamerican flags, each with a bikini clad woman standing next to it.

In 2005, the reggaeton phenomenon continued to grow as Shakira recorded a reggaeton remix version of her hit song La Tortura. Soon afterwards, other Puerto Rican reggaeton artists placed numerous international hit songs; including, Tego Calderón, Don Omar, Wisin y Yandel, Tito El Bambino, Héctor El Father, and Nina Sky. Meanwhile Panamanian artists continued to lead with what became “romantic style” reggaeton with artists such as Makano and Flex. For another interesting side line, when considering cross-cultural racial issues, I will mention that Flex is known as Niga in Panama, but changed his stage name once his international career was launched – arguably to avoid controversy in the U.S. over the use of the term, particularly considering he is not black.

GLOBAL DUB AND BEYOND

Dub is the most recent Jamaican style to have conquered the world. It started when producers began working with reggae or dancehall tracks, taking out the vocal track, and laying over (or dubbing) pieces of lyrics, original or otherwise. Soon, producers where manipulating all the tracks in a song, deconstructing it and reconstructing it in remixes often characterized by constant reverberation and unexpected changes. Chris Potash calls it “the result of producers playing their mixing tables like instruments” and quotes Luke Ehrilich commenting that “ if reggae is Africa in the New World, then dub must be Africa on the moon” (xxv). In his article Instrument of Expression, Greg Kot points that dub “is the spice that flavors” the most significant musical innovations and movements of the 1990s, from techno to trance, from trip-hop to alternative rock (149). Dub, he states, “evokes an alternative world, a suspension of time, a complete reconfiguration of musical space” (150).

The global scale phenomena Jamaican popular rhythms and innovations have been initiating for decades now, are particularly good examples of what Kenneth Billby labels “the tension between local identity and globalizing trends.” From Indian bhangramuffin, to British drum & bass, to Latin reggaeton, non-Jamaicans have appropriated Jamaican music and trends, and remade them into music forms that represent and reaffirm their own (sub)cultural identities. In the case of Latin-America, reggae and the styles it influenced, are up there with Salsa, merengue, and cumbia, when it comes to widespread popularity. Furthermore, like bachata, banda, samba and tango, reggae has come a long way from its marginalized origins. In this case, its was not a marginalization caused by a rural vs urban antagonism; but due to social class and racial struggles, with a unique plot of religious oppression to universal dissemination. Whether it be with its spiritual fervor, with its raw depiction of urban working class life, or reaching out to a 21^st Century electronic generation, reggae has been and will remain an integral part, not just of Jamaican culture, but of pan-Latin identity.

Traditional and Hybrid Music Crossing Class and Generational Boundaries on This and That Side of the Mexican-American Border

The rise of the quebradita dance, to what Helena Simonett, author of Banda: Mexican Musical Life Across Boders, calls technobanda took place in California during the 1990s. Quebradita was danced to a mixture of northwest Mexican music, such as banda and tambora, and other Caribbean rhythms, such as cumbia, played with electronic, rather than the previously standard acoustic instruments, and tropical instruments, such as congas. The dance itself was largely influenced by American swing and two-step, featuring almost acrobatic lifts, and a characteristic move in which the man tilts the woman backwards, the quebradita, which literally means little break. The phenomenon gave Mexican-American youth a music to call their own, fostered a sense of community, and allowed them the opportunity to feel proud of both their Mexican heritage and their dual cultural identity. The vaquero outfit, with its jeans, riding boots, and tejana hat was an important symbol of this identity (for themselves and for outsiders who could read it as a sign), as well as required clothing for quebradita dancing gin L.A. clubs during the ‘90s (64).

This phenomenon was particularly significant at a time of economic decline in California in which Hispanic immigrants were often target of racism and xenophobia. An informant Simonett interview at an L.A. nightclub for her book stated: “To say that there is Latino pride in El Puente tonight would be an understatement. It’s more like a cultural revolution. We’re Mexican, speak Spanish, dance quebradita and are damn proud of it” (80). His statement makes it clear that , at least for Latinos, the music you dance to defines who you are in terms of ethnic and cultural identity as much as the passport you hold and the language you speak.

Banda, a minority’s music within the U.S., has its roots in marginal musical expressions even within Mexican society. Simonett states that scholars have historically disregarded the music of the Mexican northwest, and that “even in more recent works on Mexican popular music, the northwestern states are either ignored or subsumed within the vast north” (9). Simonett states that people in Mexico City often thought of banda music as vulgar and lower class. In fact, she was once asked why she was not studying some “nice Mexican music such as mariachi” (130). Clearly, the traditional music of the northwestern states did not fall within the discourse of “national folklore” the upper classes in central Mexico had defined as official and institutionalized. It was not considered reputable music, at least until it became popular and commercially successful abroad. Simonett compares this process of overcoming local prejudice through outside approval to what happened to bachata en Dominican Republic and tango in Argentina (18-19).

The fact is that falling outside of the official cannon of folklore musical traditions, has left these “music of the people” genres free to adapt to the changing times and morph as social and cultural factors do, particularly in a today’s globalized world. I have noticed that, along with process of acceptance through outside approval, there are also ongoing processes of assimilation through “techno-ization.”. That is, banda became popular with Mexican-American youth after replacing the traditional acoustic instruments with an all electronic set, which Simonett refers to as technobanda, just like Deborah Pacini Hernández referred to tecno-bachata in her book Bachata: A Social History of a Dominican Popular Music. It also brings to mind the early ‘90s hit by Selena, the queen of Tex-Mex, precisely titled Technocumbia, one of many technocumbia hit songs of hers and other ‘80s and ‘90s musicians. Another parallel process is that of the popularization of punta-rock in Honduras, off traditional Garifuna music, particularly after the song Sopa de Caracol by Banda Blanca became internationally popular, also in the ‘90s.

In the case of Mexican and Mexican-American banda and norteña music, the step from lower class stigmatized genre into mainstream popularity was largely aided by mass media. Californian radio stations, the record industry, and television, especially Televisa in Mexico and Univisión, its co-owned U.S. network, all played a major role. In her book, Simonett does not miss the opportunity to point out that Televisa actually owns Melody Records, which is affiliated with Musivisa, a label that signs norteña grupos and bandas. It is, therefore, no surprise that they have helped promote numerous musical groups.

Banda, tex-mex, and norteño, hybrids of regional music genres that became transnational, have been able to create a new narrative of identity that embraces the realities of Mexicans, Central Americans, and second generation Hispanic-Americans in the Southwestern states, such as California and Texas. Therefore, they have been widely accepted across nationalities in the Hispanic U.S. community and remain largely popular within the youth today. Current consumers this side of the border, however, are often unaware of the traditional, noncommercial, regional music genres from which these new hit styles originated, or of their association with the lower socioeconomic classes in peripheral states such as Sinaloa and Durango, which are in turn commonly associated with drug trafficking in popular lore (95).

Urban, Immigrant, Pan-Latin Identity and Sociopolitical Issues in Salsa Music

What is Salsa?

The Cuban band leader and composer, Dámaso Pérez Prado, known as the King of Mambo, once stated that there was no such thing as Salsa. Famed Cuban percussionist, Tito Puete, who perhaps ironically starred with the quintessential group of early Salsa musicians, Fania All Stars, not only agreed with Pérez Prado, stating that the only salsa he knew was sold in a bottle called ketchup, he further added: “Yo toco música cubana” [What I play is Cuban music.]” [1]

Although closely associated to Cuban son, in fact, claimed by many to be one and the same, Salsa is also claimed by Puerto Ricans as their own. In fact they presented a concert in Expo 92 in Seville, Spain titled “Puerto Rico es Salsa [Puerto Rico is Salsa].”[2] Personally, I agree with accomplished Nuyorican musician, Willie Colón, in that, historically speaking, Salsa as we know it today emerged in the U.S. in the 1970s. Colón considers Salsa to be “una suma armónica de toda la cultura latina reunida en Nueva York [a harmonic sum of all Latin culture that meets in New York].”[3] It is undeniable, however, that regardless of its heritage and birthplace Salsa has long been a global/transnational phenomenon.

In her book, Listening to Salsa: Gender, Latin Popular Music, and Puerto Rican Cultures, Frances R. Aparicio states that because of its semantic polyvalence contingent on the cultural context in which it is listened to, produced, and performed, this particular music, fluid in its social values and cultural meanings, [Salsa] eludes a fixed definition” (66). Furthermore, she argues that it is precisely the plurality of ideologies, discourses, locations, and concepts of Salsa which enhance its value as “as metaphor for national identity, difference, hybridity, and oppositionality” (68). Aparicio also claims that Salsa exists simultaneously in two conflicting realities: as a central aspect of Puerto Rican society, and as a marginalized cultural Other in the United States. Thus, she suggest that need “for a postmodern approach to understanding current forms of Afro-Caribbean music, that is, an analysis that considers Salsa in its ideological plurality: as national discourse, as international mass culture, and a continuing double-edged value as culturally appropriated musical form in the United States” (61).

Although I acknowledge these issues, in order to limit the scope of exploring a phenomenon as broad as Salsa, this essay is not concerned with finding the authentic national origins of Salsa; tracing its history and key players; or dissecting the appropriation or colonialist othering of Salsa in the first-world mainstream discourse. Instead I have chosen to work within the following definition of Salsa (spelled with a capital letter, precisely to differentiate it from the sauce): “a syncretic cultural expression” of the urban working-class, “central to Latina/o urban communities in the United States and across Latin America” (Aparicio 68). I will mostly concern myself with exploring Salsa as Rubén Blades defines it: “un folclor urbano a nivel internacional [urban folklore at the international level]” (as cited in Aparicio 65).

As a feminist cultural scholar, I am interested in the gender, race, and class issues present in the historical development and present circumstances of the genre. As a Latina immigrant in the U.S.,I am also concerned with the role Salsa plays in the U.S. “as a Pan-Latino expression of cultural hybridity and resistance” (Aparicio 66), and as a source of connection with immigrants’ cultural heritage. For example, Aparicio cites in her book a Puerto Rican immigrant in Michigan who states: “the music reminds me of Puerto Rico.” The author adds: “These phrases ,most revealing of the multisensorial associations that the act of listening provokes … stand as a compelling testimony to the role of Salsa music as a bridge between a trans- or dislocated present and a past home … the sense of familiarity that these formulas evoke for colonized peoples, such as Puerto Ricans and Latinas/os in the United States” (91)

Aparicio reflects on the past and present sociocultural and political context of Salsa in the U.S. and abroad when she states that it:

“becomes a metaphor for race, class, and gender conflicts within the diverse Puerto Rican communities (the island and the diasporas), as well as across Latin America, the United States, and the international scene. While Salsa has been identified as the music of the urban, working-class black and mulatto sectors in Puerto and historically rejected as such by the upper classes on the island, in the United States it has functioned as a cohesive force among latinos in general, syncretizing, in fact, an array of Latin American musical styles into its repertoire.” (66)

Salsa as Pan-Latin Urban Folklore

According to Aparicio, the fact that Salsa originated in the 1970s in New York, is “evidence that it was a social result of the gradual industrialization and migratory movements from rural areas to urban centers that have characterized many Latin American countries through the second half of the twentieth century … Historically, then, Salsa is the music of the immigrant and the urban working class” (81). As César Miguel Rondón has documented, Salsa also functioned as the music of the urban poor all over the Caribbean, including islands such as Puerto Rico and Cuba, but also the mainland countries that surround it, such as Colombia, Panama, and Venezuela (as cited in Aparicio 81).

Thus, Salsa lyrics, from the 1970s to the present, have often included political commentary and dealt with urban social issues, including street violence, as attested by many famous songs immortalized by Héctor Lavoe, Willie Colón, and Rubén Blades, such as Calle Luna Calle Sol, Pedro Navaja, Buscando América, Decisiones, and Plástico . Aparicio states that “while much commercialized Salsa repertoire has been influenced by the romantic ballad since the 1980s, the most important salseros – El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico, Willie Colón , Rubén Blades, Celia Cruz, Ismael Rivera, Ismael Miranda, Cheo Feliciano, Ray Barretto, Héctor Lavoe – have consistently responded to historical events and social issues that affect Latina/o communities” (82). She argues that these artists speak to “the collective realities of Latina/os in the United States and Latin America,” despite their ideological differences. “Their songs,” as she states “ether address race, gender, and class conflicts or reaffirm cultural practices usually marginalized, such as santería and other African-based traditions.” (82)

Salsa and Caribbean Cultural Identity

In Listening to Salsa, Aparicio highlights a number of Salsa music elements identified with Latino cultural heritage and values. For example, she cites Angel Quintero Rivera’s allusions that the jamming-improvisational style sessions or sections typical of Salsa performances known as descargas “may be constructed as an instance of freedom … virtuosity, and creativity.”[4] She also points out that “the perception that many cultural outsiders have of this type of music – that it is primitive, loud, chaotic, and subversive – constitute historical repetitions of the same vestigial fears expressed b the Spanish colonial government about the performance on drums by African slaves in Cuba” (83-4).

Another example, is the section of Salsa songs in which the singer improvises within a call-and-response structure with the chorus, known as soneo. Aparicio equates its loose improvisational format with freedom and spontaneity. She also points out that the call-and-response structure “is a trait that represents continuity with older forms of Afro-Caribbean musical folklore and with West African music.” Perhaps, more importantly, the chorus section “allows Salsa music to articulate a collective voice … and to establish a dialogic texture.” Finally, she points out that the singer improvises on the theme of the song by creating “new utterances” and also rearticulating “phrases from others songs or various traditions.” Thus, “the singer opens up a sonorous space of freedom, improvisation, and innovation, clinging simultaneously to musical tradition and reaffirming collective memory” (84).

Finally, Aparicio points out to the “polyrhythmic basis of Afro-Caribbean music embodied in the clave – a rhythmic pattern of 3-2 or 2-3 set against a 4-beat measure and performed by the clave sticks” as an “equally oppositional and dialogic element in Salsa” (89). She concludes then that the call-and-response structure, the intertextuality of improvised lyrics, they polyrhythmic nature, and the performance of Salsa, “constitute the material embodiment of a plural, nonindividualist (read anticapitalist), yet free site of artistic expression, a multivocal locus, musically speaking” (91).

I would like to add that such an collectivist, pluralistic, and spontaneous nature is not only characteristic of Salsa music, but of many other aspects and expressions of Latin cultures and communities. Perhaps because of this, Salsa has managed to construct for itself a niche of Pan-Latin identity that cuts across national, class, gender, and race boundaries in Latin-America and the Latin diaspora like no other musical form or cultural expression. As such, it was unavoidable for Salsa to become an anchor to the homeland and symbol of Latin identity for Latino/as who have migrated to the U.S. and other first world countries. This shared nostalgic connection to music as cultural heritage is perhaps best identified by the internationally famous song Mi Tierra, from Gloria Stefan’s first all Spanish CD, of the same title, in which she states she “hears the drums” of the beloved homeland she left behinds and misses painfully.

Race and Class Issues

As we have seen has been the case for many other Latin music genres, the Afro-Puerto Rican plena and bomba, which largely influenced the development of Salsa, were “by the turn of the century … historically and discursively marginalized, erased, and dismissed as música de negros (music of Blacks),” in a process that negated “the racial hybridity of the Puerto Rican people as well as the basic processes from which its transcultural manifestations emerge” ( Aparicio 27). Nowadays, however, Salsa has been accepted by the Puerto Rican, and other Latin-American, upper class and dominant sectors as a valid musical style representative of national/ethnic culture. Aparicio argues that this is due largely ot the globalization and international popularity of Salsa. She states that it was only embraced locally after it had acquired “visibility – audibility, we may say – among European audiences.” “This reception, a posteriori,” she points out, “signals a colonialist structure of cultural circulation: the music is produced locally yet remains in the margins; then it is exported and mainstreamed by foreign audiences, to return with the endorsement of others. Like the transatlantic circulation of the tango and the analogous development, Salsa music has been mainstreamed in Puerto Rico because of its newly found international westernized legitimacy.” (73-4)

Aparicio also points out that the process that has popularized and validated Salsa at home and abroad, has also often tried to “whiten” it. For example, she explains how it has been sometimes recontextualized as concert music, “to be only listened to, unidirectionally consumed as another commodity.” However, she argues that the danceability of Salsa as a social festive encounter has prevailed. As “Salsa concertgoes will notice,” she states “whenever a Latina/o audience is present, there I dancing in the aisles and in any available open space within the confines of the theater or auditorium” (97). Nonetheless, in the constant tension between what is considered classical and what is considered popular music, Salsa has yet to earn a respected position for its own musical value. As Aparicio affirms:

“music educators have generally focused and trained students to read music, insisting that such training is the only valid method for becoming a musician, but improvisational skills also require training and practice. This ‘differential’ expertise, rarely valued and in fact repressed in conservatories and music programs, requires a different kind of training based on practice ,ear, pitch, acuity in rhythm, and most important, a true sense of dialogue with other members of the group. A collective sound emerges from the dialectic balance of improvisatory freedom and formulaic entrenchment.” (84-5)

Mass Media and Authenticity

Many argue that Salsa emerged as a commercialized and diluted version of authentic Caribbean musical forms. Aparicio argues that “the tensions between hegemony and resistance in Salsa music stem basically from its modes of production and dissemination. For better or for worse and unlike its folkloric antecedents transmitted orally, Salsa, like all contemporary popular music, is as part of mass culture” (92).She continues,“Salsa … brings to the foreground issues of cultural authenticity … rejected by … scholars … For years, the metropolis has critiqued the nationalism emerging from the colonized countries, yet it simultaneously appropriates these very nationalist-informed expressions” (114). The entire issue, however, is based on a failed logic that opposes authenticity/national folklore to commercialism/mass culture.

As Aparicio states, “to reify Salsa music as merely a victim or object of hegemony is virtually to preempt its powers for creativity, cultural resistance and reaffirmation, and possibly social change. And to sort Salsa music as either ‘commercial’ or ‘sociopolitical’ is, again, another reifying practice that takes into account only the moment of initial production or the isolated text and that fails to consider listening practices and the larger sociopolitical context within which ha musical performance is embedded” (93). Salsa musicians, Aparicio affirms, have “reappropriated the tools of the master – technology – to reaffirm the musical and cultural presence of the marginalized.” “Indeed, to speak about technology and about media only as hegemony,” she continues, “… is to miss the strategic appropriations of that media by marginalized sectors, a process that historically has led to innovation and experimentation and to new traditions” (34).

Conclusion

Salsa, as the heir to previously repressed Afro-Caribbean musical genres, and the cultural torch of contemporary urban Latino/as in their home countries or abroad, presents and represents political issues, cultural values, and social realities. In its multiple forms and contexts, it becomes, as Aparicio so eloquently explores in her book, “the cultural locus through which gender politics, sexuality, and cultural identity are continuously defined and redefined, contested, negotiated, and ultimately, even internalized” (238).

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[1] Both Tito Puente and Dámaso Pérez Prado citations from Aparicio, p. 65.

[2] Ibid

[3] Ibid

[4] Angel Quintero Rivera , Music, Social Class, and the National Question in Puerto Rico (Rio Piedras: University of Puerto Rico, Centro de Investigaciones Sociales, 1987).

Dominican Bachata: Another Cinderella

Deborah Pacini Hernandez’s book, Bachata: A Social History of a Dominican Popular Music, is the third book I have read this semester with the rags to riches narrative of a marginalized music genre that becomes socially accepted if not emblematic of national identity. The author conducted her research in the 80s and early 90s. Up through the ‘80s bachata had been “thoroughly rejected and stigmatized by mainstream Dominican society” (p. xxii). During her first years in the Dominican republic, she found that “Dominicans were reluctant to accept bachata as a legitimate music form and that listening to bachata was considered incompatible with their desired self-presentation” (p. xiv). She states that when she asked some of her friends about bachata, they told her it was “a guitar-based Dominican form of music listened to and made by uneducated campesinos (country people) and the urban poor”(p. xiii).

In other cases explored thus far in this blog of the music of the oppressed being absorbed or appropriated by the dominant group, the issue has centered largely around race and the denial of African cultural roots. However, in the case of bachata, it was much more of a class and social issue of the urban vs rural/newly-urban or the lower vs the middle/upper class.

For example, Pacini Hernandez states that “dictionaries of Latin American Spanish define the term bachata as juerga, jolgorio, or parranda, all of which denote fun, merriment, a good time, or a spree … get-togethers that include music, drink, and food”(p. 7). This is not the only case in which the same term is utilized to refer to a party than to a type of music in Latin America – which makes me think of how truly inseparable the concept of “celebration” is from music and dancing in Latin America. I wonder, for example, whether the term rumba for example was also first used to refer to a party and then to the music genre or viceversa. In any case, Pacini Hernandez reaffirms the lower status conception of bachata by pointing out that in Dominican Republic “the word bachata also had certain class associations; upper-class parties would never be called bachatas” (p. 8).

Pacini Hernandez also ventures that the actual development of bachata was due to the new realities of migration to the city. “In the 60s,” she explains, “massive rural to urban migrations sent thousands of peasants into urban areas. Unable to find employment, people of rural origins were condemned to working for subsistence in the informal sector ad to residence in shantytowns, where traditions patterns of making music were transformed by the urban experience” (p. 32). Like many other music genres often associated with lower class in Latin America, such as tipico in Panama, bachata found its particular niches: like popular working-class bars and private parties. Pacini Hernandez’ argues, for example, that while bachata encountered “stiff competition from foreign music on the radio, the field was wide open in terms of live performances ... For example, the fiestas patronales (patron saints’ festivals) of towns of villages all over the country” (p. 80).

However, by the ‘90s and in part because of the release of Juan Luis Guerra’s, a well-respected and sophisticated musician, album Bachata Rosa and its worldwide success, bachata had become a popular and well accepted genre across Dominican society (p. xxii). Pacini Hernandez states that as “well-educated, middle class musicians like Juan Luis Guerra” started producing “sophisticated versions” of bachata, with different instrumentation and arrangements, they were differentiated from the “low-status, street-level, originals by being called tecno-bachata” (p. 15). If she labels Juan Luis Guerra tecno-bachata, I can’t imagine what she would think of today’s much more fast paced, urban-flavored, and synthesized bachata.

Pacini Hernandez’s book was published in 1995. Since then bachata’s popularity has transcended the Dominican borders and become a world wide phenomenon, with crossovers in other countries such as Colombia, Mexico and the U.S. In the NY based Latino music industry it has also become closely related to current music rage, reggaeton. In order to reflect contemporary popular lore, I will take the liberty of quoting from Wikipedia’s current entry on bachata (music):

Aventura, based in New York City, is today the best known bachata group. Their 2002 single "Obsesión" dominated airwaves in Latin America countries, the US Hispanic market, and Caribbean Spanish speaking Islands. Other popular modern artists include Toby Loe, Monchy y Alexandra, Andy Andy, Antony Santos, Zacarias Ferrerira, Luis Vargas, and Xtreme. (retrieved May 10, 2010)

Many aspects of bachata seem to have remained the same since its origins decades ago. For example, Pacini Herandez describes the sinuous bachata dance as consisting “of an alternating “one-two-three-kick” pattern, in which the “kick” is a toe step or a small hop” (p. 7), which is exactly how it is danced today. Again, Wikipedia’s entry on bachata (dance) describes (very accurately, in my experience) the contemporary step thus:

Counts 1 through 3 and 5 through 7, when taken, generate a natural hip motion. Counts 4 and 8, consists of a “pop” movement. The "pop" depending on a person’s style is executed lifting or tapping a foot or using stylish footwork while popping the hip to the side opposite of the natural Cuban hip motion. Bachata music has a slight accent in rhythm at every fourth count, indicating when the “pop” should happen. Note: The “pop” will always be done in the opposite direction of the last step, while the next step will be taken on the same direction of the pop. The dance direction will interchange at every 4th count.

However, other aspects of the genre have undergone significant changes in the past decades. For example, Pacini Hernandez states that “when the first bachata songs were recorded in the early 1960s, they were still unequivocally part of the broad, Pan-Hispanic tradition of romantic song … usually modeled after the quintessentially romantic bolero, they tended to be highly emotional expressions of lost and unrequited love” (p. 158). She argues that by the 1980s the most common themes had shifted to lust, sex, deception, bars and drinking (p. 159). The lyrics suggested “that women were unreliable because they had no sense of self-control and therefore could not resist sexual desire.” She points out that “the idea of women’s sexuality as a potentially dangerous natural force that can only be controlled by containment was part of the culturally baggage inherited from the country’s Spanish/Mediterranean colonizers.” Her argument for the rise of non-romantic lyrics is that it was caused by the changes in family structure and gender roles that came about with immigration to the cities and women joining the work force. On page 66, she states: “Women’s sexuality had been kept under control in the confines of patriarchal rural home and community settings but was unleashed when they discovered freedom of movement in the city.” She adds that “In bachata, men could also compensate for their inability to control women by bragging and other sorts of posturing that reaffirmed their masculine authority” (p. 167). Finally, she grants that “while we must consider the verbal denigration of women as a form of violence, physical violence towards women was seldom if ever mentioned in song texts. When physical violence was mentioned, it was directed at other men” (p. 168).

The truth is I came to known bachata for the first time in the 00’s and the style of bachata that has become internationally popular is characterized, once again, by romantic lyrics. Reggaeton is the only urban contemporary genre I would consider to be more popular with contemporary Latino teenagers than bachata – which in my opinion have started to displace salsa and merengue which had been the uncontested favorite Caribbean rhythms for generations. Until very recently, reggaeton largely featured violent lyrics, aggressive or diminishing towards women, sexually charged, and often inciting to physical violence and guns. Bachata, was in fact, differentiated from reggaeton, not only because they are obviously different rhythms, but because of its romantic lyrics and formal (though close) embrace for dancing. In the past year or two, however, a new form or reggaeton, literally termed “romantic styled,” which also tends to downplay the hip hop influence that become dominant in reggaeton, while featuring fusion with other Latin danceable genres, such as cumbia or, of course, bachata.

Pacini Hernandez argues that “bachata clearly belongs with a category that Charles Keil has called ‘people’s music.’” Keil coined that term in his article “People’s music comparatively: Style and stereotypes, class and hegemony” published in Dialectical Anthropology in 1985, “to define a space between ‘folk’ (with its strong connotations of ‘rural,’ ‘illiterate’) and ‘popular’ (with its denotation today of ‘mass mediated’); … he also used the term ‘working-class music’” (p. 23). As we have seen in previous entries, most if not all of what we consider to be Latin music belongs to this genre, and emerged out of the fusion of Native America, African, and European music, which became popularized and co-opted by the local and international music industries in the ‘60s.

Although considered ethnic and picturesque, if not mistaken by folkloric music, by outsiders, many of the contemporary Latin music genres are also urban music genres. As Pacini Hernandez points out: “In Latin America, the simultaneous processes of migration, urbanization, and industrialization intensified in the 1960s, spawning a new generation of ‘people’s musics,’ which … emerged at a time when the recording and broadcast industries were promoting hegemonic middle-class-oriented popular musics – some of which, such as orquesta merengue in the Dominican Republic and later salsa throughout Latin America, had started out as ‘people’s musics’ themselves” (p. 232). This statement, however places an unnecessary dichotomy, in my opinion, between the music of el pueblo (the people) and marketable or commercial music. By Pacini Hernandez’s definition, in the 21^st Century bachata has now joined the ranks of salsa and merengue and ceased to be “people’s music.” In fact, on page 38, she states: “ the term music of marginality ceases to be appropriate when a musical style created by musicians and fans who are economically and socially marginalized begins to be produced by the dominant elite and marketed to non-marginalized audiences”.

Is the popularization and commercialization of working-class music a form of cultural appropriation, then? What would that say of those of my generation who have grown up with salsa, merengue, cumbia, and bachata, not to mention reggaeton, as essential elements of our cultural Latin identity? I don’t feel the original creators of the genres been deprived of their music in any of this cases (although, yes, they have changed considerably while adapting to the mass market, but also just like all music genres form do through time), in fact I have found they are often proud of the fame the music their consider their own has achieved. Of course, both aspects of the issue are to be considered in a full picture, but ultimately the expansion of the popularity of bachata, and other such genres, from marginalized to fashionable, has increased a market that benefits Latin musicians, while at the same time fertilizing and supporting a national and sometimes pan-Latin identity for generations to come.

Samba as the symbol of Brazil: An example of cultural restitution or adopted inter-ethnic identity?

In The Mystery of Samba: Popular Music and National identity in Brazil, Hermano Vianna explore the process through which Samba became “Brazil’s ‘national rhythm, its prime symbol of cultural nationalism” (xiii). As is the case with many other Latin music genres, Brazilians and samba scholars are preoccupied with the concept of authenticity: what is and isn’t samba, where and when did it originate, what is authentic samba instrumentation or dancing, etc. Vianna presents authenticity, national identity, cultural symbols, in this case, as they relate to Brazilian samba, as social constructions (xiii).

But how did these social and culturally based shared concepts come to be constructed? To answer this question, Vianna does not concern himself with trying to find, for example, the holy grail of the first recorded samba. Instead, he focuses on “samba’s transformation into a ‘national rhythm,’ when it was suddenly ‘discovered’ by the nation as a whole and adopted as a defining element of brasilidade or Brazilian identity” (10).

The conspicuous mention of “the nation as a whole” discovering samba, suggest the genre, or its musical predecessors, were previously part of the cultural heritage of only a portion of the nation’s population. It also suggests that Brazil is a heterogeneous society and Brazilians can act “as a whole” or they can act separately in sub-groups with individual ethnic identities. All of this qualities apply equally to the peoples of all other Latin-American countries. Furthermore, as we have seen in the case of Dominican merengue, the adoption of one sub-group’s music as “a defining element” of an entire nation’s identity is also a process that has taken place often throughout Latin America in the past.

In the case of samba, as in many other cases, the particular music/dance form in question often features African, rural, and/or lower class elements and was looked down upon by the upper/white/urban class before being taken up as the national rhythm. In Feijoada e Soul Foudd, Peter Fry asks a question of Brazilian samba that I would like to generalize to all of Latin America: Why have Latin Americans taken up national symbols and built popular culture around cultural items originally generated by dominated groups?. Fry suggests that “the conversion of ethnic symbols into national symbols masks a situation of racial domination” (as cited in Vianna 13). Thus, Latin preoccupation with and practice of syncretism (in this case with music, but why not also with religion, language, or any other cultural aspect?) is presented as a consequence of past and present oppression, perhaps as a way to avoid conflict or to restitute cultural value, and definitely as reflecting a need for a cohesive identidad mestiza or ethnically mixed identity.

Dominican Merengue and Its Bigger Pictures

In Merengue: Dominican Music and Identity, following Benedict Anderson’s concept of imagined communities and nationalism as cultural artifact, author Paul Austerlitz proposes that merengue “lies at the heart of the Dominican national imagination” (xiv). On page 129, he states, for example, that liking merengue seems to be a patriotic duty for Dominicans. The author suggests that merengue “derives its efficacy as a Dominican symbol by simultaneously encoding several often contradictory aspects of Dominican life” (xv). He recounts the history of merengue from the mid twentieth Century to 1995, focusing on the Dominican Republic’s social history; race, gender, and class issues; cultural nationalist movements in response to foreign occupation; the propagandist use of merengue by the Trujillo regime, its local variants, and its transnationalization.

Austerlitz pays particularly close attention to historical and contemporary Hispanic-centrism in the Dominican Republic, a process which often neglected or even denied the African influence in Dominican culture and the African roots of merengue rhythms. In fact, he argues that merengue, and particularly the variant from the predominantly white Cibao region, was accepted by the Dominican upper class as the canonized musical tradition of the Dominican Republic because of its relative high Hispanic musical roots in comparison to other more African-heavy musical styles, such as those involving ritual drumming.

In the history of Dominican merengue, the role of Trujillo, who ruled the country from 1930 to 1961, is a particularly interesting chapter. As Austerlitz points out, Trujillo “like the European totalitarian leaders … understood that rural expressive forms can serve as effective symbols of national identity” (52). Trujillo used merengue music as part of his campaign, had a personal band that was required to specialize in merengue and play it at events, and was well known as a skilled merengue dancer (52-73).

Austerlitz points out that merengue became essential to national identity for Dominicans “as outside influences inundated the Republic in the late twentieth century,” but also for the large numbers of Dominicans who emigrated abroad. I believe this twofold indispensability of music for cultural identity holds true for all Latinos, be it juxtaposed to outside influences for those who live in Latinoamerica, or as a long distance umbilical cord to the motherland for those who have emigrated.

Furthermore, Austerlitz presents the development of Dominican national identity as a “hegemonic process” that invokes an identity that advances the interest of a nation’s dominant class (11). This is also applicable to the formation of national identities in many other Latinoamerican countries where, until very recently, African cultural roots were consistently downplayed and completely unappreciated in favor of “Hispanidad”.

It is also important to point out, as Austerlitz does on page 12, that nowadays Dominican merengue has transcended its national roots to become an integral part of the “soundscape of Latinos in all of the Americas” and the pan-Latino identity. This phenomenon started in the ‘50s with musicians such as Joseito Mateo, and went on through the ‘70s, due in part to the presence of Dominican musicians in New York. However, the international rise of merengue from a regional genre to a popular Latin rhythm took place in the ‘80s, mainly due to the success of musicians such as Wilfrido Vargas and Juan Luis Guerra. Decades afterward, their music is still common, if not essential, at danced parties all over Latinoamerica. The music of Juan Luis Guerra and his group 4:40 in particular, is often conceived as having elevated merengue with its jazz harmonies, funk influences, and poetic or socially conscious lyrics. Yet some Dominicans also point to the double standard through which the upper class danced to 4:40’s Bachata Rosa while censuring bachata in general as a lewd music genre of the rural and lower class.

Another aspect that Austerlitz explores about merengue, which applies to all Latin dances, is dance as courtship. Many of the contemporary popular Latin dances were at first regarded by the upper class in Latinoamerican countries as lascivious and unacceptable. There is no doubt that hip-swaying Merengue, particularly in its close embrace format, can be a rather arousing dance form – although it can also be danced by couples keeping a considerable distance between the man and the woman. Besides dancing as a courtship ritual for couples, it is also important to notice that Latin dance genres are always socially acceptable in mixed gender situations. In fact, dance skills are considered a desirable quality in a potential partner, and a source of pride for both men and women.

While we are on the subject of gender, it is also important to acknowledge, as Austerlitz does on page 115, that Latin sexuality is largely misogynistic. This is reflected in the lyrics of many merengues with lecherous references. Furthermore, merengue, like most other Latin music genres, has traditionally been mostly performed and composed by men. However, in the most recent decades, female performers and all female groups of merengue have enjoyed international success; for example, Puerto Rican singer Olga Tañón and Dominican group Las Chicas del Can. This group was well known for their sex appeal and provocative outfits, which many criticized as demeaning and instigating the voyeuristic male gaze; while others, such as Dominican anthropologist Carlos Andújar, viewed “erotic dance on the merengue bandstand as the same kind of celebration of fertility that characterizes much African influenced expression” (117).

Among the many reasons Austerlitz suggests for the huge acceptance of merengue in D.R. and abroad, I find one of them particularly interesting because it is generalizable to a formula that applies to all music in Latinoamerica: level of danceability is directly proportional to success. Merengue has been welcomed by non-Dominican Latinos too, partly because it features an upbeat inviting rhythm, and because of the simplicity of its dance steps. Compared to other Latin genres, merengue is not just enjoyable but easy to dance (128).

The success of merengue outside of D.R., and, on a larger scale, of Latin music worldwide, is a source of pride for Dominicans and all Latinos respectively. Austerlitz points this out when he quotes Arnold Perris: “musical nationalism is an effective oppositional strategy when a subjugated nation’s art gains fame on the global stages … a subtle act of resistance” (151).

Sacred Dance and Embodied Divinity

In exploring Latin music and dance, and embodied forms of knowledge, I feel the African diaspora religions (or would spiritual practices be a better word?), deserve special attention. I am referring to the ritual dance & music performances that are part of African-American (as in the continent, not the country, of course) syncretic belief and worship systems, such as Haitian Voudoun, Cuban Santeria, Brazilian Candomble.

The main difference between these and other Latin music and dance traditions is that the former are considered sacred by participants, while most of the latter are firmly planted in the secular world. In these drummed and danced rituals archetypal/spiritual/divine entities, referred to as Orishas or Iwas (such as Ogun, the warrior, and Yemayá), manifest themselves through the minds and bodies of some participants. The rituals are full of encoded meaning in the shared movement and rhythmic vocabulary and dynamics, and often also in chant lyrics, colors, items, foods, drinks, and clothing. These meanings are learnt and communicated experientially.

Yvonne Daniel, the author of Dancing Wisdom: Embodied Knowledge in Hatian Voudu, Cuban Yoruba, and Bahian Candomblé, studies these practices as praise performance: sacred dancing. A number of quotes from her book will proof helpful in understanding the worldview in which they take place:

“The divinities have come to help believers become divine themselves.”

“Worshipping Africans in the Diaspora have made philosophy indelible and cosmology visible by means of the intricate and elaborate interrelatioships between sound and gesture, music and dance.”

“Worshippers dance, sing, and drum divinity in order to express divine presence within, between, and among all planes of existence.”

The danced rituals of these Diaspora religions are truly embodied spirituality, an enactment of shared spiritual experiences and knowledge, largely based on collectively raised energy through drumming and movement. Furthermore, these practices also serve a communal purpose generating and fostering cohesiveness. As embodied spiritual experiences, they are wholly alien to our worldview and experiences as Westerners, with our sacred/secular and mind/body dualities, and consequent disregard for the physical and the experiential. In these embodied traditions a feminist would quickly find diverse but equal roles for both genders (among participants and spiritual leaders, as among divine entities); traditions that survived enslavement, colonialism, oppression, and misinformed stereotypes; as well as a refreshing appreciation of human experience.

Analyzing the analyses

The texts I have been reading, have opened my eyes to the deep complexity of Latin music and dance, and the number of layers and perspectives to be considered when studying it as a collection of living traditions. Not the least important of which is the relationship of inside and outside, of the global roots of Latin rhythms, as well as the influence of Latin rhythms in dance and music traditions worldwide.

As explored in previous posts, the widespread reach of Caribbean rhythms around the world, often results in issues of (mis)representation. There is another curious phenomenon worth exploring which emerges from the fact that people the world over dance to Caribbean beats: they often appropriate them and mix them with their own rhythms. The emergence of ska and drum & bass are clear examples of global rhythms with roots in Jamaican music. But the phenomenon does not end there: these new rhythms return, like waves, to the Caribbean, and in turn influence our music and dance scene. Thus, the generation of new rhythms through constant processes of fusion and cross-fertilization is a staple characteristic of Latin music a dance. This continuous rhythmic creolization is noticeable in all our genres: from the original fusion of African, European, and Native American rhythms, instruments, music and dance traditions; to the recent phenomenons of Salsa in the '60s, with it's jazz and orchestral influence; to the reggaeton of the present times, undeniably marked by hiphop. As Susanna Sloat (editor of Caribbean Dance from Abakua to Zou: How Movement Shapes Identity) puts it, the layering of influences (from India, China, Indonesia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and Latin America) "have given the caribbean dance cultures a fascinating complexity".

There are other aspects of complexity to these living dance cultures worth exploring. One such aspect is time: some rhythms are abandoned over time, some others revived by folkloric troupes in codified versions for stage performance, while others continue to be embraced by the youth after many generations. Another aspect is social class. Often rhythms originally identified with lower socioeconomic status are eventually accepted by the upper class. Often times in Latin America, the change from disdain of a particular rhythm by the upper class to nationwide acceptance to the point of being identified as the national dance (as was the case with Tango), happens only after the particular rhythm becomes popular abroad. A simlar intercharge of rhythms takes places between rural and urban groups of people, as music and dance forms from the countryside originally considered rustic, rough, and unsophisticated, gradually become accepted in the cities.

In exploring cultural influences and social context, we must consider dance and music genres as living traditions. Taking into account the entire complexity of Latin music and dance requires exploring current elements and social functions as well as ongoing processes (synchronic study) as well as tracing its origins and historical development (diachronic study). Finally, an approach that also includes documenting practitioners and audiences, as well as performance processes, would provide an ethnographic basis from which to draw a sound feminist analysis. I must say, however, that most of the reading I have read thus far approaches Latin music and dance from a historic perspective. Even those writings that include descriptions of dance/music events, participant observation, and/or deal with identity issues, lack any detailed study of dancers and musicians as tradition bearers and as individuals, or of the events from a performative perspective. Thus, focusing on the dance and music genres as text and leaving almost completely out of the picture the people who practice them. This realization has struck me as nothing short of catastrophic, considering that if I have been able to reach any one conclusion thus far, it is that Latin dance and music genres are performed identity.