Representation, Hybridity, and Identity in Colombian Music

Introduction

When people see representation in Colombia in the media, usually what shows up is

some image related to violence, the drug trade, or the sexualization of women. This image of

Colombia is something that has been criticized for years, and efforts have been ongoing to push

for a wider, more complete view of Colombia. These efforts have been spearheaded by

musicians, who are able to access a wider media platform more easily and therefore are among

Colombia’s most well-known faces. Of course, with a new audience and larger platform comes

not only the need to adapt the music to new audiences, but a responsibility by the musician to

make sure that the process of changing the music does not lose the musical aspects that tie it to a

musician’s identity. If a musician is able to adapt their music successfully while still finding

ways to establish their Colombian identities, then they will be able to contribute their identity to

wider Colombian representation as a whole. Colombian musicians provide alternatives to

flattened representations of Colombia by using musical hybridity to establish their identities,

making efforts to recognize the Colombian diversity behind their music, and navigating the ways

that different audiences affect their music, both inside Colombia and globally.

Many different styles of Colombian music are discussed in this essay. According to the

responses of a survey I sent out and corroborated by much of the literature cited in this essay,

cumbia, vallenato, and salsa are the styles of music most closely associated with Colombia.

However, due mostly to the Andes mountains providing geographical separation between distinct

regions of Colombia, many other regionally associated forms of music are common. These

include the joropo music of the plains east of the Andes, and bambuco music, which emerged out

of the Central Andes. This essay has an especially large focus on the contributions of
Afro-Colombians, who have had some of the greatest increases in visibility and representation

through music. Afro-Colombians are most heavily concentrated on the Pacific and Caribbean

coast of Colombia, In the Caribbean coast, because of the port cities of Cartagena and

Barranquilla providing greater cultural exchange, Afro-Colombians were essential to the musical

hybridity that spawned styles like cumbia, vallenato, and champeta. The Pacific coast remained

more isolated throughout its history, and Afro-Colombians faced a national landscape where they

were “invisibilized” in wider representations of Colombia, which is caused by a historical lack of

academic “canonization” of Colombia compared to countries like Brazil and Cuba, racial

policies that led to an emphasis on whiter faces of Colombia, the exclusion of Afro-Colombians

from any unified sense of cultural nationalism that was already hindered by decades of conflict,

and regional isolation caused by geographic barriers and a lack of infrastructure.(Berimbaum

Quintero 2018, 5) As such, greater recognition of Afro-Colombian took much longer to achieve.

Most of the examples in this essay that connect to diversity connect recognition of

Afro-Colombian influences, whether it is through innovation, musical hybridity, and increases in

visibility by Afro-Colombian musicians, or by non-African musicians recognizing the role

Afro-Colombian influences in their musical formation.

Overview of Survey

As part of research for this project, I decided to make an informal, anonymous survey,

asking about the representations of Colombia people see in the media, and what Colombian

musicians they were familiar with. Especially important to me was seeing how music affected

people’s perceptions of Colombia, and what aspects of Colombia they felt were

underrepresented. This survey had 85 responses, including 63 Colombians, 20 of which live

outside of Colombia. Survey respondents had the option of responding in either English or
Spanish. In this essay, I am using the survey primarily to guide the subjects of the research, to

make some generalizations about people’s opinions about Colombia and its musicians, and as

direct quotes. Direct quotes from survey answers have been translated and/or edited for clarity.

Part 1: Representations of Colombia

Cultural Flattening and Media Consumption

When asking survey respondents about how they see Colombia in the media, a

predictably large proportion of respondents expressed frustration with the heavy focus on more

negative aspects of Colombia such as the drug trade and violence. The other common source of

frustration found in survey responses was a lack of diverse Colombian representation, or a

feeling that “there is more representation of Latinos in general, but the multicultural aspects are

rarely represented.’ (Survey Quote) This state of Colombian media representation can be

explained by how commercial influences on media result in a “flattening of difference within

Latina/os and between ethnic communities…; all Latina/os are alike, and all ethnics are alike”

(Valdivia 2016, 60) This flattening of difference not only applies to Colombia in relation with

other Latin American cultures, but also between the different identities within Colombian

culture.

Generally, media portrayals are primarily decided by whiter, hegemonic, upper-class

audiences and media executives. This ties into the idea that “While Latin American immigrants

may be unwelcome, Latinidad itself is desirable and accessible through sex or consumption.”

(Porras Contreras 2016, 306) Each one of frequently repeated tropes that Colombians are

generally tired of seeing in the media (violence, drugs, oversexualization), is easily consumed

without any regard to the effects of the imagery. The many portrayals of Pablo Escobar and the

drug trade is the clearest example of media designed to be easily consumed in this manner. As
one survey respondent put it, “The representations went from news about Narcotraffic and how

violent and dangerous it was to visit Colombia, to making easy money by making glorifying TV

series about Narcos.” The narratives of fear and the fascination with the drug trade are such

easily consumable concepts that they continue to dominate many people’s perceptions of

Colombia, even as many Colombians try to push the country’s representation in a different

direction. Portrayals of Colombia have to be consumable by the audience, and any new portrayal

of Colombia still needs to have the consumer audience in mind and adjust accordingly.

Anny new media representation that seeks to create a less flattened image of Colombia

has the burden of ‘crossing over’. Art and media that seeks a bigger audience faces the

“historical tension between a popular art and the dynamics of the mass market”, (Garofalo 1996,

231) So any musician or artist that wants to expand the image of Colombia has to figure out how

to make their art appealing in a way where it can still enter the media landscape, while still

making sure not to play into the flattened narratives, so as not to risk losing their ability to

portray a new perspective. A challenge for Colombian artists who seek to ‘cross over’ to a new

audience is the fact that flattening of difference also exists in the way media organizations

market to audiences. Frequently, there is a narrative of the monolithic ‘Latino audience’ that

media companies and politicians want to win over, constructing a supposedly homogenous

marketing demographic that ignores any difference between Latin American cultures. This

makes the idea of ‘crossing over’ even more difficult for the musicians, since the narrow image

that media companies determine to be the most marketable to their homogenous view of ‘Latino

audiences’ ends up excluding many different Latin American identities and leaves no room.

Additionally, as will be discussed later in this essay, Colombian musicians from

underrepresented groups generally must cross over into more urban and wealthy audiences
within Colombia itself before taking on a multinational audience. Ultimately, the goal to strive

towards is providing a more complete representation of Colombia. However, because of the need

to adapt to new audiences, along with many Colombians having hybrid identities, art will always

be adjusted to new tastes and experiences. This has to be done in a way that creates a wider,

more expansive image of Colombia instead of erasing the unique aspects of Colombian culture,

especially the contributions by underrepresented groups. This essay highlights many examples of

Colombian music adapting itself to new audiences, and shows the different ways this music has

provided an alternative to the flattened representations of Colombia.

Magical Diversity: Colombia’s Changing Image

Several months ago, I went on a trip to Colombia, visiting the Eje Cafetero region

(known for being a main hub of coffee growing in Colombia), and nearby attractions such as a

Botanical Garden, the Cocora Valley, the tourist town of Salento, and the coffee-themed

amusement park Parque del Café, which features a live show that showcases many of the distinct

regional styles of music and dance in a mythicized manner. Returning to Colombia and seeing

these tourist sites made it clear to me that in Colombia, there is a push to highlight diversity,

natural beauty, and magical realist ideas as an alternative to existing representations of

Colombia. This increased desire is also confirmed by the results of my survey,

The Colombian government has made more attempts to promote racial diversity and

recognition of marginalized communities. The 1991 constitution, which recognized the rights of

Afro-Colombians and indigenous groups and promised them more visibility and upward

mobility, is usually cited as being the symbolic start of these efforts. This is in contrast with more

common racial notions of mestizo identity, which applies to most Colombians who share mixed

indigenous and European identity. However, historically, the frequent emphasis on mestizo
identity contributed to an ideal national image that “was always at the lighter end of the

spectrum” (Wade 2000, 11), excluding people of solely indigenous and Afro-Colombian identity.

Therefore, in an effort to expand the racial image of Colombia, there has been an uptick in

sponsorship of events, like music festivals, that showcase the country's diverse regions. Although

there is still work that needs to be done, cultural diversity has been recognized much more in

Colombia recently.

Magical realism, where realistic narratives are blended with fantasy, is another aspect of

Colombian culture that “serves as an alternative identificatory paradigm to violence.” (Ochoa

2005, 207) Magical realism is seen in many portrayals of Colombia, especially in the works of

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and most recently, in the massively popular Disney film Encanto. The

use of magical realism often creates a unique identity for Colombia, casting the country as

otherworldly and as something that cannot be found anywhere else. It also helps emphasize

Colombia’s natural beauty, something that is frequently cast as Colombia’s greatest asset. Works

like Encanto paint Colombia as a magical place, with stunning scenery, a constant celebration of

various kinds of music, and a respect for all kinds of diversity between people.

Of course, the new emphasis on magical realism does have commercial influences. These

are most clearly seen in pushes to increase tourism in Colombia. News articles with titles like

“Where to Find Disney's Inspiration for 'Encanto' in Real Life” display a promise that the fantasy

found in Colombia’s representations, because of its grounding in reality, will be found in

Colombia. These articles, along with information on Colombian tourist websites, explain where

tourists can see natural beauty, biodiversity, and the cultural and musical diversity, casting all of

these as being mythological in origin and magical in nature. This appeal to magical realism is an

effective one, judging by how I was partially inspired to visit the Eje Cafetero after finding out
that the region was the basis for Encanto’s stunning visuals. Colombian tourist sites are quick to

point out the diversity of the country, emphasizing how many distinct musical rhythms and

species of plants and birds exist in the country. However, the inclusion of music and culture in

this new image of Colombia is something to be analyzed. Not only does this emphasis on

cultural diversity foreground notions of foreign discovery, but it shows how ““culture as

resource” has come to be seen as instrumental for economic development, … as a cultural

commodity, or secondarily, through such frames as cultural tourism.” (Berimbaum Quintero

2019, 218) Care must be taken to make sure that pushes to showcase diversity show respect for

the cultures they are celebrating, and that the diverse groups that are used in the new image of

Colombia are centered and compensated fairly instead of exploited.

So how should these representations be analyzed? Angharad Valdivia and Esteban Del

Río offer a framework for the analysis of media representation through their work in Latin Media

Studies. They advocate for analyzing representation through a comparative approach, saying that

since Representation cannot always be classified as positive and negative binary, many times

context is the subject of analysis. (Del Rio 2017, 12) They argue that a perfect utopian

representation, where everyone is fully represented and noone is misrepresented, is unachievable

in context where “in the mainstream, the profit motive reigns supreme, though not without

irrational elements of amnesia and exclusions.” (Valdivia 2017, 69) Representations in media

have to be analyzed with the understanding that the media often lacks nuance in marketing to

audiences, that audiences shape the media itself, and that Latin American identity constantly has

to be rediscovered and repackaged for new audiences. Analyzing Encanto and the emphasis on

magical realism and diversity it represents shows the influences of commercialization and some

of the potential issues it causes. However, by positioning these representations in comparison

been beneficial to Colombia’s image. Additionally, the emphasis on diversity by nature will

make sure that more aspects of Colombia are shown in the media. Therefore, this emphasis on

diversity through magical realism can be seen as one of the most effective ways for Colombians

to push back on flattened representations of their country.

Part 2: Colombian Music, Hybridity, and Establishing Identity

Cumbia and Adapting to New Audiences

Cumbia, being one of the musical styles most associated with Colombia (based on my

survey and other research), is an example of how Colombian music adapts to reflect hybrid

identities and changing audiences. Cumbia, having emerged out of the Magdalena River delta

near the cities of Cartagena and Barranquilla, is generally understood as being a convergence of

various African and Indigenous music and dance influences, and is defined by its distinctive

rhythm, generally played on a scraper instrument called a guacharaca. Cumbia is a clear case of

the effects of urbanization compelling musicians to adjust their music to new audiences.

Popular big band musicians like Lucho Bermudez adapted cumbia by incorporating more

sophisticated arrangements and big band instrumentation, as heard in his well-known song

“Colombia Tierra Querida”. “Retaining the music’s local character by employing the rich

costeño vernacular in song lyrics, the sophisticated and modern-sounding arrangements of these

band- leaders were highly regarded by coastal elites, who hired them to play in the region’s most

exclusive venues.” (Pacini Hernandez 2010, 113) This urban-rural class split is a difficult one to

navigate for many Colombian musicians, as Will Holland describes in his liner notes to the

music compilation Original Sound of Cumbia, at the time of cumbia’s earliest popularity, the
social roles and traditions of the rural regions conflicted with the musicians who sought to find

success in urban centers, and many people in the more conservative cities like Bogotá felt as if

the rural, lower-class musicians shouldn’t have as much influence. However, with the help of the

evolution in its instrumentation and therefore shifts in its audience demographics, cumbia

became the sound of Colombia.

Eventually, cumbia became so popular and easily adaptable, that Mexican musicians

started to obtain great success in Mexico by making their own interpretations of cumbia, and the

cumbia rhythm influenced other Latin American styles such as Peruvian chicha. With cumbia’s

place in Colombia’s image of itself, musicians who perform cumbia more in line with the

original rural traditions, such as Toto La Momposina, have been able to reassert themselves as

being part of the origins behind Colombia’s most recognizable and adaptable rhythm, performing

traditional songs like “El Pescador”. Artists like this did not originally have the space to do this

in front of wider Colombian audiences, but had to wait for their music to receive urban

“validation through visibility.” (Cepeda 2010, 126) Cumbia is perhaps the clearest example of

Colombian music adjusting itself to new audiences and highlights the urban-rural class divide

that frequently has to be crossed over in Colombian music.

Champeta and Creating New Local Sounds

Champeta is an example of a style of music that emerged out of multicultural and

multinational influences in Cartagena. It first started gaining popularity in the 1980s among the

lower class in Cartagena, especially the Afro-Colombian community. Champeta (heard in “El

Lobo'' by Wganda Kenya) is primarily characterized by its rhythmically dense drums, driving

guitar melodies, and frequent use of electronic drums and instruments. Champeta’s development

and innovation was primarily driven by the popularization of pico sound systems in Cartagena,
leading to a scene where DJs would look for new music suitable for their sound system’s large

speaker, and ended up turning to imported music, especially music from Africa and its diaspora,

to give new “original” music to their audiences. The usage of African music was especially

popular, and as people heard and imitated these sounds, champeta emerged as a new style.

Champeta is primarily influenced by the imported African records (especially Congolese

soukous music) and local Afro-Colombian influences (especially percussion from the historic

Afro-Colombian town San Basilio de Palenque, known for having a surviving local creole

language and for being the oldest town in Colombia founded by escaped slaves). Eventually, new

champeta recordings began to integrate distinct Yamaha drum pads and Casio keyboards (heard

in “Busco Alguien Que Me Quiera” by El Afinaito), producing “a battery of sounds that are

ladled liberally over champeta arrangements” (Berinbaum Quintero 2018, 13). The usage of

electronic drums and foreign records was primarily driven by the sound system DJs wanting to

curate and create their own distinct and exclusive sound driven by the music brought into

Cartagena. All these external hybrid influences ended up combining into a new distinct

Colombian sound.

But how did champeta establish itself as a distinctly Colombian sound with its significant foreign

influences? Deborah Pacini Hernandez’s article on the Cartagena sound system scene provides

an explanation:

“Cartageneros, in contrast, incorporated records that had been produced throughout the
diaspora into new local practices, and invested them with local meanings. In short, they
transformed mass-mediated consumer goods into a local "folk" music culture (i.e., one
that is vernacular and community based)— turning on its head the common belief that
folk culture is destroyed when it substitutes mass-mediated consumer goods for its own
traditional forms of expression.” (Pacini Hernandez 1996, 461)
It is important to recognize that the external hybrid influences such as the African records played

over the sound systems had entirely new musical practices created from them in champeta music.

Champeta did receive some backlash from some people from the upper class in Cartagena, who

thought that Champeta’s association with the lower class and its foreign influences would

degrade other more well-established music in Cartagena. (Cueto Quintero 2016, 653) However,

instead, the new distinctly Colombian musical culture was built around the African records and

influences, and a whole new style of music emerged out of this culture. Champeta was able to

establish itself at a time of massive popularity for other Colombian styles like cumbia and

vallenato, and it provided an alternate vision of Cartagena’s music that recognized its

Afro-Colombian influences and also revered the other music that is so important in Africa and its

diaspora. Champeta is one of many examples worldwide of a new musical style arising from

diverse hybrid influences, but still being able to tie itself to its location and serve as a way of

expressing local identity. Ultimately, because of its emphasis on African tradition, champeta

served as a way of expanding the representation of African roots in the Caribbean coast of

Colombia.

Pacific Music, Identity, and Adapting to the New Landscape

The music of the Pacific coast of Colombia has recently received more attention in efforts

to promote the diversity within Colombia. Having been frequently excluded from the mestizo

ideal of Colombian, Afro-Colombians were recognized as a distinct cultural group by the 1991

Colombian Constitution, and as part of the increased efforts to include Afro-Colombians, their

role in the formation of Colombian music began to gain greater visibility. This is especially true

to the Afro-Colombians living in the Pacific Coast of Colombia, which due to geographical and

socioeconomic factors, has historically been culturally cut off from the rest of Colombia. As the
Pacific Coast of Colombia has gained greater recognition, the musicians there have begun to

embrace their role in establishing local identity. Herencia de Timbiqui and ChocQuibTown are

two examples of musical groups that embrace hybridity and navigate new audiences, all while

remaining rooted in their Afro-Colombian identities.

Herencia de Timbiqui, one of the most widely known groups from the Pacific coast of

Colombia, makes music which features the traditional currulao instrumentation of the South

Pacific coast of Colombia, where their hometown of Timbiqui is located. However, in addition to

their local instruments such as the marimba de chonta, they also include instruments traditionally

seen in salsa bands, with the horn section being the most obvious example of this. One of the

easiest ways to view Herencia de Timbiqui’s hybridization is as an example of urban influences

on more local regional sounds. And in Herencia de Timbiqui’s case, they are closely linked to

Cali, which although it still has some geographic isolation from the Pacific coast, has been

positioning itself as a link to the Pacific with its celebration of its music. Cali, a city best known

for being a hub for salsa music, also hosts the annual Petronio Alvarez Festival for Pacific music

which Herencia de Timbiqui is a frequent fixture, having won the competitive portion of the

festival in 2005. (Sevilla 2017, 68)

Herencia de Timbiqui has frequently advertised themselves as “folklor Colombiano

hecho en Cali”. (Colombian folklore created in Cali) (Teleantioquia 2015) This is most apparent

in “Caleño”, their debut album’s ode to Cali and its people, culture, and music festivals that draw

people from all over Colombia Featuring currulao drums and marimba as its rhythmic base,

“Caleño” integrates salsa horns and piano, and features a chorus of “Baile Caleño, mi currulao”,

an invitation to the Cali audience to dance to the currulao music. During the montuno section,

this appeal to the audience expands to include the people of other Pacific cities and towns like
Guapi and Buenaventura, emphasizing the people just like them in Cali that left their Pacific

hometowns for Cali. Herencia de Timbiqui’s embrace of Cali, its sounds, and its people, makes

Pacific music more accessible to wider Colombian audiences, somewhat similar to how Lucho

Bermudez’s embrace of big band instrumentation appealed to a wider Colombian audience as

well, although Herencia de Timbiqui approach their music from their rural hometown context

first and foremost. Herencia de Timbiqui uses the musical hybridization to emphasize the way

their Pacific identities relate to Cali, but also successfully uses the hybridization to carve out a

space for Pacific representation in Colombian music.

So how has Herencia de Timbiqui been able to embrace wider audiences while avoiding a

flattened representation of themselves and their music? Much of this has to do with the way they

use the space they carved out for themselves to emphasize their Pacific roots. An example of this

is their project Villancicos Negros, where in a more stripped-down context that primarily features

currulao instrumentation, they present several traditional Christmas songs from the South Pacific

coast of Colombia. This includes songs like “San Antonio” a traditional arrullo, which is a style

of Pacific song meant to praise Catholic saints. By presenting their own region’s villancicos

(Christmas carols), Herencia de Timbiqui is adding the Pacific culture to the overall Colombian

culture surrounding the most important holiday in Colombia. Herencia de Timbiqui also

frequently makes their songs as an appeal to broader sense of Afro-Colombian identity, such as

writing an ode to black identity with their song “Negrito”. (Barrera Mosquera 2019, 38) They

also pay homage to other important Afro-Colombian cultures, as seen in the way they paid

tribute to the historic town of San Basilio de Palenque in “I a Kelé Kandá, a song that features a

guitar reminiscent of champeta music, and a chorus in the Palenque creole language. Herencia de

Timbiqui are one of the clearest examples of a group making a space for themselves by making
their sound appeal to wider audience, receiving critical acclaim, and using their platform to give

more representation to their Pacific, Caleño, and Afro-Colombian identities.

ChocQuibTown is another group from the Pacific that similarly uses hybridized sounds to

establish a sense of local identity. ChocQuibTown uses hip-hop to express their identity, and

make sure to use their lyrics to talk about their experiences as Afro-Colombians. Songs like “De

Donde Vengo Yo”, (Where I Come From) seek to paint a more nuanced picture of life in the

Pacific, with lyrics discussing daily life in the Pacific, but also discussing some of the difficulties

with life in their home, mentioning the displacement of people from their land and the general

invisibility of their people. With lyrics such as “La cosa no es fácil pero siempre igual

sobrevivimos” (It isn’t easy but we survive nonetheless), ChocQuibTown makes sure they tell the

full story of their people, raising awareness of the issues and making sure people know the joys

of the Pacific as well. ChocQuibTown has also frequently employed sampling, one of the

defining characteristics of a lot of hip-hop music, to establish their local identity and celebrate

their collective memory. Examples of this can be found in the way they interpolate “Arrullo San

Antonio” in their own song “San Antonio”, or they the sample the marimba from currulao group

Grupo Naidy’s “Mirando” in their song “Macru”. These samples are common in multinational

hip-hop, where samples are often used to pay tribute to the local music that forms the local

collective memory. (Schlund-Vials 2012, 176)

These samples also serve to establish their music as being distinctly Afro-Colombian.

ChocQuibTown is a group that believes that if they were to only sound like American hip-hop

groups, their expressions of Afro-Colombian identity would be flattened as a result. Instead, they

subscribe to a notion of authenticity in hip-hop that “is largely determined according to an artist’s

ability to act on previous forms in order to produce something different and original.” (Dennis
2012, 110) The usage of samples like these gives ChocQuibTown credibility as hip-hop

innovators, while making sure they don’t get detached from their Afro-Colombian roots. In

creating a distinctly Afro-Colombian style of music, ChocQuibTown became another example of

a Colombian group that applied their region’s music to a new sound to give themselves a greater

voice to carve out a role in the media’s representation of their hometowns.

Part 3: Colombia’s Musicians and Their Role in Representing Colombia to Global

Audiences

Notions of cultural flattening and commercialization become even more salient once

Colombian music meets global audiences, especially in relation to the United States. Not only

are racial dynamics different outside of Colombia, but the flattened representations of

drug-related violence are even more prevalent outside of Colombia. And with the tendency by

the media to flatten all Latin American into a monolithic ‘Latin Audience’, Colombian artists

face even greater difficulty establishing their distinct Colombian identities. Additionally, the role

of musical hybridity and adapting music to new audiences is complicated when the global music

flattens Latin American music and audiences. With the Colombian push to promote diversity as a

national image, and an increased desire to recognize the multicultural hybrid roots of the music

they perform, musicians who attain global success are faced with finding ways of expressing

their own Colombian identities while making sure they create better representation for a diverse

Colombia.

Reggaeton vs. Finding Space for Alternative Styles

When navigating global audiences, it is essential to discuss the role of reggaeton in Latin

American music. Reggaeton is primarily responsible for the significant increase in Latin

American representation in United States popular music, with musicians like Bad Bunny
becoming some of the biggest global stars today. However, as is the nature with massively

popular styles of music, reggaeton is polarizing. The responses to my survey show this

polarization, with many respondents listing reggaeton musicians as their favorites, but others

criticizing it for its perceived lack of quality and originality. Reggaeton also has been criticized

for the way it frequently features lyrics objectifying women. (Diez-Gutiérrez 2022, 70) Some

reggaeton artists have emerged to challenge these representations in reggaeton music, such as

Karol G, who positions herself as an alternative in a male-dominated field. (Flores 2021)

Another issue that some people see in reggaeton is the amount of space it takes up in the Latin

American music industry. Andrea Echeverri of Colombian rock group Aterciopelados is quoted

as saying “En Colombia, el que no hace reggaeton no existe” (In Colombia, those who don’t

make reggaeton don’t exist.) (El Murcurio de Chile 2017) Reggaeton can be seen as flattening

stylistic differences in the most popular Latin American music, since the biggest hits today are

generally made by reggaeton stars. Those who seek to provide an expanded view of Colombian

music generally have to find alternate spaces to share their music.

Bomba Estereo, a group best known for their music that hybridizes electronic music with

Colombian rhythms such as cumbia, is an example of a Colombian group that has found

alternative spaces for global success. The global audience that Bomba Estereo has sought to

appeal to the most is a more “indie” alternative audience as opposed to the generalized ‘Latin

audience’. Their electronic and experimental sound provides a familiar sound to the alternative

crowd, and they present their usage of Colombian rhythms as a fresh take on the electronic

alternative styles. Their invocation of mystical nature tropes and references to indigenous and

natural roots in their imagery also helps evoke a sense of magical realist discovery in the listener.
These appeals to the alternative music listener have brought them frequent coverage in media

organizations like Rolling Stone, NPR Music, and KEXP.

Once they found a niche in these alternative spaces, they followed familiar patterns of

spreading representations of Colombia that expanded upon flattened narratives. An example of

this is shown in their song “Que Bonito”, a tribute to the champeta that lead singer Li Saumet

heard growing up in Santa Marta (on Colombia’s Caribbean coast), down to the guitar and

specific drum samples. Along with this invocation of local identity, they have also used their

position as an alternative group to push an alternate view of Colombian femininity in the popular

music video for their song “Soy Yo” (Cepeda 2020, 326); they also frequently appeal to

Colombia’s natural beauty (O’Connor 2018), in songs like “Agua”. It is also important to note

that with their increased platform, they haven’t limited themselves to just these alternative

spaces, having high profile collaborations with Bad Bunny and reggaeton producer Tainy.

Nonetheless, Bomba Estereo is an example of a group that adapted to a multinational audience

successfully, and used that platform to create a wider representation of Colombia.

Colombia’s ‘Music Ambassadors’

Carlos Vives is an example of a Colombian star who has attained great success and has

positioned himself as a sort of ambassador for Colombian music. He is best known for his work

in vallenato music, a style he aligned himself with after he gained popularity for portraying

vallenato musician Rafael Escalona in a TV series and recording music for the soundtrack of that

TV series. His music primarily grounds itself in vallenato but has heavy influences from other

Latin Rock and Pop, and frequently uses traditional cumbia instruments like the gaita flute as a

regional signifier. Both Carlos Vives and vallenato music are often regarded as a symbol of

Colombia, especially outside of Colombia. The success of Carlos Vives’ music helped push
vallenato music into being one of the most popular styles of music in Colombia by the 1990s.

The increase in vallenato’s popularity coincided with a rise in Colombian migration to the United

States, and because of Carlos Vives making music that is popular and accessible, “he helped

confirm vallenato as a powerful symbol of Colombian identity for Colombian immigrants

regardless of their region of origin and class background.” (Pacini Hernandez 2010, 132)

Vallenato remains a popular and distinct symbol of Colombia because its regional distinctiveness

serves as a stylistic contrast to the popular music that is usually marketed to the monolithic

‘Latin audience’, carving out an audience for multinational Colombians.

Of course, with Carlos Vives being a whiter and more urban face of a music made by

Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities, there is a question of cultural appropriation, or

whether “the cultural capital that is apparently accessible to all really belongs only to those who

possess the material means to acquire it.” (Cepeda 2010, 127) In contrast to the Pacific

Afro-Colombian musicians mentioned earlier, Carlos Vives’ musical hybridity isn’t approached

from the perspective of the Afro-Colombian and Indigenous roots of the music. Because of these

cultural dynamics and Carlos Vives still having a wide reach and multinational audience, he has

taken on a role as more of an ambassador of Colombian music. To his credit, a lot of his most

popular music, such as his champeta, vallenato, and rock inspired song “Pa’ Mayte”,

acknowledges the African and Indigenous roots of the music, and no matter the song, Vives

always makes sure to emphasize his love of Colombia and its culture. He has also leaned into the

push for greater recognition of Colombia diversity, showcasing a diverse group of musicians of

different racial and stylistic backgrounds in his touring band (something that I saw when I

attended a 2022 Carlos Vives concert). In the context of the same concert tour, he also sought to

highlight the importance of maintaining Colombia’s biodiversity and natural beauty, (Barandela
2022, 1) which he cites as being the “only way to save folklore”.(PRI 2020) This is clearly Vives

supporting natural beauty being a greater part of Colombia’s representations, in conjunction with

recognizing Colombia’s cultural diversity. Oftentimes, when musicians gain massive popularity,

they have to figure out how to navigate the limited space afforded to the music they represent,

and Carlos Vives is no exception.

Any discussion of Colombian representation in music would be lacking without

discussing Shakira. More so than any other Colombian musician, Shakira has had to adapt her

identity and music to the global market. Shakira has a well-known multicultural identity, being

tied closely to her Lebanese-Colombian identity, her Caribbean coastal identity, and eventually

her identity as a multinational symbol of Colombia for abroad. Her multicultural background and

general unwillingness to tie herself to one style following her global success has given her a

“chameleonic ability to change with the postmodern times.” (Cepeda 2010, 154) She has most

recently tied herself to reggaeton and urban artists like Karol G and Bizzarap to give herself a

large platform within the massively powerful reggaeton scene (netting her multiple top 10

Billboard hits in the United States), but she has always adjusted her music depending on the

audience she wants to target, having a long history of releasing different versions of songs in

different languages.

Shakira’s universal recognizability, and ambiguous sound have made her identity as a

global multicultural artist almost supersede her image as a Colombian artist. An example of this

was when she was called on to act as a de facto ambassador for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in

South Africa through the creation of her song “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)” for the

tournament. She faced some backlash for taking the space of African performers, but ultimately
succeeded in the goal of “coupling her international star status with the multicultural image they

aim to represent in such a global event.” (Gontovnik 2010, 153)

This song for the World Cup is not the only time she has decided to take the role of

showcasing diverse identities on the biggest stage. Shakira's performance in the 2020 Super

Bowl halftime show was designed around celebrating as many influences on her identity as she

could fit into the limited time she had. The joint performance with Jennifer Lopez, which took

place in Miami, was clearly themed around Latinidad and had themes of celebrating diverse

identities that are common in more expansive portrayals of Colombia. The performance

highlighted Shakira’s Latin rock roots, her middle eastern roots, and most importantly,

highlighted her Caribbean Colombian roots. This showcase of the Caribbean roots was

punctuated by Shakira dancing to Congolese soukous song “Icha” by Syran Mbenza as a tribute

to champeta and the sound system scene in coastal Colombia. By embracing all aspects of her

identity, Shakira demonstrated how musicians can use their influence to promote a more

expanded and diverse representation of Colombia. Shakira was well aware that she was

performing to an audience that likely had little awareness of Colombia’s diverse music, and

through invoking her diverse background, she used her platform to push representations of a

diverse Colombia.

Conclusion

Colombian musicians are constantly challenging flattened representations of Colombia,

and they do this by appreciating diversity and magical realism, using hybridity in music to

emphasize their identities, and by being cognizant of the audiences that shape their music. The

work done by these musicians is helping push Colombia into a new media era where the

representations are more multi-dimensional. Of course, considering that many of these

global position is constantly evolving, it remains to see what the effects of these representational

developments will be. Many of the musicians mentioned in this paper hit the scene relatively

recently, and are still actively making music, so they will still have an ongoing role in shaping

Colombia’s music for years to come. Hopefully, with the support of increased media

representation, these musicians will continue to support the creation of a more nuanced, diverse,

and complete representation of Colombia.

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Spotify playlist of most songs mentioned:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3UbECmISalUvSo1Tf5HST1?si=c0d905c227ba4398

Herencia de timbiqui: caleño https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGOZArTLius

Link to survey results:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sJDBRX4nVSBLBk-JFkpJoiBkEDS0ZW-aiJTccesx_u

A/edit?usp=sharing