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11. On Music and Colombianness Toward a Critique of the History of Cumbia To speak about cumbia is to speak about Colombianness. At the same time, to reflect on cumbia entails a focus on a narrative of idiosyncratic resistance and collective obstinacy. Just as in other latitudes, as an expression of identity , musical genre, and cultural practice, cumbia speaks to us, from the beginning , about how the presence of diverse social and ethnic groups was articulated in the context of a national reality. For the most part, in Colombia the history of cumbia, polysemic and polyvalent, packed with fissures and displeasures, is the chronicle of an alternate history of the nation.This is why, through a tracing of this genre from its uncertain origins to its controversial present, it is possible to uncover a more reliable—and critical—approach to more irrefutable forms of Colombian identity. From my perspective, problematizing cumbia is a way to undermine or subvert official or governmental discourse, particularly if we contemplate the extent to which music of this variety has become an object of concern for government interests (i.e., for efforts supported by the Colombian Ministryof Culture seeking co-­optation). On the whole, a keen approach to the circumstances of a musical practice renders possible a more profound analysis of the validity of certain ideas of nation, since, upon identifying the limitations and disagreements of musical production, given its proximity to national influence, the contradictions that drive state-­ sponsored processes of identity come to light. As an elusive cultural product, making little distinction between officially sanctioned and popularly supported spaces, cumbia offers a vehicle of study unlike anyother, providing an enormous opportunity to explore the arbitrariness of our ways of conceiving of the idea of nation, above all, in terms of rhythm and difference . It is precisely from the analysis of an exercise of identity of this nature that one can argue the following: Colombian cumbia, sponsor of successful Héctor Fernández L’Hoeste On Music and Colombianness 249 cultural forms through the entire hemisphere (call it cumbia sonidera, tecno-­ cumbia, or villera), achieves its greatest effectiveness and cultural penetration through methods that, at a national level and proper toeach period, have generated considerable rejection and awakened distrust, up to the point of disavowal , by its traditional followers. At each step of its evolution, cumbia has signified an expansion of the idea of nation, transgressing racial and social barriers and experiencing a strong domestic and international struggle. The greatest test of this argument is simple: in other corners of the Americas and the world, music that is more closely identified as Colombian cumbia represents , quite evidently, cultural forms with little prestige within the Colombian national context. In other words, within this musical genre’s conventional environment, by and large its most successful version has habitually been the object of staunch rejection by purists and reactionary sectors, who have been consistently opposed to cultural change and more in agreement with the celebration of more rigorous versions of this music. The history of this rejection is an account of the predicaments of the Colombian idea of nation (and, in some instances, those of other nationalities ). It happened at the end of the nineteenth century, when black and mulatto populations were repudiated at the outskirts of the walled city of Cartagena de Indias, at the heart of Colombia’s Caribbean coast. It happened again at the beginning of the twentieth century, with the decline of bambuco, the folk music genre from mountain regions, as Colombia’s national genre. In the 1950s it took place through the ascent of orchestrated cumbia, dressed up for the enjoyment of the bourgeoisie of the interior of the country. It also came about in the 1970s, with the taking off of the chucu-­chucu, raspa, or paisa sound, all namesakes for the same musical phenomenon. And it is happening today, thanks to the success of musical varieties of sudden acceptance, like tropipop. Broadly speaking, it is possible to divide the history of cumbia into three phases. The first phase covers the period from its remote origin, for which there exists a range of theories; a nineteenth-­ century flourishing; and its growing popularity at the beginning of the twentieth century. In plain terms, it narrates the infancyof the genre.The second phase narrates a process of social mobility, thanks to the music’s whitening and marketing, largely attributable to two important Colombian orchestras during the middle of the twentieth century, with a...

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