The 7 best Cumbia tracks of all time
Cumbia
Colombia's Caribbean coast: Indigenous gaita flutes over African drums, later scored for big band and exported down the whole continent until Peru, Mexico and Argentina each had a cumbia of their own.
Autoplay · All 7 play here · plays through and starts again
Swipe the list left or right to move through the queue
/
Wilson Choperena and Juan Madera / La Pollera Colorá
Effectively Colombia's second national anthem. A clarinet figure, a red skirt, and a melody that has survived being played at every wedding in the country for sixty years.
Lucho Bermúdez / Colombia Tierra Querida
Bermúdez took coastal cumbia, scored it for a full orchestra and put it in the ballrooms of Bogotá and Buenos Aires. The record that made it national rather than regional.
Los Corraleros de Majagual / Cumbia Cienaguera
The Discos Fuentes supergroup, with accordion and brass fighting for the same space. Rowdier than Bermúdez and much closer to how the music sounded outdoors.
José Barros / La Piragua
A boat, a river and a man remembering both. Barros wrote it about the Magdalena, and it is the most literary lyric the form has.
Totó la Momposina / Curura
Totó spent decades insisting cumbia's centre was the drums and the gaitas, not the orchestra. Recorded in London, and the least polished record on this list by design.
Los Hijos del Sol / Cariñito
Peruvian cumbia — electric guitars, a Farfisa organ, Amazonian melody. Proof the form mutated the moment it crossed a border, every time.
Sonora Carruseles / Micaela
Late, loud and unashamedly for dancing. Included because cumbia is a living commercial music, not a heritage exhibit, and this is what it sounds like working.