Cumbia refers to a number of musical rhythms and folk dance traditions of Latin America, generally involving musical and cultural elements from American Indigenous peoples, Europeans and African slaves during colonial times.^[1] Cumbia is said to have come from funeral traditions in the Afro-Colombian community.

Cumbia traditionally uses three drums (tambora, tambor alegre and lamador), three flutes (gaita hembra and gaito macho, both forms of Columbian Flute, and flauta de millo) and has a ²
₂ or ²
₄ meter.^[2] The sound of cumbia can be characterized as having a simple "chucu-chucu-chu" created by the guacharaca.^[3] The genre frequently incorporates brass instruments and piano. In order to properly understand the interlocking relationship between cumbia's roots and its Pan-American (and then global) routes, Colombia's geocultural complexities must first be taken into account to comprehend the genre and its subgenres.

Most Hispanic American countries have made their own regional version of Cumbia, some of them with their own particularity.

Examples of cumbia include:

• Colombian cumbia, is a musical rhythm and traditional folk dance from Colombia.^[4] It has elements of three different cultures, American Indigenous, African, and Spanish, being the result of the long and intense meeting of these cultures during the Conquest and the Colony.^[5] The Colombian cumbia is the origin of all the other variations, including the tradition of dancing it with candles in the dancers' hands.
• Panamanian cumbia, Panamanian folk dance and musical genre, developed by enslaved people of African descent during colonial times and later syncretized with American Indigenous and European cultural elements.

History of Colombian cumbia

Cumbia's background came from the coastal region of Colombia.^[6] To be more specific, it's dance came from a coastal traditional culture. As cumbia had multiple ethnic influences that originated from this region. One of the biggest factors of its heritage is the African influences that was brought over by the African slaves imported from the colonization of the Spaniards. The influence came from the costeno^[7] dance. Another influence was the integration of Spanish people. The Spanish folksongs with influences from the indigenous caused the fusion of races and the elements of their cultures were likewise fused.^[8]

The history of cumbia has evolved throughout the years, known as a street dance but had a period of transiting into a ballroom dance.^[9] Cumbia is commonly known for having many subgenres from different countries which contributes to the different dance styles known. Cumbia can be referred to as a folk dance while also being known globally as a street dance. To better understand what the dances of cumbia resemble it's better to know the basics of the dance. Cumbia is a two-pair dance, consisting the amorous conquest of a woman by a man. This is crucial since the dance from the Atlantic coast^[10] has the woman holding a candle in her right hand this serves as two narrative functions; one to light the way for the dancing woman and the latter for a more serious motif. The latter can be portrayed in an imaginative sentence as a weapon by which the woman defends herself against the advances of her partner.^[10]

Since the 1950s, cumbia has been an art form that is stylized, orchestrated and lyricized, contrary to the traditional form. This has diverged through the years and the world-known genre even had a brief period in the 1970s where it lost its popularity.

Expansion into Latin America

As the genre evolved it expanded throughout Latin America. With the expansion, cumbia has seen variations of the form. Cumbia, being internationally recognized as a music genre had an effect on the public mindset. In the 1970s, Colombia was introduced to salsa which almost caused the disappearance of cumbia from dance parties and clubs. Although that was detrimental it could be argued that cumbia found stability in Central America, including Mexico, and Peru.^[11] The transformation of cumbia in other countries to better align with the taste of populations with very different aesthetic traditions from the strongly African-derived coastal culture^[12] from which it originally emerged. Representing cumbia being perceived as expressing the harmonious outcome of racial and cultural blending. This socially affected the public views on the highly discriminated mestizo working class. Socially and economically the public has changed their views on mestizos due to cumbia being a large factor in shaping their perspective.

Regional adaptations of Colombian cumbia

References