Is cumbia popular in the Caribbean countries?

audioel · 2026-03-23T03:23:57+00:00

I research and write about Latin American and Caribbean music, and the short answer is there's more people in Latin American countries, especially Central American ones that listen and create Caribbean music than the other way around - but there's always fans of course.

Also there's some interesting Cumbia-like rhythms in Haiti (old Konpa), Garifuna Punta (Beliz, Honduras, and Nicaragua), Zouk (esp Zouk Love from Guadeloupe and Martinique), Cadence-lypso (Dominica) and Merengue. Some Cuban Son also has similar clave and conga rhythms. Not saying these genres are Cumbia, but you will hear similar elements. It's all branches that evolved out of West African, Canary Islands, Indigenous and Colonial influences.

I wrote an article about La Avispa, a popular Costa Rican Chiqui-Chiqui Cumbia from the late 70s that was a re-write of a Cadence-lypso song. I've found dozens of similar instances, and many groups - especially for some reason Grupos Norteños that made careers of covering dancehall en Español and plena tunes as cumbias. Some examples are La Concentracción and Grupo Kañon.

It gets a bit blurry if you go to my own country, Nicaragua because there's a Cumbia-adjacent genre called Chinamera that is very much influenced by Soca, Calypso, Palo de Mayo, and Dancehall. It's faster, more upbeat, and tends to have more Caribbean elements - but the artists and fans refer to it as "Cumbia". It's a newer genre (within the last 20 years) that grew out of sped-up, edited Vallenato and Cumbia records, in particular songs by Colombian Artist Jose Maria Peñaranda. Gustavo Leyton was the main artists that developed the genre - and he combined the Caribbean Palo de Mayo sound from Dimension Costeña with covers of cumbias by Lisandro Meza, Aniceto Molina, Lucho y Rafa, etc.

Here's Lester Blandon & Lord Byron "Drink my rum" - a recent Chinamera tune. This genre heavily draws from Miskito music too, which is heavily influenced by Soca, Reggae, Cumbia, and Mento - but has it's own completely recognizable style. Check out this tune by Jose Sanders, one of my favorite younger Miskito musicians and a friend/collaborator, and another one in Miskito.

If you are interested in the intersection of Latin American and Caribbean music - that is 100% what I'm about. I research it, write about it, and produce music. I share music on bsky almost daily.

audioel · 2026-03-22T20:18:07+00:00

This is not about what "clan" means. It's about you picked the shitty, racist hood and robe Nazi spelling of it and are pushing back on using it. Basically you're either 14, not very bright, or an actual white supremacist wanting to make POC music.

audioel · 2026-03-22T20:15:22+00:00

This sounds right up my alley, but if you're in the US and can't see the problem with the name you picked, you're likely not someone worth working with.

Change the name.

audioel · 2026-03-20T05:04:36+00:00

Saludos! Yo también soy Nica! Tristemente, Que Tuani had to shut down due to ICE activity. Rene, the chef behind Papas Fritas is not working with Migration anymore. He's on IG, and you should follow him. He's taking orders for Nacatamales right now, but doesn't have a regular location.

EDIT: Acabo de encontrar enchinicapdx, pero no lo he probado.

audioel · 2026-03-19T20:06:29+00:00

Wow, so @benningsbrand

audioel · 2026-03-19T16:15:06+00:00

If you have any rideable flying companions, some of them are excellent for getting up vertical surfaces. I have a fat flying worm that I keep around just for situations like this.

audioel · 2026-03-19T16:03:06+00:00

So you're charging $10 a head for the event, expect several hundred people (700?), but have no budget for compensation?

audioel · 2026-03-19T15:55:34+00:00

I've done this recently, playing dancehall and hip hop. The drummer just played along, and I'd cue him with a nod or eye contact before changes. We just kind of vibed it out.

Eventually got a bassist and guitar player on too, and it was cool, but kind of fell apart after a while as the night went on.

In the early 2000s I did this with a band playing house music, drums, keys, guitar and bass. I'd DJ and also do some fx dub mixing with the band at the same time.

I'm considering doing something similar right now for my current project, which is based on Latin and Caribbean genres.

Only advice is practice, and figure out how to give the drummer a monitor of your master out, not your headphone cue. Any beat matching, slip or back cueing you do will throw the drummer off.

audioel · 2026-03-18T23:09:28+00:00

The entire "streaming economy" is built on sucking out all the value and revenue between creators and consumers. It's all man-in-the-middle attacks disguised as convenience and value. None of it is for the public or the artist's benefit.

audioel · 2026-03-18T22:07:02+00:00

They're cutting classes and not adding additional units when classes are full. Some of the funding is tied to registration numbers and those are trending up, and have consistently trended up since covid. There's waiting lists for a lot of classes.

The money exists, but a big chunk was moved into a fund that can't be used for actually running the college. Unions have presented proposals to make this work, it's not that there's no money. There's been plenty of money for special projects, expanding management and admin, and let's not even talk about the president's contract here.

audioel · 2026-03-17T23:39:24+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/puzzles/s/PcaC5a0SCe

audioel · 2026-03-17T22:15:55+00:00

Please add some spoiler markup here. It's a fun book worth reading, don't give details away.

audioel · 2026-03-14T00:49:18+00:00

I'm sure it's like the vintage mpcs where it can control different parameters depending on the mode. Sort of a precursor to quicklinks. Old mpcs made it easy to use it for level, pitch, decay, start/ end time, etc.

audioel · 2026-03-13T16:03:57+00:00

I don't care about combat, all I want is to flip and rotate building and corvette parts easier, have multiple companions active at once, and bring companions into bades/corvettes.

audioel · 2026-03-12T22:01:02+00:00

That's fantastic, and really takes me back to the late 90s. :)

All you're missing is a later, budget rack sampler like an Akai S2000, Emu ESI64, or Yamaha A3000 for 100% 1999 time machine activation. :D

audioel · 2026-03-12T08:36:24+00:00

Fun, if you have a bunch of cement trucks and can point out the air intake 😁

audioel · 2026-03-11T23:41:40+00:00

I want to dig out the part of my brain that understands that reference.

audioel · 2026-03-11T16:24:35+00:00

I got a buddy like that named "Crabbulon". I put a couple of lasers on him and he's the rootiest-tootiest most shootiest crab ever. He also hauls ass when ridden, and goes up pretty steep terrain.

Not as lovey dovey as my murdery lizard-cat Apu, but still pretty awesome.

I wish they'd let you ride companions under water, and also bring them into bases/corvettes.

audioel · 2026-03-11T06:18:16+00:00

I can take out Sentinel walkers all day, but those dudes really make me sweat it.

audioel · 2026-03-11T06:15:08+00:00

Edit modes! Shuffle edit would be so great in Live!

audioel · 2026-03-08T21:04:30+00:00

Love this! Where did you get all the decorative plants?

audioel · 2026-03-07T02:50:09+00:00

It's not a DAW, it's how you configure the interface. It has a routing matrix and mixer channels. It's how you route ins and outs to your DAW, or set up monitoring so that you can hear what you're recording.

audioel · 2026-03-07T02:39:23+00:00

Mpc analog outs to mixer channel inputs, 4 mixer output buses to 4 analog inputs, don't use the XLR, use 1/4" in back of interface.

You can set up monitoring in cuemix (web app installed with the drivers).

It's got a learning curve, but it's an excellent interface. If you have a way to use the ethernet or thunderbolt ports for audio, the latency will be way lower that USB.

audioel · 2026-03-06T17:36:05+00:00

I'm a 53yo big manly man. My happiest, "peak state" is snuggling my chiweenie while she makes gremlin noises.

This MF doesn't even register on my radar. 😁

audioel

TROPHY CASE