COLOMBIAN CURRULAO

As we end our “Everything is a Drum” season, let’s go in for one more percussion style, this one from Colombia. in this video the Cantadores del Pacifico introduce us to “Currulao,” an Afro-Colombian style that originated along the nation’s Pacific coast.

This Otrabanda Records introduction to Currulao calls the Pacific coast of Colombia “New Africa,” with 95% of the population having African ancestry, primarily from West Africa, tribes like the Mandinga, Ashanti, Akan, Yoruba and Congo, who the Spanish brought to South America in slavery to work in gold mines and on plantations. Currulao rhythms are African for sure, but over the generations the genre has picked up elements of indigenous Colombian music that anchor it in “the New World.”