Current Lima resident Nathan Paluck pulled together the following primer on Peruvian music for me, as I’ll be visiting him for two weeks. Hopefully I’ll get to sample first hand the Peruvian music during my first-ever visit to South America.
1. CUMBIA from the jungle, aka Chicha
The group Bareto made chicha music popular for well-off Peruvians a few years back. Here they do a cover of “Ya se ha muerto mi abuelo” (My grandpa’s died). Video is great and shows off the looser, sex-obsessed culture of the jungle region:
“The Roots of Chicha” is a fantastic compilation of songs from the original chicha groups:
La Sarita does a Chicha rock. “Guachiman” is one of their best (what security guards are often called, pronounced “watchee-man”):
2. MODERN CUMBIA
This woman Marisol is pretty awesome, and her music is everywhere in buses, stores. Interesting look at her concerts:
3. AFRO PERUVIAN
Here the singer Susana Baca does a classic. She was a school teacher when David Byrne helped her become perhaps face of Afro Peruvian music abroad. It’s a sad ballad (“María only works,” goes the refrain), but gives you a sense of the great syncopation:
Novalima is a group that uses Afro Peruvian rhythms with electronic mixes. Video set in El Carmen, town considered heart of Afro Peruvian community:
4. MUSICA CRIOLLA
Creole music is based on guitar and cajón (the percussion box) with roots in Afro Peruvian and waltzes, created in Lima:
5. PUNK
The Saicos (pronounced “psychos”) was doing early punk stuff in the 1960s. There’s been a consistent underground rock scene in Lima since:
6. SALSA
Salsa is big in Lima, although Peruvians are typically pretty bad at dancing it. Sabor y Control is a Peruvian group with solid original tunes. Video shot in a poor district not far from where I live:
7. HUAYNO
The singer Dina Paucar is big among the Andean population (many of which live in Lima). The music is pretty awful, but when in the highlands, the music does fit:
Magaly Solier, star of Oscar-nominated “La Teta Asustada,” sings her own stuff in Quechua. It’s interesting. The themes are typically about drunken fathers and domestic abuse, a major problem in the highlands:
