Los Mirlos - Sonido Amazonico - The Roots of Chicha

This blog is mostly about how music is constantly evolving, no matter how far we look back into history or how present the time frame. Music, like all things, is constantly changing to something new, something strange. Peruvian Chicha music is a good example of the beautiful strangeness to which everything evolves to. Chicha is a particular brand of Peruvian pop music that educated Peruvians usually look down on. The music is often labeled tropical, which means that it uses rhythmic elements of Afro-Cuban music noticeable in other mixed musical traditions like Cumbia. Chicha is also known simply as Cumbia Peruana. According to Wikipedia, Chicha is “a lower version of the Cumbia, which is more popular with the lower social class.” And so it is: very much like Forro, Musette, Tango, or Son (not to mention jazz), Chicha is popular music played by, you know, the common man… 

The rhythms don’t vary much: they are either mid-tempo Cumbias or fast Cumbias called Cumbión. The music, however, has retained a strong regional flavor in part by relying heavily on the pentatonic scales associated with Andean folklore. Chicha started out in the late 60’s, in the oil-boom cities of the Peruvian Amazon.Cumbias Amazonicas, as they were first known, were loosely inspired by Colombian cumbias but incorporated the distinctive pentatonic scales of Andean melodies, some Cuban guajiras, and the psychedelic sounds of surf guitars, wah-wah pedals, farfisa organs and moog synthesizers. Chicha, which is named after a corn-based liquor favored by the Incas, quickly spread to Lima. It became the music of choice of the mostly indigenous new migrant population – mixing even further with rock, Andean folklore and Peruvian creole music. Very much like Jamaican Ska or Congolese Soukous, Chicha is western-influenced indigenous music geared toward the new urban masses who wholly identified with the new hybrid . Chicha is at once raw and sophisticated, familiar and exotic, traditional and modern - and until recently, it had never been released outside of Peru.

There are two quintessential Chicha albums for those looking to familiarize themselves: Released in 2007, The Roots of Chicha volume 1 and (released a few years later) The Roots of Chicha volume 2 are on Barbes records. You can buy them and learn much more about the history of Chicha here . There is also an interview with Oliver Conan, the man responsible for putting these releases out here.