15 - The Case of Chocquibtown: Approaches to the Nation in Contemporary New Colombian Music

Summary

Currently, few musical expressions are as massive and as popular in Colombia as the so-called New Colombian Music (NCM). The term NCM has been used in recent years to refer to a marked tendency between young musicians who seek to “recover and reinterpret the local music” through an ambiguous and undetermined musical form (Santamaria 2). Drawing on other musical genres—for example, bambuco, cumbia, vallenato—that in the past were elevated to the status of “national music,” it is difficult to associate NCM with a specifc region within the Colombian territory. Nonetheless, the NCM label has demonstrated a strategic elasticity to market new national sounds and to connect these with World Music global festivals, as well as with state cultural politics and mass media agenda. Thanks to media dissemination, these “wordly” music productions blur and superimpose local and national identities as well as the public and private divide.

The process of NCM popularization in the national and international arenas has been possible thanks to diverse political, economic, and cultural dynamics: the celebration of cultural diversity that followed the adoption of the new Constitution in 1991; the multicultural rhetoric of the market and certain cultural circuits; the growing importance of cultural industries in the national economy; the constant demographic and migratory movements within and outside the country; the implementation of Colombia Is Passion and The Answer Is Colombia, the two institutional campaigns that branded Colombia and aligned the nation within territorial marketing logics to create an attractive destination for the foreign investor as well as tourists. Significantly, several of these dynamics emerging from the NCM phenomenon can be found in media outlets such as Al Jazeera English's Playlist: “Colombia, although sadly widely known for its drugs trade and violent, internal conflicts, is also witnessing a new musical movement, as a growing number of passionate and vocal musicians are keen to show their country in a new light…. The future of Colombian music may well lie in fusion, as bands seek out international audiences for their unique sounds.”