The Creation of Digital Cumbia
Abstract
In this paper, the creation of digital cumbia is examined as beginning with Mexican sonidero sound system operators and continuing in Argentina with barrio-based DJs/producers.
Their approach to technology reveals a process based on bricolage, repurposing, improvisation and adaptation which have been defined as acts of creolising technology by various scholars examining the use of technology from a perspective of the barrio (“ghetto”) and the Global South.
Martinican philosopher Edouard Glissant conceptualised creolisation as the ongoing blending of a diversity of cultural elements with rhizomatic origins, a concept which in this paper is aligned with the use-based history of technology by David Edgerton and Julian Henriques’ theoretical analysis of sound system as a process with material, corporeal, and sociocultural ‘wavebands’ called ‘sounding’. These theories have provided the framework for the extensive online and on-location fieldwork in Mexico and Argentina on which this paper is based, backed up by two decades of professional practice as a DJ/producer of cumbia.
Sonidero sound system operators in Mexico creolised technology by adapting turntable technology to improvise with and manipulate the tempo and frequencies of Colombian cumbia recordings.
This led to the emergence of a distinct new process of cumbia production, known as cumbia sonidera (“sound system cumbia”), created by local producers applying knowledge of sonidera culture in their approach to new digital technology and traditional cumbia instruments.
The knowledge of this process was further transferred to DJs/producers in Argentina where more distinct new forms of digital cumbia were created. In this way, this study reveals new musical forms created in the context of sound system cultures—in this case digital forms of cumbia—are the result of a process of ongoing creolisation both cultural and technological.
About the speaker
Dr Moses Iten’s PhD thesis (at RMIT University, Melbourne) investigated the intersections between Caribbean cumbia and electronic dance music. Fieldwork in Colombia, Mexico and Argentina revealed how DJs, producers and sound system operators shape their music culture by adapting audio technology to create sonic diversity and encourage social cohesion.
As a sound system culture specialist, he has been working as a researcher with the Sonic Street Technologies project coordinated by Goldsmiths, University of London.
His methodology is built on twenty years of practice touring the world as a professional DJ/music producer, known as Cumbia Cosmonauts. Moses is a Lecturer in Arts & Cultural Management at Deakin University’s School of Business in Melbourne, Australia, and the Managing Editor of Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music. His qualifications include a Master of Community Cultural Development from the VCA, University of Melbourne, and a BA in Communication and International Studies from the University of Technology, Sydney.
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