Mexico: The cumbia DJs of the streets
Mexico: The cumbia DJs of the streets
People dance at Brenda Cazárez's 40th birthday party as Sonido Colombia plays music in the Privada Cusco neighborhood of Monterrey, Mexico, on Aug. 12, 2023. Ivan Kashinsky hide caption
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Ivan Kashinsky
This is part of a special series, Cumbia Across Latin America, a visual report across six countries developed over several years, covering the people, places and cultures that keep this music genre alive.
In the middle of the mountains of Monterrey, there is a Colombia chiquita, a Colombia regia, or royal. Monterrey is a city of migrants who came from the countryside to work in this industrial city. Perhaps it is the longing for a past life that connected the migrant neighborhoods of Monterrey to the songs about rural life along the Colombian coast. This is the land of the "sonideros," DJs who collect cumbia and tropical music records and appeared on the scene in the 1960s. To this day, they bring their equipment to clubs and street parties.
A view of Monterrey from a building on Dec. 24, 2022. The city is also known as "Colombia chiquita," or Little Colombia. Ivan Kashinsky hide caption
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Ivan Kashinsky
Pedro Niño and Luisa López dance to cumbias played by their daughter, Lucy López, a sonidera who broadcasts live daily on her Facebook page, on Dec. 25, 2022. Karla Gachet hide caption
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Karla Gachet
Lucy Lopez, a cumbia sonidera DJ, broadcasts her daily Facebook show from her home in Monterrey, where she plays requested cumbia tracks and messages for fans. On Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, 2022, she and her family prayed to baby Jesus before going live. Karla Gachet hide caption
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Karla Gachet
Gabriel Dueñez, one of the best-known DJs in Monterrey who is credited with inventing cumbia rebajada, sits by his equipment with his daughter, Gaby Dueñez, who is also a DJ, and his wife, Juanita Moreno, on Aug. 11, 2023, in Monterrey. Ivan Kashinsky hide caption
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Ivan Kashinsky
Gabriel Dueñez is one of the best known "sonideros." His daughter says that at a party, due to the overheating of his equipment, the tempo of a cumbia playing became much slower than normal. Thus, by accident, the cumbia rebajada was born alongside its slow dances, like the gavilán, or hawk, in which people dance hunched down low with their arms spread wide. This new style and the obsession with Colombia would become an urban subculture called Kolombia, and its members "cholombianos." They borrow Los Angeles' cholo style from their neighbors to the north.
Merany Yusseth Avila, a member of Union de Cumbia, a group of young people who dance cumbia "regia" in Monterrey, poses for a portrait on Aug. 23, 2023. Karla Gachet hide caption
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Karla Gachet
Vinyl records in Vazquez's collection at his home in Monterrey's Independencia neighborhood on Aug. 9, 2023. Karla Gachet hide caption
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Karla Gachet
Jose Catarino Vazquez Villegas and his grandson, Jesus Alejandro, pose for a portrait at their home in the Independencia neighborhood on Aug. 9, 2023. Vazquez is a renowned sonidero, or cumbia DJ, in La Independencia. Karla Gachet hide caption
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Karla Gachet
Ana Karen Domínguez dances cumbia with Robert Escareno Rivas at Ray Charles Bar in Monterrey, Mexico, on Dec. 23, 2022.
Ivan Kashinsky
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Ivan Kashinsky
Jeffrey Alexander Pérez Rivera, nearly 8 years old, poses for a portrait on Aug. 23, 2023. He is a member of Unión de Cumbia, a group of young people who dance cumbia "regia" in Monterrey. Karla Gachet hide caption
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Karla Gachet
In Monterrey, cumbia was considered gang music because it thrived in low-income and migrant neighborhoods called colonias. At its epicenter is the colonia Independencia, or as everyone calls it, "Indepe." In those times, young people who self-described as gangsters fought for territory, and one of their subversive acts was to tag the walls of the city with the verses of cumbia songs. Maikle Gutierrez lives in La Indepe and sells Colombian records and paraphernalia in front of the iconic Puente del Papa "Pope's Bridge" where "sonideros" like Dueñez sold cassettes with mixes made at their parties in the '80s. These recordings included shoutouts to family and friends who'd migrated out of the country. It is rare to enter a sonidero's house and not find an altar dedicated to Landero, the Binomio de Oro, or the Corraleros de Majagual, as if La Indepe was frozen in time, forever enchanted by the Colombian cumbia of the '60s and '70s.
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