Over the last year and a half, I have been exposed to the infectious and upbeat musical stylings of Champeta. Although largely unknown in North America, Champeta is an Afro-Caribbean music that has been blowing up the spot for over 30 years throughout the Caribbean coast of South America.

Born in the city of Cartagena, Colombia, this music can be heard throughout the barrios, live from massive sound systems, discos, block parties and even the local beer store. Fortunately for me, my great friend Edwin, a native Cartagenero and self-professed ‘Champetuo’, has taught me much of the history and culture behind the Champeta movement. As a singer, songwriter and performer, Edwin not only loves this music but also truly lives the Champeta lifestyle. He claims Champeta has risen in popularity so much that it’s now a symbol of regional identity and source of pride for the people of the coast.

You may wonder how this all started - actually the history behind it is quite interesting. Back in the late 60’s and into the 70’s, merchant boats from western Africa began arriving and doing business in Cartagena and other ports along the Colombian coast. They brought local African records featuring music styles like soukous, highlife and mbquanga. These records resonated deeply with the large Afro-Colombian population and quickly became immensely popular. Soon after, local singers began reciting their own lyrics over the African beats, and that’s how it all started.

Recently, Edwin (A famous Champeta singer and songwriter) and I sat down over a beer and he broke it down for me. Here’s what transpired:

Tell me about Champeta, where does it come from?

Champeta… the roots of Champeta come from Africa. This music has been popular in Cartagena (Colombia) for a very long time; the people listened to the music, the original African music, and the proper African music. After a while, let’s say about 20 years ago, singers from Cartagena started to take the music and transform it. They made slight changes to the sounds of original Champeta, and this is what created Champeta Criolla (New Champeta). So, you had the original Champeta from Africa, then we took it and changed the sound to make it our own.

What type of sound changes?

Well, to start off it was a change in some of the instruments. In the original Champeta from Africa, there is lots bongo’s or drums of that sort. In Champeta Criolla we don’t use drums of that nature, because it’s something, well typical from Africa, and we don’t have them here. But what we do have is the drum kit, so instead of using bongo’s we use a modern drum kit… We also changed several of the traditional melodies.

They say that Champeta is ‘Lo mas pegado’ (literally, the biggest hit), why is it so popular?

It’s so popular because it’s a rhythm that from the moment it arrived in Cartagena, caught on. It got even more popular when we started making changes to the sound. It’s a rhythm that is upbeat, its happy, it will make you dance, it will make you feel comfortable. And above all, it’s our music that was created by us in Cartagena. It’s something from us!

So people from Cartagena are proud of this music…

Totally… Totally proud of Champeta.

There’s a song that recently came out called ‘Soy Champetuo’, it says ‘Soy Champetuo Hasta Morir’ (Loosly translates into: Champeta is part of me, until I die), do you identify with this? You were a Champeta singer; so tell me about your life as a singer in Cartagena and how you lived the Champeta lifestyle.

Good question, very interesting. Well my life as a Champeta singer started when I met Gale (A now famous singer in and around Cartagena) and… Well actually before meeting Gale I already new that I loved Champeta, and I had a few songs I had written but I hadn’t yet had the opportunity to record them.

When I met Gale I told him ‘look I want to sing, I can sing, I have some songs’ he said ‘Ok show me your songs’. He said ‘Yeah they’re good, we can work on them together. With the experience I have we can work on the lyrics then we’ll record them’. I said ‘Ok lets do it’. So we did it and the first song we made was a hit, it was called ‘Soltero y a la Orden’ (Single and at your service). It was a hit, so from there forward we continued to make songs, we didn’t make that many but the ones we made were good.

As for performing it’s quite an experience being on stage. It’s incredible, there’s no comparison. You see the people, they really like Champeta, they appreciate what your doing. The public connects to you and you connect to them. It’s an incredible experience being up on stage and hearing the people saying Allright! They’re making so much noise, they’re so happy. It’s just something incredible; it’s an incredible experience. So, for sure I really identify with that song “Soy Champetuo”, yeah and I think all people from Cartagena can identify with that track in spirit.

It expresses what the Cartagenians feel for this music. It’s a song that describes exactly how people from Cartagena feel about Champeta. Now if you really want to look at it, there’s a part of the song that says this type of music is for the masses, the low stratum, so you have some people from the high class who say that this type of music is scandalous, it causes too much noise, people loose control and act wild. But what happens is the music just hits you and takes you away, the music enters your body and it makes you dance, and be loud, and shout out, it will make you go crazy some times.

Cool…

But its sane, that’s the good thing. It’s sane; it’s not out of control. Even though a lot of high class people say that this kind of music is for the low classes, you see a lot of people from the high classes that adore this music, they dance Champeta, they love Champeta… But some of these people lead two kinds of lives.

They have their life in their home, and in their (upper class) society but when the weekend comes they’re all at the ‘pickups’ (Champeta sound systems). They dance, they have fun… Later on they go back to their house and they’re the other person. They have two lives. Recently a documentary about this came out on the Net. Anyway, for people who sincerely like Champeta we find this strange, its erroneous. Because the music is for everyone to enjoy, the music doesn’t have anything to do with social class, or the color of your skin. Music is music for everyone…

Edwin, most people up here have no idea about Champeta, or what it’s like live in concert, tell us about the massive sound systems you guys call ‘pickups’.

A pickup is (a sound system) constructed out of speakers and an amplifier. First they take the speakers and set them in boxes made of wood, once its set up they are covered in material and painted, they really try to make them as colorful and attractive as possible. So then they stack them up into towers one on top of the other. Basically the size of the pickup is dependant on the number of speaker boxes, the more you have the bigger it is. The other side is the amp, what we call the ‘heart’ of the pickup. This gives it power and connects it with the cd player and videos.

So who runs it?

It’s set up like this, you have the DJ, and you have the MC or Animator (Like a Toaster would be to a Jamaican sound system). Before you only had one guy who did both but now its split up… Damn… I almost forgot, of course you have the drum kit player. This is something that really livens up the music. The guy will play a drum kit live over the tracks, and he also has a keyboard for playing sound effects. Actually a pickup without a drummer would sound almost dead! It would just be lifeless because he seriously cranks up the music.

What are the biggest and most popular pickups, and really how big are they?

Actually, since the ‘rey de Rocha’ (King of Rocha, a neighbourhood in Cartagena) came out, it has been the most popular in Cartagena, and the whole coast. I’d say even the most popular in all of Colombia. It’s the most famous, but it’s not the biggest. The biggest pickup in Colombia is ‘El Escorpion’. I don’t even know how to explain to you exactly how big it is, but it’s roughly the size of about two houses, put together, two to three stories high!

Wow!! Pure speakers??

Yeah its all speakers and boxes!! You can imagine what it sounds like, what the experience is like to stand next to that monster! After ‘El Rey’ and ‘Escorpion’ you have ‘Gemini’ in third place.

But you also have small pickups all over the place right? Like on the street corners in the barrios, so its just like a culture of its own it seems.

True, you have three different sizes actually. The small ones people use to just chill out with friends and put in front of your house, or for parties, you even have little beer stores that have mini pickups. If there’s a pickup playing in front of someone’s house people will just come over, and start drinking beers and have a good time! As for the medium sized pickups you have my personal favorite ‘El Pasky’. This is the pickup I sang for when I was in Colombia. You have ‘El Rey De Caray’, ‘El Travieso’ (The Trouble Maker), which is pretty new but really strong. But as you said it’s a culture, you can have just as much fun at a small pickup as you can at a medium or large one, it all depends on the excitement of the people. And I can assure you the excitement is always at the maximum.

So, what are some of the main themes in Champeta?

Well all singers have their own ideas; they all look at the music from their own personal point of view. Some singers have stuff already prepared and always sing about the same few things, but most singers take themes from regular daily life. Things that happen in life, things that happen in the barrio, in the city, in the country. They take the things that they see and make music with it.

For example?

It could be that a man loves a woman, so he makes a song for her asking for her to accept him as her boyfriend. Or another point of view could be, something that happens very frequently in our society, that many people have relationships outside of their main relationship. So because this happens so much you really see a lot of songs coming from these situations. You know extra marital relationships! The famous name for this is ‘cachos’ (Literally: horns, like if your cheating on your man or woman they say you have horns growing)

Damn!! Ok, my last question, you’ve got to break down the Champeta dance, if you watch the videos you can see people doing some kind of slow grind, it’s very smooth and sensual. Tell us more…

Well Yes! For starters you don’t even get going until about half way through the track until the chorus hits. Before it was different, it was all the way through; I’m not really sure why it changed but anyways… It’s a sensual dance as you mentioned. So it consists of the man opening up his legs, and then the woman, standing a couple of feet back leans over and into the man. The man bends his knees slightly and leans forwards holding her. Then you just rock slowly to the beat in circular motions. It’s called ‘la camita’, the little bed. These are the basics but you have different styles, you have some more extravagant styles… For example under the same context as before you see some people dancing where the guys will hold the woman and lean over so much that the woman’s back will touch the ground!!

Wow that must be pretty tiring on the legs??

Yeah, but if you know what your doing its fine, you can get pretty comfortable, then you’ll really enjoy it!!

Sounds sweet! Thanks for your knowledge bro!

No problem. Thank you for helping to make this music known in the northern part of our continent!!

- Nigel Joseph