Right foot forward, Left foot back: The Power of Music in Colombian Protests

A shift, a movement: Latin American dances are a blend of melody and rhythm; the sway and change of dance steps and spins are an expression of culture and joy. Just as Latin American dancers move their feet to the left and right to create salsa, champeta, and other cultural rhythms, Colombia’s fame for complex salsa rhythms and its fast-paced moves are parallel to its political environment. Colombia’s historically polarized changes among left and right parties has led to decades of right wing dominance, serving as a catalyst for the rise of armed groups and marginalization in Afro-Colombian communities. Dissatisfaction with government policies can be seen in standard public manifestations and proposed policy changes, but music and culture are  a powerful, alternative form of protest against party-sponsored violence and racial divides. 

Latin American politics are a disciplina, a word incorrectly translated in the English language as “discipline.”  While the English meaning suggests that Colombian politics are extremely rigid, in Spanish, “Disciplina” refers to alignment in Latin American governments along the left or right.  This alignment in the Colombian government was the state’s constant battle, a euphemism history dubs bipartisanship. Two defining periods in Colombia’s political history are known as  “The Violence” and “The National Front.” The period of  “La Violencia” was a time in Colombia when both political parties engaged in armed conflict from 1945 to 1965. In response, The National Front aimed to reduce bipartisan violence by alternating power between liberals and conservatives. It closed the political system, by excluding other parties, social movements, and popular sectors. Since The National Front, the political right has been at the forefront of Colombian politics until the election of Gustavo Petro in 2022. The lack of bipartisanship coupled with racial divides in rural communities led to decades of protest and the creation of several armed forces. Salsa music has served as a bridge between the people’s joy and fear in light of the governmental structure, “exploring identities in a way different from colonial thinking, reclaiming them, subverting them, and highlighting them with pride and admiration.” Protests and policy gridlocks were a common form of protest, but music– salsa, vallenato, salsa choque– is a reflection of the resistance within Colombia’s marginalized communities. 

The origins of salsa can be traced to Afro-Cuban and Puerto Rican influences during the mid-twentieth century in New York City, but salsa as part of the Latin-American social identity was first portrayed through a 1972 film called Nuestra Cosa Latina, “Our Latin Thing,” a movie portraying the lives of Latin Americans living within the United States. The arrival of salsa through mainstream media caused it to increase in popularity in Latin America, especially within Venezuela and Colombia. Colombia’s political climate has played a role in the creation of the socio-political divides seen today–  these divides have led to several appropriations of folkloric music, including vallenato, champeta, and salsa, as a form of regional and sub-ethnic identity and colonial independence. Joe Arroyo, a salsa singer from the coast of Colombia, released one of his most famous tracks, “Rebelión,” a track “which is a decisive claim of Arroyo’s blackness and identity before Colombia was recognized as a multicultural nation.” Strict classification of skin color is additionally reflected in the social strata, according to a 2018 DANE statistical study, “approximately 8.9 percent of Afro-Colombian, Black, Raizal and Palenquera populations have encountered [translation] "barriers" in accessing health services, compared to 6.2 percent of the general population, and 14.3 percent are illiterate, compared to 10.1 percent of the general population.” Not just in Colombia, but numbers reflecting social inequality across Latin America have led to a general outcry of protest and mobilization. The Nueva Canción, the “New Song,” movement originated with the “corrido” Mexican songs of independence in the eighteenth century and later influenced protests against dictatorships in Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, and Spain in the 1960s and 70s. The New Song Movement is still used today in post-authoritarian Chile, where music is a powerful coping mechanism to heal the hearts and minds of the public. 

Scholars have called music a “reconciliation method” in response to the armed conflict, an opportunity for victims to express their story in lyrics and dance. Zones in the pacific region of Colombia are especially affected by the attempts to shift the public and government to the Right or Left, thus causing a surge in musical compositions: “For instance, in the case of  the Bojayá massacre – a small town in the Pacific region – the massacre victims composed more than 100 musical pieces, including Alabaos, champeta, reggae, and rap rhythms.” New branches of music and dance performance surged as a form of political resistance and social symbolism;  the 2021 National Strike known as El Paro Nacional, was a significant event following former Colombian president Ivan Duque’s tax reforms. Rebellion was manifested in salsa choque, a form of salsa specific to the city of Cali that led to a grassroots collective during protests. “The blending of Afro-Antillean music with Cali’s identity infused the population with acimarrón ethos, expressed in the city's deep connection to the poetics of salsa dancing and the aesthetic enjoyment of bodies swinging in constant resistance.” According to the International Crisis Group, there was a delayed government response in light of the mass protests, a reaction which led to further police presence and a call for a police reform.

Music and politics can be as bizarre a combination as queso campesino, farmer’s cheese, and hot chocolate, or the fusion between condensed milk and sweet ice. These typical culinary Colombian dishes are unforgettable, just as how the cries of justice and resistance heard in salsa songs and within dance performances are permanently imprinted in Colombia’s political memory. Regardless of the discordance between government and policy, Colombia managed to establish a powerful social identity creating music and rhythm harmonious with resistance and power. From the hundreds of musical compositions born after episodes of armed conflict to the dance movements performed fearlessly in the streets of Cali, music proves a rhythmic archive of memories and lived realities that government and state alone have failed to reconcile.