Latineos - Latin America, Caribbean, arts, culture

It was the late 60s when Chicha began. The criollo style, featuring classical Spanish guitar, was the number one sound in Peru. For many musicians, though, the advent of amplified equipment was too much and many classically trained guitarists took to the electric guitar. One of these was Enrique Delgado who, with his band Los Destellos, would set the blueprint for which all Chicha would follow; a mixture of Cumbia rhythms with elements of criollo and huayno (a form of folk music from the Andes), Cuban percussion and the sounds of 60s rock 'n' roll, psychedelic and surf. These last three are more than apparent in the work of Los Destellos, which evokes great US guitarists such as Link Wray and Dick Dale, the virtuosity of Brazil's Bola Sete, and the Latin fusion of Carlos Santana.

It was music for Peru's poor, a status that it is struggling to shake. The musicians can be roughly divided into two classes, those that hail from Lima, such as Enrique Delgado, and those from the Amazon, where the music would be referred toThere is a definite distinction between Chicha from the Amazon and the Upper Andes as Amazonian Cumbia. There is a definite distinction between these two sounds, with the latter often more raucous and with more influence from the Upper Andes. Some of the classic bands from the Amazon include Los Mirlos, Los Wembler's de Iquitos, Juaneco y su Combo and Ranil y su Conjunto Tropical. “La Danza del Petrolero (The Oilman's Dance),” performed by both Los Mirlos and Los Wembler's shows both their home's location on the frontier, where oil is sourced, and their ability to start the dance for the people working at the oil-wells.

The Lima sound was typified by Los Destellos along with Grupo Celeste and Chacalón y la Nueva Crema, one of the most popular Chicha bands of the 80s. Such was his popularity that following Chacalón's death in 1994 more than 60,000 thousand people visited the cemetery to pay their respects. Some bands fit into neither category, such as Los Shapis, from Huancayo, whose sound has the strongest Andean flavour of all. Their fame came in the 80s when they released “El Aguajal,” one of Chicha's most beloved songs. They were also the first band to call themselves Chicha.

Wherever the bands came from The emergence of FM radio at this time also gave people an escape in the form of western musicit was during the late 60s and early 70s that the style progressed and received a decent level of recognition. The military coup in 1975, which led to the deposing of President Juan Velasco, started something of a decline. Terrorist activities increased during his successor’s reigns, including the emergence of the ultra-violent Shining Path in the 80s. This situation would see its nadir during current President Alan García's first term (1985-1990). Now the neighbourhoods where Chicha had thrived were becoming notorious as the home of terrorists (the Shining Path infiltrated many of Lima's poor communities) and people began avoiding them and the music that they produced. The emergence of FM radio at this time also gave people an escape in the form of western music, which the middle classes soaked up.

People carried on making Chicha music through the 90s and 00s but it was to a smaller audience. This changed in 2007 when the musician Olivier Conan discovered the music on a trip to Peru. Inspired by the sound, he released The Roots of Chicha, a compilation that reached an international audience. This in turn enthused the Peruvians into believing that Chicha must actually be quite good if people from all over the world want to listen to it. A second compilation, The Roots of Chicha 2, was released in October this year, along with recent reissues of work by Ranil y su Conjunto and Juaneco y su Combo and new bands such as Los Chapillacs, Los Figuers and Jawal. Chicha was always there, it just needed someone to put it on the map. Thankfully that has now been done.