Cumbia!@Frost Turns Up the Volume on Afro-Latin Rhythms

Born in Colombia and embraced across Latin America, cumbia is the friendliest of African diaspora dance rhythms. It’s infinitely malleable — suitable for novice and expert dancers alike — and has adapted to local conditions wherever it has landed, from the Andean heights of Peru and Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley to the glittering nightclubs of Los Angeles.

It’s a foundational groove at Latin music events across the Bay Area. On July 21, Stanford Live presents Cumbia!@Frost, a triple bill that cogently illustrates why the multifarious form is once again in the midst of a popular resurgence.

Joining Colombian standard-bearers Vilma Diaz y La Sonora is the Los Angeles electronica-laced band El Feeling, plus Mission District rising star La Doña and DJ Wonway Posibul. The event is designed “to highlight cumbia from different angles,” says Bogotá-born Albert Montanez, who is the Stanford Live producer of artistic programs.

A confluence of African, Spanish and Indigenous influences, cumbia was a folkloric dance on Colombia’s Atlantic coast for centuries before emerging as a pervasive form of popular music in the 1950s. While Afro-Cuban and Nuyorican salsa eclipsed cumbia in the 1970s, particularly at home in Colombia, various iterations of the style continued to thrive around Latin America, where its easily danceable chu-chucu-chu groove made it ideal for multigenerational celebrations.

Shakira helped spark a resurgence with her chart-topping 2006 cumbia-meets-salsa hit “Hips Don’t Lie,” which she performed at the closing of the World Cup, complete with a “video showing what cumbia looks like in the streets of Colombia,” Montanez says. “Now you have all these incredible artists, many Colombian, playing these variations of cumbia, with Karol G’s hip-hop cumbia and Bomba Estéreo’s psychedelic cumbia.”

Vilma Diaz y La Sonora is a “classic, iconic ensemble that put cumbia on the international map,” Montanez says. “This is a reinterpretation of the original group from the early ’60s,” led by Medellín-reared Diaz, who trained as a nurse before she started performing with the group in the late ’80s. She’s fronted the band intermittently for decades, compiling a catalog of hits such as “El Desamor,” “Ya Para Qué” and “Escándalo.”

One reason for La Sonora’s enduring popularity is the group pays attention to what its fans want to hear, “like a song we did 31 years ago that had rap, but now that segment is reggaetón,” says Diaz, speaking in Spanish, during a recent phone conversation from Los Angeles, the band’s co-home base along with Medellín. “We adapt to what’s current. Reggaeton, rock, hip-hop, rock en español, even one flamenco. The rhythm hasn’t changed. The essence is recognizable.”

El Feeling is a recent addition to the teeming LA cumbia scene, artfully deploying sampling and electronic instruments. And La Doña, who recently announced the Sept. 6 release date of her new album, Los Altos De La Soledad, has played cumbia since she was a kid performing with her family’s band, La Familia Peña-Govea. Mexican cumbia is one of many threads she weaves into her original music these days, which also draws on corridos, bolero, hyphy, son jarocho and reggaeton.

If the Bay Area has a cumbia center, it’s Oakland, where the Cumbia en La Fruitvale series continues on July 20. Oakland’s seven-piece psychedelic cumbia band Ritmos Tropicosmos represents a new generation picking up the mantle. They celebrate the release of their debut album La Vida es Pa’ Vivir at the Ivy Room July 27 with LA vallenato-cumbia band Very Be Careful.

That generational dynamic is a major factor in cumbia’s staying power. Young musicians might not set out to play it, but they find their way to cumbia. That’s what happened to Oaxacan-American guitarist and accordionist Marco Polo Santiago, who founded La Misa Negra in Oakland about 15 years ago.

“Southern Mexico is a hotspot for cumbia, and I was indoctrinated into it as a kid, though growing up in LA I got into hip-hop and metal,” he says. “I rediscovered cumbia when I was much older listening to the music my parents listened to and finding out its Colombian roots, which led to creating La Misa Negra, a throwback to that Colombian big-band sound.”

“The thing about cumbia is that it’s super popular in the way no other Latin American genre is,” he adds. “So many different countries have their own version or adopt bands from other countries.”

For Montanez, Cumbia!@Frost is all about bringing cumbia into the foreground. Vilma Diaz y La Sonora perform regularly around the Bay Area, but many of the shows aren’t well publicized. If you’re not already in the know, you’ll probably miss them. Stanford Live is using the music to reach out to “Latino communities throughout the Bay Area, from Santa Cruz to San Francisco,” he says, including community partners in East Palo Alto.

“We have a dance workshop and cumbia class before the music,” he continues. “This is the first time Stanford Live and Stanford is producing an event like this.”

Cumbia!@Frost takes place at Stanford University’s Frost Amphitheater on July 21 at 5 pm. Tickets start at $40; details here.