Cumbia music receives cultural heritage status in Colombia

Cumbia music has been granted cultural heritage status in Colombia.

According to Colombian radio station RCN, the traditional genre of Latin American music and dance was officially designated National Cultural Heritage – which grants it special protection – at the National Cumbia Festival in El Banco, Magdalena earlier this month.

The cultural status was awarded by Columbia’s Minister of Culture, Patricia Ariza, at the annual festival.

“Cumbia is the heritage of all Colombian,” she told RCN, according to a report by MSN. “It deserves a place in the History of Colombia and an important consideration in the culture. Cumbia is a true heritage of El Banco, of Colombia, of Latin America and, hopefully, one day it will be a World Heritage Site.”

“As Minister of Culture I am committed to the greater recognition of what cumbia means,” Ariza added. “Thank you very much for what you do with dancing and singing, but above all, thank you very much for what you are.”

On Twitter, the Colombian Ministry of Culture said that cumbia was “the result of the encounter and crossbreeding between indigenous people, Africans and Europeans”, which forms the identity of the peoples of the “Colombian Caribbean and in general of the nation”.

Dive into a selection of releases by Peruvian “digital cumbia” duo Dengue Dengue Dengue here.