In the 1960s in Peru, a funky popular style emerged in the oil-boom cities of the Amazon. It was largely based on Colombian cumbia and Andean tropical music but using the pentatonic scale of Andean music. Additional ingredients include highland huayno, Cuban percussion, psych and surf rock (especially twangy guitars, with as many as three playing together) and plenty of spacey keyboards.
Often instrumental, the music is infectious and always gets the dancefloor moving on a DJ night. It should also be remembered this music emerged at a time of authoritarian governments and often military administrations, and Peru was no exception. The military promoted local music in an effort to dilute the cultural colonialism of Western pop and rock, and it was in this context that chicha, which takes its name from a corn liquor, developed.
The first Peruvian chicha hit was probably La Chichera ( The Chicha Seller ) by Los Demonios del Mantero (The Devils of Mantaro), who added mainstream Creole waltz and rock rhythms. Pretty soon after Los Mirlos, Los Ecos and Los Diablos Rojos followed and a new, very danceable subgenre was born. Los Mirlos and Los Diablos Rojos are both still touring the planet with their catchy tropical beats.
Techno beats featured in the 1990s as the genre ran out of steam, only to be revived in 2007 on the back of of two excellent compilations, Roots Of Chicha Vol.1 and Vol.2 on the Brookly-based record label Barbes Records, which were reviewed by World Beat at the tim.
