Urban and Hip Hop Music of Colombia

The hip hop came to Colombia in the late 1980s when the United State hip hop tracks by the NWA and MC Hammers urged a break dancing fever among the young of the less privilege places of major cities like the Medellin, Cali and Bogota. Towards the end of this era the orchestras started to form, eventually the leading to complete the album productions in the mid-1990s. La Etnnia and Gotas de Rap were the two of the separate hip hop orchestras that jointed and are widely seen as the pioneer of the Colombian Rap. Promoting the independent style, both groups express their extreme political and social views, protesting violence, corruption, inequality and hardships in the marginalized areas of the Colombia.  Then also Asilo 38 from Cali came into the scene with the albums La Hoguera 200 and La Descarga 2002 that presented more commercial and polished sound, while it still retained the strong socio-political message. 

source of picture: hiphopguate.blogspot.com 

This is about the time that the reggaeton from the Puerto Rico surges in the fame and the hip hop in Colombia takes a back seat for a while as the artists try to handle the new recent sound. Artists like Tres Pesos, J Balvin, Reykon y Yelsid made themselves the king and hits like Baila 9Negra de trasero grande) by Leka el Poeta and the openly worded La Quemona and Micaela by Master Boy that took the country by storm. Though, the first ever Colombia X Factor in 2006 produced a reggae composer called farina Pao Paucar Franco who is third in the competition.

Reggae has also been famous in the Colombian Caribbean islands of the San Andres and Providence and Spanish Reggae from the Panama that has helped to strengthen the movement of the reggae artists in the Colombian interior. The artists like Voodoo Soul Jah, Nawal and Alerta Kamarada (Colombian representatives in the Jamaican Reggae festival) are recently leading this ever more famous in genre in Colombia.

2006 brought a renaissance in the Colombian hip pop in the form of Afro-Colombian orchestra ChocQuib Town, combining the traditional songs and instruments from their native lands in the Colombian Pacifica into their sound. It is already welcomed as the new phenomenon in the Colombian hip hop, their fame is ever increasing the making of ways for other Urban artists to emerge, one of such artists is Jiggy Drama, from the island of San Andres, who became one of the most loved and current rap artist in Colombia, his songs are spicy and intelligent. Jiggy Drama combined with Colombian Party Cartel on the urban merengue track Chico Malo. One of the international stages Aztek Escobar based in Houston, Colombian Party Certel based in Nashville, Tres Coronas based in New York, Adassa based in Miami and the 3 of the seven man groups of the Culcha Candela in Berlin, Germany are representing the Colombian urban music worldwide.