Bachata (music)
| Bachata | |
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| Cultural origins | Dominican Republic |
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Bachata is a genre of Latin American music that originated in the Dominican Republic in the first half of the 20th century with European, Indigenous and African musical elements.
The first recorded compositions of Bachata were done by Jose Manuel Calderon from the Dominican Republic. The predecessors of Bachata are Bolero and Son (and later, from the mid 1980s, Merengue). The original term used to name the genre was amargue ("bitterness", "bitter music", or "blues music"), until the rather ambiguous (and mood-neutral) term bachata became popular. The form of dance, bachata, also developed with the music.
The earliest bachata originated in the countryside in Dominican Republic in the first half of the 20th century. Jose Manuel Calderon recorded the first Bachata song, "Borracho de amor" in 1962. The genre mixed the pan-Latin American style called bolero with more African elements coming from Son, and the troubadour singing tradition common in Latin America. During much of its history, Bachata music was disregarded by Dominican elite and associated with rural underdevelopment and crime. As recently as the 1980s, bachata was considered too vulgar, crude and musically rustic to be broadcast on television or radio in the Dominican Republic. In the 1990s, however, bachata's instrumentation changed from nylon string Spanish guitar and maracas of Traditional Bachata to the electric steel string and guira of Modern Bachata. Bachata further transformed in the 21st century with the creation of Urban Bachata styles by bands such as Monchy y Alexandra and Aventura. These new modern styles of bachata become an international phenomenon, and today bachata is one of the most popular styles of Latin music, even overtaking salsa and merengue in many Latin American dance halls.
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