Review of The Roots of Chicha 2 compilation album, collecting together peruvian cumbia from the 60s, 70s and 80s.

Here’s a little taster:

The Roots of Chicha was the first compilation to bring the Peruvian style of chicha to a Western audience. Its success even validated the style for many Peruvians. Its focus, a music born in the late ‘60s when musicians started mixing Latin rhythms and percussion with electric guitars, bass, farfisa organs, and synths, proved a huge success, and paved the way for a second volume. That first release highlighted the early chicha music from bands such as Juaneco y su Combo and Los Mirlos, for the most part from the Amazonian region of Peru. For the second volume, the net is spread wider, so that we get to hear chicha with an urban twinge, Cuban influence, and from the Andes.

You can read the complete review at PopMatters.

Originally published on October 28th 2010.