Jesús Cosamalón maintains that Peruvian cumbia developed through a dialogue between Latin American, North American, and European musical genres and internal migrations within Peru during the twentieth century. What’s more, the author argues, Peruvian cumbia represents a path toward resolving the cultural tensions between tradition and modernity (16). In five chronological chapters, Cosamalón analyzes the formation of Peruvian cumbia. In the conclusion, he examines the decay and rebirth of the musical genre. The author also includes a bibliographic essay in which he situates his argument within a broader scholarly corpus. One of the most novel contributions of the book is a musical map included at the end, with QR codes that lead readers to digital recordings of some of the songs previously discussed.

In chapter one, Cosamalón examines the technological context in which Peruvian cumbia took off, underscoring the importance of home stereos in mid-twentieth century Peru. According to Cosamalón, when foreign companies Philco and Zenith began producing record players in Peru in the mid-1960s, alongside local companies Denky and Langeloh, musical genres such as salsa and guaracha became accessible to a broader group of consumers. This point is important because the author argues that lower- and middle-class listeners are the demographic group that became the most significant audience for Peruvian cumbia.

In chapter two, Cosamalón offers a new periodization of Peruvian cumbia’s genesis, suggesting the genre’s beginnings lie in the early 1960s when orchestras across Peru started including cumbia in their música tropical repertoire. As evidence for this argument, Cosamalón uses his personal accounting of Peruvian hit songs. Going beyond this genealogy of Peruvian cumbia is an analysis of the musical instruments that became central to the genre, such as the electric guitar, the saxophone, and the synthesizer. This focus on instruments bolsters the broader argument in the chapter: the origins of Peruvian cumbia are linked to both Caribbean music and the country’s early rock bands.

The third chapter explores the explosion of Peruvian cumbia in the late 1960s, and it emphasizes the role of hemispheric genres recorded in the United States, such as boogaloo and soul, in cumbia’s emergence. Perhaps the most helpful aspect of this shorter chapter is the discussion of records released in Lima, such as Aretha Franklin’s Alma de Mujer (“Lady Soul”) [sic], as well as the influence of such records in cumbia recordings, such as Los Ecos “La chichita” (102). In chapter four, the author evaluates the effects of Peru’s military regime (1968–1980) on music, paying particular attention to the definitive bifurcation between salsa and cumbia. Cosamalón shows that during the early 1970s, recording labels continued to conflate cumbia with música tropical. Still, the steady separation of consumers for each musical style resulted in genre-specific recordings. What is interesting to note is how Peruvian cumbia acquired regional distinctions during the 1970s: in Lima, Los Destellos with “Elsa” in the Amazon and Juaneco y su Combo with “Mujer hilandera.” Unfortunately, Cosamalón does not further analyze the influence of Brazilian genres such as xaxado over Juaneco. This would have enriched his examination of the international and national trajectories of cumbia.

The book’s last chapter examines the birth of “chicha” as the commercial name for Peruvian cumbia. Cosamalón underscores the importance of informal workers, mostly migrants who came to Lima from different regions, as the primary audience for the consolidated—and no longer “tropical”—cumbia (149). In 1977, Alberto Maraví, one of the most important businessmen in the Peruvian musical industry, released the album Los reyes de la chicha, defining cumbia for posterity (157). The birth of “chicha” permitted the grouping of several rhythms and genres under a single commercial category, making sales in Peru and abroad easier.

One area that the author could have developed more fully is the distinction between “tradition” and “modernity,” particularly as those concepts apply to musical genres. Considering that both terms are highly contested in the social sciences, the fact that Cosamalón does not provide adequate definitions reduces the potential of his analysis. This reader would have also appreciated more engagement with the vast bibliography on música tropical in the Andes, particularly the work of Peter Wade. Those critiques aside, Cosamalón’s book contributes significantly to Latin American cultural studies, ethnomusicology, and Andean studies.