[7] Since the 1940s, commercial or modern Colombian cumbia had expanded to the rest of Latin America, and many countries have had their own variants of cumbia after which it became popular throughout the Latin American regions, including in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the United States, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

John...The musician and pedagogue Luis Antonio Escobar, in the chapter "La mezcla de indio y negro" (The mixture of Indian and black) of his book "Música en Cartagena de Indias" (Music in Cartagena de Indias) takes the description of Indian dance who witnessed the navy lieutenant Swedish Carl August Gosselman in Santa Marta, and recorded in his work "Viaje por Colombia: 1825 y 1826" (Journey through Colombia: 1825 and 1826) as proof that at least in the second decade of the nineteenth century the gaita ensemble existed already in Santa Marta, the same that appears in Cartagena and other coastal cities with black musical elements that resulted in cumbia:[13] Por la tarde del segundo día se preparaba gran baile indígena en el pueblo.

The rhythm is marked even more with a large drum made in a fire-hollowed trunk, on top of which there is a stretched hide, where the third virtuoso hits the flat side of his fingers.

Las ocho parejas, formadas como escuadrón en columna, iban dando la vuelta á la hoguera, cogidos de una mano, hombre y mujer, sin sombrero, llevando cada cual dos velas encendidas en la otra mano, y siguiendo todos el compás con los piés, los brazos y todo el cuerpo, con movimientos de una voluptuosidad...[16]Translated as: There was a wide space, perfectly clean, surrounded by barracks, barbecues used to dry fish, tall coconut trees and various bushes.

Eight couples danced to the beat of that loud, monotonous, incessant son of the gaita (a small flute of very high pitch and with only seven holes) and the tamboril, conical instrument like a sugar loaf, very narrow, that produces a deep sound like the echo of a hill and is played with bare hands by continuous drumbeats.

The carraca (a chonta reed, corrugated transversely and whose noise is produced by rubbing a small thin bone); the triangle of iron, which is known, and the chucho or alfandoque (cylindrical and hollow reed, filled with beads that are shaken by the jolts of the artist, it produces a dull and rough sound similar to the dash of a waterfall), they were oddly mixed in the concert.

The first, represented by personalities like the composer José Barros, writers like Jocé G. Daniels, sociologists like Orlando Fals Borda and historians as Gnecco Rangel Pava, and the latter by the folklorist Delia Zapata Olivella.

[18][19] In 1998, in his article "La cumbia, emperadora del Pocabuy" (La cumbia, Empress of Pocabuy) the writer Jocé G. Daniels theorizes that the cumbia was "el aliciente espiritual de los indios" (the spiritual attraction of the Indians) to associate the flutes used in the celebrations of the Chimilas, pocigueycas and pocabuyes in the territories of the current populations of Guamal, Ciénaga and El Banco, with the primitive cumbia gaita, based on the report sent by the perpetual governor Lope de Orozco to the king in 1580, about the Province of Santa Marta, which recounts that "los yndios i yndias veben y asen fiestas con una caña a manera de flauta que se meten en la boca para tañer y producen una mucica como mui trayda del infierno" (The Indians drink and party with a cane that is used as a flute, which they put in their mouths to be played and that produces a music that seems to come from the very hell) (sic).

At the same meeting, José Barros said, product of the oral tradition received from the Indians: "The cumbia was born in funeral ceremonies that Chimillas Indians celebrated in the country of Pocabuy when one of its leaders died" (La cumbia nació en las ceremonias fúnebres que los indios Chimillas celebraban en el país de Pocabuy cuando moría uno de sus jerarcas).

[20] Daniels adds that the musical airs related to the origin of the cumbia "had their peak between Chymilas, Pocigueycas (Ponqueycas) and Pocabuyes, i.e., in the actual populations of Guamal, Cienaga and El Banco.

[11][19] To researchers of indigenous cultures, the ethno-musical mixture that gives rise to the cumbia occurs during the Colony in the native country of Pocabuy (current populations of El Banco, Guamal, Menchiquejo and San Sebastian in the Magdalena, Chiriguaná and Tamalameque in the Cesar and Mompox, Chilloa, Chimi and Guataca in Bolívar Department) located in the current Caribbean region of Colombia, in the upper valley of Magdalena region the Mompox Depression (including the cultures of La Sabana (Sucre),La Sabana and the Sinú River, north to Pincoya), product of the musical and cultural fusion of Indigenous, Afro-Colombian slaves[19] and, on a lesser extent, of Spaniards,[19][21][22][23] as referred by it historians Orlando Fals Borda in his book Mompox y Loba,[24] and Gnecco Rangel Pava in his books El País de Pocabuy[25] and Aires Guamalenses.

Pocabuy era un país indígena que se extendía a todo lo largo del río Tucurinca (actual Magdalena).

Pocabuy was an indigenous country that extended throughout the Tucurinca river (current Magdalena).For the writer Jocé G. Daniels, is "ironic" that people have "tried to foist a Kumbé Bantú origin to cumbia.

[27] In turn, the Africanists place the emergence of the cumbia to contact the black slaves with Indians in ports like Cartagena, Ciénaga, Santa Marta and Riohacha, mainly in the first, during the celebrations of the Virgen de la Candelaria.

They preferred the natural freedom of their kind, danced under the open sky to the sound of thunderous African drum, played hitting the patch with the hands, men and women, formed a big wheel and danced in couples, but loose, without shaking hands, circling around the drummers; women, with flowers in their head, lustrous hair dint of sebum, and soaked in orange blossom water, accompanied her beau on the circle, swaying in very erect cadence, while the man, pirouetting, or prancing, and showing his skills, all the time, tried to ingratiate his zambita, his partner...

It was gallantry in the dancer to give his partner two or three tallow candles, and a scarf to grab them ... the Indians also took part in the party dancing to their gaitas, a sort of flute.

It was another of those musical forms born from collective work, like the one of the oarsmen that in the navigation activity was the root of cumbia or the r of the 'socoladores' (people who cleared a zone of trees), called 'zafra' in some places, and that died after exhausting the sources, ...Referring to the site of origin of vallenato, Quiroz notes on the site of origin of cumbia: Mompox y su zona de influencia, como parte del Magdalena Grande, debe ser incluido también dentro del territorio donde nació el vallenato, con cunas discutibles como Plato, Valledupar, Riohacha, El Paso y la Zona Bananera.

[21]translated as Mompox and its area of influence, as part of the Magdalena Grande should also be included within the territory where the vallenato was born, with disputable cradles as Plato, Valledupar, Riohacha, El Paso and the Zona Bananera.

[37] Clarinetist Lucho Bermúdez helped bring cumbia into the country's interior by adding stylized orchestral arrangements to the rhythms of the genre.

The implementation of stylized orchestras made it more acceptable and appealing to the elites and as it spread the class association subsided and cumbia became popular in every sector of society.

[37][39] The researcher Guillermo Abadía Morales in his "Compendium of Colombian folklore", Volume 3, # 7, published in 1962, states that "this explains the origin in the zambo conjugation of musical air by the fusion of the melancholy indigenous gaita flute or caña de millo, i.e., Tolo or Kuisí, of Kuna or Kogi ethnic groups, respectively, and the cheerful and impetuous resonance from the African drums.

[50] Cumbia is present on the Caribbean coast, in the subregion around the Magdalena River delta invested, the Montes de María and riverine populations, with its epicenter in the Depresión momposina seat of ancient Pocabuy Indigenous country.

[54][53] Cumbia and porro rhythms were introduced by Lucho Bermudez, who in 1946 recorded for RCA Víctor in Argentina 60 of his compositions with musicians provided by Eduardo Armani and Eugene Nobile.

In the early 1960s, Bovea y sus vallenatos move to Argentina and popularizes cumbia in the country; the same was done by the Cuarteto Imperial, a Colombian band nationalized Argentine.

The country has contributed musical compositions and own variations Cumbia villera, which resonates particularly with the poor and marginalized dwellers of villas miseria, (shanty towns, and slums); lyrics typically glorify theft and drug abuse.

Pablo Lescano, ex-member of Amar Azul and founder of Flor Piedra and Damas Gratis is known to be the creator of the cumbia villera "sound".

[57] In the 1940s, the Colombian singer Luis Carlos Meyer Castandet emigrated to Mexico, where he worked with the Mexican orchestra director Rafael de Paz.

During the mid-1960s began to appear on national discography from various music labels like Virrey, MAG, and Iempsa, orchestras like Lucho Macedo and Pedro Miguel y sus Maracaibos.

The rhythm was understood soon in all regions of the country, prompting some groups to introduce some Peruvian musical elements, making electric guitars protagonists.

Two of the oldest Venezuelan tropical orchestras that begin to perform and record cumbia in the country were Los Melódicos and Billo's Caracas Boys.