© 2025 KNAU Arizona Public Radio
Arizona Public Radio | Your Source for NPR News
Donate
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
KNAU & KPUB stations are experiencing technical issues, resulting in dead air or overlapping audio. Our software vendor is attempting to resolve the issues. We very appreciative of your patience, let alone support.

Arizona Public Radio continues to integrate new audio software into both our news and classical services, resulting in some glitches. Thank you for your support and patience through this upgrade.

Video: How cumbia arrived in Monterrey, Mexico

By Karla Gachet,
Keren Carrión
Published October 15, 2025 at 1:05 PM MST

This is part of a special series, Cumbia Across Latin America, a visual report across six countries developed over several years, covering the people, places and cultures that keep this music genre alive.

Cumbia arrived in Monterrey, a mountain city in northern Mexico often called "Colombia Chiquita" (Little Colombia), in the 1960s, when DJs began collecting Colombian cumbia and tropical records to play at local clubs and street parties. They reshaped the music, creating cumbia rebajada, or slowed-down cumbia.⁠ This new style, along with Monterrey's fascination with Colombia, sparked an urban subculture that remains vibrant today.⁠
⁠

This coverage was made with the support of the National Geographic Society Explorer program.

Karla Gachet is a photojournalist based in Los Angeles. You can see more of Karla's work on her website, KarlaGachet.com, or on Instagram at @kchete77.

Copyright 2025 NPR
NPR News
Karla Gachet
Keren Carrión
Keren Carrión is a short-form video producer and photojournalist on the NPR visuals team. Originally from Puerto Rico, she has lived in Connecticut and Washington D.C., where she graduated from George Washington University with a BFA in Photojournalism. She spent two years as a photojournalist for NPR's affiliate station in Dallas through Report for America. Previously, she worked with CNN as a video editor in Atlanta, and has interned with Univision, USA Today, The Hill, and the New York Times Student Journalism Institute.