Difficulty: Intermediate
Colombia
Colombian musician Alberto Barros, better known as Salsa's Titan, offers us, along his band, one of the most famous salsa songs: "Cali pachangero".
Difficulty: Intermediate
Colombia
Colombia's Aterciopelados ("The Velvety Ones") delivers another smooth song with a political message. This time, the band questions immigration policies and asks who has the right to dream of a better life.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Colombia
From the mouth of lead vocalist Liliana "Li" Saumet, salt water sounds like "agua salá" or "agua sala'a". The Caribbean accent is just part of the smooth rounded sound from Colombia known as Bomba Estéreo, a band that blends traditional cumbia with other musical influences.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Colombia
Rock'n'roll has Cleveland; Country music has Nashville and Salsa has Cali, Colombia. Grammy nominee, Alberto Barros, brings us a mano a mano between three Salsa Divas representing the Salsa Capital of the World.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Colombia
The pouring rain doesn’t stop Aterciopelados from rocking the park in Bogotá. “Rock al parque” is probably the biggest open-air (free!) rock festival in Latin America, held annually in Colombia’s capital. Listen in as Aterciopelados sings out a tribute to this fun festival and to fellow bands performing there. (How many of them have you heard?)
Difficulty: Intermediate
Colombia
Stop thief! A stranger with a foreign accent and talk of riches has come in and taken all the native gold, leaving poverty in his wake. Colombia’s talented ChocQuibTown manage to sing about serious geopolitical exploitation in a way that’s fun to listen to (and danceable, too).
Difficulty: Intermediate
Colombia
ChocQuibTown is the most important Colombian hip-hop band of the moment and they have been pretty busy exporting their music around the world. From Argentina to Texas, people are dancing to their rhythms. But even as the band travel, ChocQuibTown hasn’t forgotten where they all come from. On the contrary, they are inspired by their Colombian roots.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Colombia
Born in Bogotá, Colombia, Fonseca is known for his letras pegajosas (sticky lyrical hooks) and happy rhythms. Fonseca became a sensation after attending Berklee School of Music in Boston—a move that he claims gave him the ability to stand out among his musical peers.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Colombia
In Bogotá’s flea market, children help out in their parents’ businesses. We stop at a stall of handcrafted wood figures and chat with the artisan’s daughter.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Colombia
After all the bean sorting, cleaning, grinding and toasting we witnessed in our previous segments of Una Historia de Café, it’s finally time to boil up some water and do a little tasting, or “cupping,” as it’s known in laboratory circles. You might want to fire up your percolator; we have a feeling you’ll be craving some caffeine any moment now!
Difficulty: Intermediate
Colombia
We’ve already seen some interesting, fabulous and downright curious things in the “mercado de pulgas” (flea market). But what about the people in there? They’re as colorful, amusing and charming as the goods in any stall.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Colombia
You can almost smell the coffee as Part 3 of our documentary takes us through the roasting process.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Colombia
In Colombia, costeño y cachaco are almost opposite terms. Costeños, that is de la costa, people from the Coast, are usually depicted as festive, noisy, and colorful people who really enjoy killing time. Cachaco is usually the name given to people from the capital, Bogotá, and they’re characterized by elegance; they’re always dressed up and in control of their emotions. One group is seen as lazy, the other as boring. Regional differences aside, Bomba Estéreo is a fresh musical mix of both regions.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Colombia
The quest for an excellent cup of coffee continues. Now we’re in the lab working to get rid of impurities by threshing and selecting the best coffee beans.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Colombia
Una pulga is a flea. “Un mercado de pulgas” is, of course, a flea market. We go on a spirited tour of Bogotá’s flea market where our guide shows us antique items we never knew we needed.
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