This paper addresses the sonorous and transnational ties that have resulted in cumbia’s dissemination throughout South America. I focus on three historical moments in the genre’s development: 1940s Colombia, 1960s Chile, and 1990s Argentina. Based in theoretical frameworks of globalization, cosmopolitanism, and sound studies, I demonstrate that transnational acoustemologies of cumbia reflect distinct sonic experiences of festivity, often in adverse contexts marked by social, economic, and political challenges. I argue that an acoustemological approach to cumbia, focused on interrelations between radically different contexts, can shed light on the development of the genre as well as divergent notions of class, gender, ethnicity, national expression, and latinidad. I explore Lucho Bermúdez's key role in the early commercialization of cumbia, essential to subsequent forms of popular culture that developed in the region. I examine the emergence of Chilean cumbia as a cross-border encounter between Caribbean sounds and local sonic experiences linked to subversive humor. Lastly, I explore Argentine cumbia, framing it as informed by consumerism and further sonic transculturation between the Caribbean and the South. My research adds to existing literature on cumbia by foregrounding multi-site research, offering detailed musical analyses of stylistic innovations, and by exploring the transnational ties that have led to the emergence of new local variants.

Afro-Dominican fusion music emerged in the 1970s as a blend of Black local traditions, often tied to religious or spiritual practices, such as palos, Congos de Villa Mella, Gagá, and sarandunga, with global genres like jazz, rock, pop, and electronica. This fusion music was pioneered by artists like Luis “El Terror” Días, whose work can be interpreted as a response to the repressive and racist political regimes that took place in the country during Rafael Leonidas Trujillo's dictatorship between 1930 and 1961, and the authoritarian President José Joaquín Balaguer between 1960 and 1996. With his music, Luis Días unveiled a paradigm that has led to ontological shifts around Black Dominican music, impacting its associated economies. A myriad of performers from diverse backgrounds, with different target audiences and access to resources, have produced Afro-Dominican fusion music since then. I examine racial politics surrounding Afro-Dominican music performance, drawing on Dr. Celina de Sá’s conception of the coloniality of Black performance to study the repercussions of commodifying Black Dominican religious music. I analyze Afro-Dominican fusion music repertoire vis-à-vis the spiritual and religious traditions from which it is created. Based on ethnographic accounts, I compare the dynamics of traditional musicians, such as Los Menores de Candelo, with those of Afro-Dominican fusion groups like Toné Vicioso & Aumbata and La Carisalve. I argue that Afro-Dominican fusion music creates a palimpsest that reveals diverse iterations of Blackness, while being the object of pastiche, appropriation, or the evisceration of Afro-Dominican traditions.

In the last fifteen years tango as social dance has grown exponentially in popularity among people under 45 in the USA. Many musicians now perform and compose the popular, danceable form of the genre instead of the post-Piazzolla New Tango that dominated the scene until the early 2000s. This reversal of priorities and in turn the artists’ ability to make a living can be observed in North American cities like Austin. It is not by chance that this shift coincides in part with the appearance of queer milongas. Although much has been written about gender in tango, one issue yet to be explored is how female LGBTQ+ involvement, a younger tango community, and the new dance repertoire boom are interconnected. With social shifts like the legalization of gay marriage, first in Argentina and later in the USA, women and LGBTQ+ spaces operating in Buenos Aires and elsewhere have grown in number. Drawing on queer theory, sound studies, previous research by Bergero (2008) and Liska (2016), as well as fieldwork in Austin, this paper explores how new generations of musicians, audiences and dancers reclaim tango music as a popular practice through a subversion/queering of performance event. As they reclaim public spaces, these communities become ever more central to sustaining the tradition, putting the music again at the service of the community.

Since their development in the 1960s, jazz programs have become a mainstay of institutional music education in the United States, coinciding with and reinforcing the genre’s continuingly strong presence in popular culture. It should come as no surprise, then, that the rise of globalization has produced collegiate jazz programs across the world – including in my home country of Mexico. There exist only three public universities in Mexico that boast professional training focused on jazz studies: the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature (INBAL) in Mexico City, the Veracruzan University in Xalapa, and the University of Sciences and Arts of Chiapas (UNICACH) in Tuxtla Gutiérrez. Though their curriculums often overlap on paper, with course offerings similar to what one would find up north in the U.S., their individual praxes are radically unique and seek to serve distinct student populations. I thus explore how these programs operate according to their sociocultural and socioeconomic contexts, adapting an already flexible musical style to best fit regional needs and tastes. Through analyses of their respective curriculums, I argue that jazz is understood less as a cohesive genre and more as a malleable utilitarian label that empowers local community musicians to participate in acoustic economies. I pay particular attention to UNICACH, drawing on interviews with its current program coordinator to demonstrate how institutional jazz has served to “professionalize” already existing musical practices in the rapidly urbanizing, historically underserved locale: a groundwork model for other similar global arts advocacy initiatives.