Carlos Vives Biography

Carlos Vives, known for his fusion of pop vocals and traditional Colombian vallenato music, earned a Grammy Award in 2002, received numerous Latin Grammy nominations, and is considered “one of Latin America’s most acclaimed [musical] artists,” according to Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez in the Los Angeles Times. Valdes-Rodriguez also noted, “Vives embodies the very soul of Latin America.”

Vives’s songs celebrate vallenato, the traditional music of the Colombian rural people. Vallenato, which originated in the Valle de Upar in northeastern Colombia, has roots in African, European, and native Colombian music; it uses native bamboo flutes, African-inspired drums, and German accordions, as well as other instruments, and has four rhythm styles: son and paseo, which are slower, and puya and merengue, which are more lively. Paseo, despite being slow, is the most popular rhythm. Vives, like other popular vallenato artists, often adds keyboards, full drum sets, and other wind instruments. For many years the music was looked down upon in Colombia because it was associated with poor people and minority groups. However, Vives and other artists have brought it into the mainstream and have also introduced it to audiences around the world.

Vives was born Carlos Alberto Vives Restrepo in Santa Marta, on the northern coast of Colombia. The second of four sons of a doctor and a homemaker, his extended family also includes politicians and other members of Colombia’s upper class. Although his family is of Spanish descent, part of the 20 percent of Co-jlombia’s white minority, he grew up in a neighborhood made up largely of people of African and Native descent.

Vives told Valdes-Rodriguez that this mix of cultures inspired his music: “I don’t discriminate,” he said. “I believe we are all children of God, and I can’t view a black person as different from me, even though I choose a person of my own color to marry, you understand? I don’t believe in differences between people. My music is the living proof of the equality of all people.”

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