World Heritage For The Catalan Rumba?

Rumba, as in the musical genre, originates from Cuba, though strictly speaking its origins are African. Slaves introduced styles of singing, percussion and also dance to Cuba, and thus was born a hybrid of Afro-Cuban music which truly became popular in Cuba in the first half of the nineteenth century but which found itself coming into conflict with authority; or at least the dance did. It was considered to be all a bit too wild and so it was banned. This prohibition didn't really stick and by the 1920s rumba had become hugely popular once more. And so they tried banning it again.

By now though, rumba was breaking out from its Caribbean base. Latin music and dance of different types were well known in the US and in Europe and so it underwent further processes of adoption and hybridisation. And one place where it eventually really took off was Catalonia.

The Catalan rumba started with the Romani gypsy community in Barcelona in the 1950s, and it crossed over with a further offshoot, the flamenco rumba, itself a hybrid style of music. So, what you get today with rumba acts in Mallorca, of which there are a number, is the influence of this Catalan version. And in line with the process of ever more crossing-over, contemporary rumba music in Mallorca has pulled in yet more influences: jazz, rock and even punk. This musical inter-breeding is very much in line with the way in which flamenco has been given various branch lines - the flamenco chill and the flamenco jazz - and the blurring of musical (and dance) lineage becomes fuzzier because of the shared Romani roots of both the flamenco of Andalusia and the Catalan rumba.

It isn't possible to identify an exact time in the past when flamenco became flamenco, though the Andalusian historian Blas Infante wrote in 1933 that its first stage of development was from the second quarter of the sixteenth century and that the word flamenco came from Arabic. This connection is quite important in the story of flamenco because, as Infante proposed, it represented the allying of Muslim Andalusians with the Romani. As such, it firmly establishes the Andalusian origin of flamenco and dismisses a theory that flamenco had something to do with Flanders; the word flamenco can mean Flemish.

Though the precise origins are unclear, what is obvious is that, as far as Spain is concerned, flamenco is considerably older than rumba and is much more rooted in Romani culture than rumba.

This history and cultural uniqueness were instrumental in flamenco being declared a UNESCO Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2010. And this status is one now being sought for the Catalan rumba. On Saturday, a meeting involving representatives of various musical associations, musicologists and the European Commission's presence in Barcelona, Ferran Tarradellas, proposed taking forward the rumba's claim.

The way that these UNESCO awards work is that the request for consideration has to come from a government. The Spanish Government, for example, is looking into presenting the case for Moors and Christians fiestas to be given UNESCO status. In the case of the rumba, it would need the support of the government in Catalonia and then either national government or European backing, and the EU is said to be sympathetic. The justification for seeking UNESCO status is that the rumba is an identifiable part of Catalan culture, but there are possible drawbacks. One is being able to pinpoint exactly what Catalan rumba is. Another is its history, while a third is the authenticity.

By comparison with flamenco, Catalan rumba has neither the history nor a claim to uniqueness. There may be an authentic and original strand to the music as it exists in Catalonia, but it was one that had come about through the cross-breeding and exporting outlined above. And moreover, it simply isn't that old.

Uniqueness is not a total pre-requisite for UNESCO status, as can be seen in the case of the Mallorcan Sibil-la. This chant didn't start in Mallorca, but it was Mallorca where its tradition was maintained following proscription by the church. It became recognisably Mallorcan because it had died out elsewhere. The Catalan rumba, on the other hand, grew out of something that was alive and kicking.

Despite these drawbacks, the musicians of Catalonia want UNESCO status in order that the original Catalan rumba is recognised and is therefore afforded some protection. It is the very process of cross-over with other genres that has put the original at risk, but then one still comes back to one of the drawbacks - what actually is it? Its comparative newness has meant that almost from the word go it has been exposed to a dynamic of musical alteration and experimentation, a process which pretty much characterises the past sixty years or so of contemporary music.