Against the backdrop of a tremendous surge in ethnic identity politics and social movement organizing over the last two decades in Ecuador, this article explores two complementary musical trends that have emerged in reference to the country's AfroEcuadorian population. The first showcases the traditional music and dance of the marimba as a symbol of Afro-Ecuadorian identity. The second features numerous popular music fusions of the marimba repertoire with genres including rock, salsa, reggaetón, and more, with broad appeal to audiences throughout the country and beyond. The new popularity of the marimba clearly marks a moment of arrival for Ecuador's black community, one coinciding with and contributing to its increased visibility on the national political stage. This paper makes a critical appraisal of this moment of arrival, noting its justly celebrated successes in advancing black self-determination and popular culture in the country, while also sounding a cautionary note about this celebratory narrative's ability to mask the continued discrepancies of power that lurk within the promotion of hybridized "folklore" and a multicultural national identity.Writing about Afro-Ecuadorian folklore during a period of rapid urbanization and industrial development in the mid-20th century, anthropologist Norman Whitten, Jr., and his Ecuadorian colleague Aurelio Fuentes lamented the sonic (con)fusions wrought on Ecuador's northwestern coast by increased migration, incipient tourism, and ideologies of national integration:Nothing could differ more than the traditional music of Quechua Indians, Cayapa Indians, Coastal Negroes, and the modern National music. Nevertheless, these phenomena are being increasingly seen as aspects of the same national music. In Esmeraldas, for example, some marimba bands are taking up maracas, guitars, and bongos, and making their music conform to the wishes of tourists . . . . We are of the opinion that the marimba as a distinct form of folk music, by becoming more of a curiosity to highlanders than a part of the folk expression of culture and social
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