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evant opinions, decontextualized analyses, no ethnographic methodology, and
even using facts from other countries as
if they were Argentine).

Musicology had to wait till 1993, when
sociologist Alejandro Frigerio published
the article “El candombe argentina:
crónica de una muerte anunciada” [Argentinean Candombe: Chronicle of a
Death Foretold]. In it, he began to offer
an account of a suggestively irrelevant
phenomenon that was assumed to have
disappeared around 1850, and thoroughly and speculatively objectified it regarding its form, function and symbolism. Furthermore, he referred to Montevidean Candombe, offering no reason or
explanation for this. His focus was
based on a study of existing works on
the topic, a critical reading of the
sources using a pertinent theoretical
framework and, using oral histories he
had collected, which was the most
unique part of his approach.

4. There is little criticism of existing
production and a tendency to prefer and
reify the work of authors considered
unquestionable.
5. The generalized, timeless and asocial
concept of Afro-Argentine music in
which it is reduced to essentialist stereotypes. It is not understood as the
syncretic result of contact between
blacks and other groups. The agentive
capacity of its producers is underestimated; its existence as strictly pertaining to them, which ends up being counterproductive, for example, in analyzing
its implications for the origin of tango
and even other music forms even less
suspected of having any connection to
them, such as in the case of academic
and folkloric music (Cirio 2006, 2007d,
2010b, 2010c, 2012a).

Our actual knowledge about AfroArgentine music, its state currently and
its history, is extremely uneven; this
prevents one from having a complete,
panoramic sense of it. For example,
according to the 1778 census, the AfroArgentine population of the certain
provinces during colonial times was
significant—Santiago del Estero (54%),
Catamarca (52%), Salta (46%), Córdoba (44%) and Tucumán (42%). Despite
these figures, we have only a handful of
isolated and not contextualized data
about what music they created or create.

6) With the exception of a few studies
about the country’s interior, its production is seen as limited to Buenos Aires,
which results in a unified view of AfroArgentine music, even though they are
really only talking about Afro-porteño
music.
This panorama began to improve in the
1990s, precisely with the book The Afro-Argentines of Buenos Aires: 18001900 (1980), by U.S. historian George
Reid Andrews (University of Pittsburgh). Not only does he offer a fresh
interpretation of the past, but he also
introduces a topic that seemed irrefutably closed: Afro-Argentines today.

Not withstanding, the present is promising some suggestive progress along
these lines, such as the “apparition” of
San Félix (Department of Jiménez, Santiago del Estero province), whose total
population of 200 inhabitants acknowledges itself to be Afro-descendant.4

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