Candombe beat

Candombe Beat is a Uruguayan style of the late 1960s and 1970s that fused rock, pop and psychedelia with candombe, the Afro-Uruguayan drum tradition of Montevideo. Groups such as *El Kinto* and *Totem* set the rhythms of the tambores (chico, repique and piano drums) to electric guitars, keyboards and song forms drawn from British and North American rock, while solo figures *Eduardo Mateo* and *Rubén Rada* gave the style its defining repertoire. Sung in Spanish and rooted in the barrio culture of the tambor, it was the first self-consciously Uruguayan rock idiom and remains the foundation of the country's popular music.