Cumbia villera

Cumbia villera is the cumbia of Buenos Aires's villas miserias, created in the late 1990s by *Pablo Lescano* and his circle as Argentina's economic crisis deepened. Played on cheap electronic keyboards with drum machines, güiro and timbales, it replaces cumbia's traditional accordion and guitar with synth riffs and a slower, heavier beat, while its lyrics — sung in lunfardo slang — narrate shantytown life directly: police, prison, drugs, football and survival. Groups such as *Damas Gratis*, *Yerba Brava* and *Los Pibes Chorros* made it the defining sound of the Argentine urban poor.