Payada

The payada is the improvised singing duel of the Río de la Plata, in which two payadores, each accompanying himself on guitar, compose verses against one another in real time. Singing chiefly in the strict ten-line décima espinela, over the repeating accompaniment patterns of the cifra and the milonga, the rivals trade questions, boasts and insults until one fails to answer. Rooted in gaucho culture and documented since the early nineteenth century, the payada survives in Argentina, Uruguay, southern Brazil and Chile as a festival art of wit, memory and verbal invention.