Son nica

Son nica is the signature popular song form of Nicaragua, created in the 1930s and 1940s by the composer *Camilo Zapata*, who fused the marimba-centred folk idioms of the Nicaraguan countryside — its polkas, mazurkas and sones — with the guitar trio and canción traditions of Mexico and the Caribbean. Sung in colloquial Nicaraguan Spanish dense with local place-names, humour and costumbrista vignettes, its classics include Zapata's 'El Solar de Monimbó' and 'Caballito Chontaleño'. The form was carried to its widest audience by *Carlos Mejía Godoy* and *Los de Palacagüina*, whose "El son nuestro de cada día" (1977) made the son nica a continental folk reference.