This song is always a dancefloor show stopper. The first version is the original by Calixto Ochoa:
The second is a lovely Panamanian Tipica version by the great Ceferino Nieto, who I had the pleasure of meeting a few years ago in Chitré. The song points out the geographic and cultural closeness of Panama and Colombia’s Costas – recall that in the Colonial era, Panama was still “Colombia’s Black Province”. This one came out on Cefe’s “El Estilista” label.
The provinces/interior of Panama share a deep connection to Colombia’s Caribbean Costa, while the Darién province is literally connected to Colombia’s Chocó, and related culturally to the Afro-Mestizo Pacific Coast that stretches down towards Buenaventura and beyond to Ecuador’s Esmeraldas region and Peru’s Northern Coast (Significant Afro presence since Colonial times related to sugarcane and rice cultivation).
Check out Cefe’s beautiful version of “Cumbia Caletera” below, by the Peruvian composer Julio Diaz Castillo, which sounds to my ears like it came directly from the Timbiquí region on Colombia’s Pacific Coast. Every time I hear it I imagine the great Nidia Góngora singing it!