Talk:History of Tango

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In the section "History of Tango" is written that TANGO might stem from African origins. This I put in question since in Argentina barely black people are living. It's like a lottery to see a black person there. Has someone an explanation for the African roots that seem to be logic? --Hauke 08:18, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

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[edit] Tango-related article deletion

Please vote Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tango.info (2nd nomination). `'mikka (t) 18:48, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] African influence

i'm sorry but anytime I want to read about tango here they always call up on its african influence. gosh! what ALL the african people I've met get more surprised about tango is the fact that it is sooo different from their dances! I know you will say, Africa is huge, maybe it's from another part of Africa but still, most african dances are very separated the female from the male, sometimes not even touching or each one doing different dances. I suspect the people putting that is the same people writing everywhere that there's a huge amount of african heritage in Argentina and stuff. Werther it has or hasn't african influence I don't think it should be mentioned in first place since it isn't that important or notorious. it is way more influenced by waltz or zarzuelas. I hear more violins and bandoneons than bombos. Guchogu 08:24, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

The origins of Tango have nothing to do with Africa. There has never been any African influences in Argentina whatsoever simply because there was never any Africans people, let alone communities in Buenos Aires. Not even today you can find Africans in Argentina as as opposed to Brasil who developed de Samba (a truly African dance). The person who wrote that Tango has anything to do with Africa is wrong and misleading the public, for whatever reason. Accordingly the article should be edited on this regard. Please can anyone contact me as to allow me to do this? My Wikipedia name is Magiko and I am prepared to spend some time editing this article with factual and true details about tango. Thank you for your help. Magiko
Thank you for your high interest in the quality of this article, Magiko. Please use published references when you edit this page. As far as no Africans in Argentina, how do you explain slavery from 1770 until the emancipation in 1813 of children born to slaves and finally outright abolishment of slavery in 1853? How do you explain blacks used in the military to fight pampas Indians? How do you explain The Shimmy Club in downtown Buenos Aires? Where did the Candombe come from? Here are a few interesting links:
La Ruta del Esclavo
(blog) In Search Of The Mythical Afro-Argentine
UNESCO: Slavery in Argentina
Cheers - Binksternet (talk) 19:46, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
A couple more links:
A Tango with Robert Farris Thompson (2005 interview)
Hisham Aidi: BLACKS IN ARGENTINA: DISAPPEARING ACTS
Enjoy - Binksternet (talk) 19:50, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Still, "The dance originated from the African community in Buenos Aires based on ancient African dance forms. ". BASED on african dances? please!! as I said before it is much more similar to a waltz in dancing, so I'd said BASED on Waltz or any other dances WITH african influence, but based on african dances?? can you show me please?? Guchogu (talk) 01:22, 29 November 2007 (UTC) I changed it. And as far as I know, candombe comes from Uruguay. There might be struggles between where mate, alfajores, best meat or tango is from, but candombe is clearly from Uruguay and also way more popular there. Guchogu (talk) 01:31, 29 November 2007 (UTC) And about the links you provided, there's nothing important. So what if this guy was afro argentine, or this other composer... there is thousands MORE composers, not because Ranko Fujisawa was one of the most famous tango singers in the 50's I'm gonna say most singers were japanese. read: http://www.todotango.com/spanish/biblioteca/cronicas/musica_criolla.html I'll quote some "En la música africana predomina la percusión. En muchos de los ritmos criollos de América Latina donde existe una gran influencia étnica negra se destaca ese origen con evidencia definitiva.

Tal influencia de los ritmos africanos -y dejamos de lado la gravitación pentatónica andina- se observa plenamente en nuestra América desde el Perú hacia el norte y, muy especialmente, en el Caribe.

No es el caso de nuestro país, del Uruguay y de Chile, donde el influjo musical español es más abrumador y tangible. Desde ya que no me refiero al popular "candombe" uruguayo en que la evidencia de su origen africano nos exime de cualquier análisis." So if you're gonna say Tango is based on African dances, I'd say Salsa, Merengue, and all those dances ARE african dances... a drop of ketchup on mayonnaise doesn't make it golf sauce..

Yes, you are correct Salsa (dance), Merengue, Mambo, Cueca, Rumba (dance) all originated in the african communities of Latin America. Later they would incorporate other elements European Origin. So yes we would not say they are "pure african" dances, but the origins were African.Muntuwandi (talk) 21:09, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Guchogu (talk) 01:33, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I noticed Mutu undid my edit, I say it here, they talk about the origin of the word in the second paragraph, then, the niger congo reference should be there, not in the first one. If you so want it to be included, reformulate it and add it where it belongs, not in the first paragraph to make a first eye impression of the african origin. Guchogu (talk) 18:20, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] African influence

Several sources note an African influence in the origin of tango, especially in the name of it. Recent edits seek to erase these referenced sources. Certainly it is true the dance and the music have much to do with Western forms, but erasing all trace of African origin ignores mainstream source material. We can't write the article without reference to mainstream research. Binksternet (talk) 18:03, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes there has been one problem editor, User:XGustaX who has been trying to overly europeanize Argentine history and culture. He has been blocked indefinitely but he uses his sockpuppets to rewrite the article every now and then. Muntuwandi (talk) 22:36, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd say there's more people trying to "blackanize" Argentina. Guchogu (talk) 01:29, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

by no means, just searching history for the truth. Muntuwandi (talk) 21:05, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

searching your truth. Guchogu (talk) 05:48, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

As a Tango connoisseur, professional musician and expert on the subject I can say this: It is fundamentally wrong to state that the origins of Tango can be found in Africa. Argentina and Africa are so far apart as computers from mountain flowers. Please stop "africanising" Argentina. Simply because to do so, is historically, socially and factually wrong. Magiko —Preceding unsigned comment added by Magiko (talk • contribs) 12:16, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Unreferenced edits by Magiko

Please provide references for any and all edits to this page. There are as many opinion about the origins of tango as there are tangueros; the ones that we put into this article must be sourced. We can compare various sources and offer this contrast to the reader but in no way can the page benefit by being pulled in only a single direction by unreferenced editing. Binksternet (talk) 01:47, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

SEND THIS TO WIKIPEDIA
Dear Binksternet - and others! Thank you very much for your response and for your advise. And although I disagree with your specific opinion/information about African influences I appreciate the fact that you are interested in helping me and Tango as a whole. Regarding Candombe (which appeared much later and in Uruguay and had slaves) has nothing to do with Tango's origins and I can prove this point to anyone as well. Rather than Candombe it is the Spanish Habanera which has been really influential in the birth of Tango. But all in all, it is fundamentally wrong to state that the origins of Tango can be found in Africa (which is what the article suggests). I will come back to you with book references, etc. as you desire, but I need time since I've got other things to do, as you can imagine. In the meantime I would like to ask you (as the Wikipedia expert you seem to be) to put some kind of 'note' or 'flag' advising that the correctness of the present article has been questioned and challenged by others. (I would do it myself if I knew how to). If you do that (or at least if you would add my article as well - perhaps at the end of the present one? (you can get my article by contacting me directly) people will have the opportunity to obtain a second opinion on this so controversial subject. Thank you very much again for your help - and for helping Tango. Kind regards, Magiko
I just rewrote some of the sections, making it flow more chronologically. I added more references, too, though they are just online articles and not scholarly textbooks. There's not a lot of high level scholarship relating to tango history. My point of view is that weak references are better than none at all. I'll continue to push for references accompanying each new edit and resist the deletion of existing referenced sections. Binksternet (talk) 00:56, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Inaccurate article

Tango started as rythmic dances of african slaves and immigrants/poor people in the slums of Buenos Aires. It was later appropriated as is became vogue, especially in Paris circa 1911. Lunfardo, an argot common in tango lyrics (see wiki page on it) is evidence of the influence that other immigrants had and the counter-cultural nature of the early dance. It has a lot of 'made up' words that are slightly satirical and have many Italian influences.

examples of lunfardo:

bacan = man, robber chochamu = young man (vesre for muchacho) fiaca = laziness (from the Italian fiacco -weak-) garpar = to pay with money (vesre for "pagar" which means to pay) laburar = to work (from Italian lavorare -to work-) lunfardo = criminal, thief manyar = to know / to eat (from the Italian mangiare -to eat-) mina = woman morfar = to eat (from French argot morfer -to eat-) pescar = to know (from the Italian capire -to know-). trabajar = to rob trucho - false/fake/not real

---

This wiki page is very limited in scope and focuses mainly on the european appropriated form that turned in to contemporary tango. The african influence discussed here is indisputable and evident in some of the ways that tango was characterized–it was exoticized and called thing like a mild regression to more primitive roots' and the like. I'm basing this on the content of my Latin American Studies Pop Culture class and an excellent article by John Charles Chasteen "Black Kings, Blackface Carnival, and Ninteenth-Century Origins of the Tango" in Latin American Popular Culture eds. Williams H. Beezley and Linda A. Curcio-Naggy. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources Inc., 2000 43-59.

It def. needs re-written or at least heavily modified, especially in the first half!!

P.S. Buenos Aires was a major entry point for slaves who at one point made up over a quarter of the population.