Leedy, I agree with you that, not well played, guarapachangueo can be a lot of noise. I would take it a step further and say that new rhythms can sound like noise even when they are well played. A lot depends on the ability of the listener/dancer/audience to know what they are listening to. If a person does not know what classic rumba is and listens to records without participating in rumbas, at first even the original Papines and Guaguanco Matancero classic recordings like Los Muñequitos, Los Beodos, and Los Rosales can sound like noise to someone who doesn't know what they are listening to. Once someone starts going to rumbas, learns clave, and learns to play and sing in clave, the music starts to make sense, and most of us would consider these old guaguancos to be the epitome of afinque, harmony and rhythm.
But those songs were mixtures of musical cultures and styles too, they were created and have not been there forever. The African rhythms from Abakua, Palo, Bembe and Yoruba Bata, plus other African music, are all there in the classic guaguanco. That mixture is also mixed with the decima, flamenco, and spanish lyrics from Spain. So fusion of rhythms and fusion of cultures in music is nothing new. In fact I would argue that rumba is fundamentally multicultural and NOT pure African or pure Spanish.
There is always resistance to mixing of cultures and creation of new forms, but once the new form is created and popularized, we fall into the illusion that the new form is correct, the only way to do it, and has always been that way. Danzon may be about as pure Cuban as any music, but it came from a fusion of contradanza and other European music with African rhythms and harmonies. And son came in part from danzon, a fusion of fusions. Now we think of it as old school, pure, and what we should be emulating. So the history of Cuban music, and probably all music, includes fusion as one of its main characteristics. Sometimes the fusion works and produces a new musical form that people love and that is successful, like danzon, son, guaguanco, mambo, cha cha cha, guaracha, salsa, songo, timba, and I would add, guarapachangueo. Sometimes the fusion doesn't work and produces a new musical form that people don't love, and that is not successful. It is all music, some is great, some is good, some is bad, and some is horrible.
Of course we all have different preferences. Some people can even listen to bachatas and Julio Iglesias all day without becoming physically ill. Some of us are incapable of that, but could listen to, and play, guaguanco all day every day. And some of us even have learned to appreciate guarapachangueo. I am told that Markito (one of the creators of the guarapachangueo tumbador) got tremendous resistance and criticism in Cuba when he first started playing his new style. In 1995 when I first heard Rapsodia Rumbera I couldn't feel it, there was no tumbador as I knew it. The harmonies were nice and tres dos and quinto were right there, but where was the tumbador? That recording, along with several others by Yoruba Andabo and Clave y Guaguanco, and the highly creative musicians that made those recordings, changed the face of rumba in Cuba and in the world. I now consider Markito's style of tumbador to be one of the most beautiful and creative styles of all time in rumba, but I actually had to learn how to listen to it to appreciate it. He took the tumbador even beyond that of the late Gregorio Diaz el Goyo of Los Muñequitos, who was probably the main creator of what we now consider the traditional Matanzas tumbador style.
By the way, guarapachangueo has nothing to do with the rhythms guaracha or pachanga, or even the song La Guarapachanga. It is not a fusion of those rhythms. It is actually, in Pancho Quinto's words, orthodox rumba, although the classical parts are broken up differently and spread out on different drums and cajones so they sound different. Part of the beauty lies in the much more intense communication among the drummers (and singers and dancers) that forms a musical conversation in which each contributes to creating one constantly changing drum melody and no one plays on top of someone else. This is much more difficult than in the traditional "gun GUN GUN gun" guaguanco where tumbador and tres dos each hold one part and only occasionally do small variations while the quinto does most of the talking. We are in the middle of the creation of a new form of a traditional rhythm, and there will always be critics.
So Leedy and others, feel free to criticize guarapachangueo, you are not the first and you are in good company. Just please focus your criticism on bad guarapachangueo, not all guarapachangueo. But before you criticize further, please go listen to Rapsodia Rumbera, Yoruba Andabo, Rumberos de Cuba, and some of the new young rumberos in Cuba today, like the group led by Adonis Panter Calderon with Michael Herrera and Barbarito Crespo. This is modern rumba as played in Cuba today, sometimes called guarapachangueo, mambochambo or just rumba.
http://www.youtube.com/user/atticchris#p/u/4/hWyCGU6UoBELeedy, listen and watch that clip and if you can convince me that is noise, I will cook and eat my claves, bien sancochadas con mojo de ajo y aguacate por el lado. Call it fusion or what you will, I would argue that should be the new updated definition of afinque. These guys are light years ahead of us and we should be honest and admit it.