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What does “champeta” mean in Colombian Spanish?

Champeta is the sound of Colombia’s Caribbean coast — a genre born in the poor Afro-descendant neighbourhoods of Cartagena in the 1970s from African soukous, Cuban son, reggae, and cumbia. The name originally meant a fish-cutter’s knife, used as a slur by the city’s elite against the communities who danced to it. Those communities wore the word as a badge of pride, and champeta eventually went mainstream across Colombia.

The dance matches the music: couples sway closely together, hips locked in a steady, almost hypnotic rhythm. In the clip, a Colombian speaker names champeta as their country’s dance, contrasting it with Mexico’s la iguana — a neat snapshot of how Latin Americans talk about national dance identity. Champeta’s story mirrors other reclaimed slurs in popular music: a label thrown from above that became the genre’s proudest calling card.