Payada

Improvised verses

The heart of payada is the décima, a stanza of ten lines that is built line by line as the singing goes on. Nothing is written down beforehand. The payador holds a guitar and lets the tune carry the words, so the rhyme has to arrive at the same moment as the sense. In the Río de la Plata the word payador is also used loosely for any guitar player, though in the strict sense it means a person who composes aloud. Three musical settings belong to the form: the cifra, the huella and the milonga.

The contrapunto duel

When two or more payadores meet, the performance becomes a contrapunto. Each singer puts questions to the other and must answer in verse straight away, and the exchanges are often mocking. These duels can run for many hours. A contest finishes when one of the singers cannot reply at once, and that hesitation decides the winner. Skill is judged by how fluent and how pointed the improvised lines are. A payada can therefore be a friendly meeting or a serious test of memory, wit and nerve, watched closely by the people gathered around.

Older roots

According to the tradition's history, the payada grew out of the troubadour singing of southern Spain, which settlers carried with them to Latin America. Once it took hold in Argentina, its development owed much to Afro-Argentine musicians in the later 19th century. At that time the government was encouraging European migration and pushing black Argentines to the margins. Black payadores answered with their verses, asking that the long contribution of Afro-Argentines be recognised, and the art they shaped is still practised in the Americas.

Payadores and their days

Bartolomé Hidalgo, who was born in Montevideo in 1788, is treated as the forerunner of the form and as the earliest gaucho poet. His birthday, 24 August, is marked in Uruguay as the Day of the Payador. Argentina keeps its own Day of the Payador on 23 July, remembering a contest at Paysandú in 1884 between Juan de Nava and Gabino Ezeiza, which Ezeiza won with a piece saluting the town. Simón Méndez, nicknamed Guasquita, was the first payador recorded by name, a soldier who served during the British invasions of the River Plate. Santos Vega stands as the model payador, and many later singers are counted as his successors.

In culture and today

Writers have taken the payada into literature. Rafael Obligado's best known poem is about Santos Vega, and gaucho literature as a whole draws on the figure of the singing horseman. The comedy group Les Luthiers sent it up in a piece called Payada de la vaca, a cow-themed duel, which shows how familiar the form is to audiences far outside the countryside. Payadas are still sung at folk gatherings and competitions. Only one recording of Ezeiza's voice is known to exist, and it holds the song he improvised at Paysandú.

How Payada is kept

A payada usually starts with one singer and a guitar, working through ten-line stanzas made up on the spot as the strings play. When a second payador joins, the pair take turns. One sets a question in verse, the other answers, and that answer turns into the next question. Sharp remarks fly back and forth. Singing goes on as long as both can manage, sometimes deep into the night. Whoever cannot come back with a line at once loses. Listeners press close, because the words last only for the moment.

When and where

There is no season for a payada: it happens whenever singers come together, at a country gathering, a festival or a contest. Two fixed dates honour the payadores. Uruguay marks 24 August, the birthday of Bartolomé Hidalgo, and Argentina marks 23 July, the day of the 1884 contest at Paysandú.

Payada belongs to the Río de la Plata and the gaucho country around it. The sources place it in Uruguay and Argentina above all, with the same art found in southern Brazil and southern Paraguay. In Chile it goes by the name paya and is performed by huasos. Singers also perform it in towns and cities far from the plains, on stages and at festivals.

What Payada means

To the people who keep it, a payada tests the person as much as the singer. Verse has to come quickly, stay courteous in form even when the words sting, and fit the moment. Improvising well shows a clear head and a listening one: a payador has to take in what the other singer has just said. For Afro-Argentine musicians the form also carried a claim, that their community's part in the country's music be acknowledged and that the tradition they made belongs to everyone who sings it.

Questions people ask about Payada

See also

ForróMusic, dance and party from Brazil's Northeast, with accordion, triangle and zabumba drumKizombaA close, slow couple dance from Angola, named after a Kimbundu word for partyBaiãoA syncopated folk rhythm and partnered dance from northeastern BrazilParaguayan harpParaguay's national harp, strung with 32 to 46 strings and plucked with long fingernails

Good reading and sources

• Encyclopaedia BritannicaArticle

• Payada on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-05.