There is a lot of backstory to "A mí no me cumbén."

The following are excerpts from "Black Rhythms of Peru" by Heidi Carolyn Feldman, published by Wesleyan Univ. Press.

about Nicomedes Santa Cruz, beginning page 88 (quote):
"As a child in the late nineteenth century, the mother of Nicomedes Santa Cruz lived across the street from a tavern that was a meeting place and competition ground for 'decimistas' (poets who would compete with each other in public), and years later her children would hear her performing décimas while washing clothes....Nicomedes' mother stopped singing after she suffered a heart condition. Thus Nicomedes' relationship with the décima was interrupted when he was a child, only to be renewed during his later mentorship with Don Porfirio Vásquez.

page 89 (quote):
Nicomedes Santa Cruz met Don Porfirio Vásquez in 1945. He became what he described as a "coffee-house docent" to Don Porfirio, studying the rules of décima composition and learning about the rural Black communities that had preserved the competitive art....Yet, after several years of talking only "in décimas or about décimas" with Don Porfirio, Nicomedes realized that his only potential rivals were a few old men in their eighties who lived in small towns....
In 1955, Nicomedes began to write "solo" décimas that addressed contemporary national and international issues. The next year....he closed his metal shop and traveled throughout Latin America reciting décimas and searching for his destiny. He roamed from town to town in northern Peru and Ecuador, performing décimas for birthday celebrations, weddings, and tavern gatherings. When he returned to Lima [Peru] that year, Nicomedes began reciting his décimas on the radio, and shortly thereafter, on national television....'From this point on,' he said in an interview, 'everything I compose has a vision that is folkloric, but also of "negritude." '