Aníbal Velásquez
musical artist
Aníbal Velásquez Hurtado (born June 3, 1936) is a Colombian singer, composer and musician, recognized for playing the accordion. He is also known by his nicknames "El Mago" ("The Magician") and "El Rey de la Guaracha" ("The King of the Guaracha").
Biography
Aníbal Velásquez was born in 1936 in Barranquilla, Colombia to parents José Antonio Velásquez and Belén Hurtado, and is the brother of the musician José "Cheíto" Velásquez. He is the father of Nelson Velásquez, former member of the vallenato group Los Inquietos del Vallenato.
He had his first hit ("La Gallina") in 1952 as part of the band Los Vallenatos del Magdalena with Roberto and Carlos Román and remained with the band until it disbanded due to Roberto's death. Later, he created his own group with his brothers Juan and José, and with them created a distinctive style of guaracha music with accordion at the beginning of the 1960s; it drew on both Caribbean and South American genres and influences.
Due to the local rise in cartel-associated violent crime, Velásquez moved to Caracas, Venezuela in the 1970s and resided there for 18 years before returning to Barranquilla.
In 2018 Telecaribe, a regional television network for the Caribbean region of Colombia, launched a bio-series as a living tribute to his career, called Aníbal 'Sensación' Velásquez. Over his six-decade-long career, it is estimated Velásquez has recorded over 300 albums and potentially over 500 singles.
In 2019, Velásquez was reported to be seriously sick and was hospitalized in Barranquilla due to a severe lung infection.
The public source identifies “Aníbal Velásquez” as musical artist. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Aníbal, Velásquez and musical.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q5490416. VIAF identifies the subject as 125078351. The Library of Congress control number is no2010132544. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1936, 1952, 2018 and 2019.
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This entry incorporates text from “Aníbal Velásquez” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.