Hello, Garinagu in Garifuna are Indigenous of mixed-race descendants of West African, Central African, Island Carib, European, and Arawak people. Although their background is the Lesser Antilles, since 1797, the Garifuna people are from Central America, along the Caribbean Coast of Honduras, with smaller populations in Belize, Guatemala, Nicaragua. They arrived there after being exiled from the islands of the Lesser Antilles by British colonial administration as Black Caribs after a series of slave revolts. Those Caribs deemed to have had less African admixture were not exiled, and are still living in the islands. Three wonderful albums up for grabs here ....
Today's artist is a music producer and musician, and the founder and director of Stonetree Records, an independent record label and music recording studio based in Benque Viejo del Carmen in Belize. He has produced over 30 albums featuring the musical styles of Belize and the region. Since founding Stonetree in 1995, Duran has been a promoter of Belizean music overseas, attending World Music trade fairs and presenting local artists in music festivals around the world. In 2007 he received the WOMEX award alongside Andy Palacio for their work on the Watina album, voted by Amazon.com as the #1 World Music album of all time...... N'Joy
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More than ten years ago, Ivan Duran, a white Belizian, started Stonetree Records to document the music of the Garifuna (gar-RI-foo-nah), one of Central America's forgotten minorities.
Some history: the Garifuna are descendants of African slaves who escaped from a massive shipwreck on the island of Saint Vincent in 1635. The island of Saint Vincent was inhabited by descendent's of a Native tribe from mainland South America called the Kalipuna. They had invaded the island and slaughtered all the men of the Arawak Indians who had lived there and took their women for wives. When the Spanish conquered the Kalipuna/Arawaks they called them Caribe (cannibal). It's the word that gave rise to the term Caribbean. In 1635 two slave ships sank off the coast of Saint Vincent. After the expected bloodshed died down Africans and Natives intermarried and merged cultures to produce the Garifuna. This race of independent black Indians posed a problem for the colonial slave masters, who tried to alternately enslave and deport them. Eventually they were resettled in what is today Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Belize, the area known as the Mosquito Coast. The United Nations UNESCO arm recognizes their music and culture as a threatened one, part of humanity's intangible treasures. Their language includes words from Arawak, French, Yoruba, Bantu, Swahili, English, and Spanish and the culture is a blend of African, Catholic and Native American traditions. Against all odds, and partially because they have been marginalized due to racism, Garifuna culture still exhibits strong elements of ancient Native American traditions and the rhythms of the African motherland.
Ivan Duran was born in Belize and picked up guitar as a teen. He studied formally in Mexico, Spain, and Cuba at the Escuela Nacional de Música where he took classical and jazz training. In 1993, back in Belize, he began working with Andy Palacio, the best-known musician in Belize. When Duran realized Palacio couldn't record his music locally, he created Stonetree Records. Stonetree records Creole, Maya, and Garifuna artists, but it was the music of Palacio that took the label worldwide. When Palacio's Watina was licensed by Cumbancha Records in 2007, the album caused a worldwide sensation, reaching number one on many international world music charts and giving the music and the culture of the Garifuna more visibility than it has ever had. In the process of recording many Garifuna artists over the years, Duran began to see that Garifuna women, mostly hired as backup singers, knew a lot more traditional music than the men, who often used elements of modern international culture in their music. Duran found the women were the primary culture bearers and the songs they sang, be they traditional or newly composed, sung at ceremonies or in secular settings, contained important cultural messages for the Garifuna community. After more than a decade of research, and with the help of Palacio, Duran put together the music for Garifuna Women's Project, naming the collective Umalali. ("Umalali" is the Garifuna word for voice.)
When Duran set out to record a representative collection of female singers and songwriters, he had no pretense about "preserving" a tradition. Like many traditional cultures, the Garifuna do not separate music into folk and popular, or traditional and contemporary. The same melodies with different words, and the same words with different melodies, pop up all along the Mosquito Coast. Palacio put together a band of backing musicians who brought elements of Trinidad's soca, Jamaica's reggae, and the rhythms of Cuba to the music's modern punta rock and primal Afro/Amerindian styles and the sessions commenced. The women Duran and Palacio chose to record represent a wide cross section of Garifuna styles. Sofia Blanco, from Livingston, Guatemala, comes from a long line of female singers and often performs with her husband Goyo. Her singing is an American echo of the women's vocal music of Mali. Silvia Blanco, Sofia's daughter, knows many traditional songs and composes her own tunes as well. Desere Diego is a ceremonial singer from Belize, who summons the ancestral spirits with her music. She also has a wide knowledge of traditional secular songs. Marcela Torres is from Honduras, Rosa Bermudez, Sarita Martinez, and Elodia Nolberto are singers from Southern Belize. Bernadine Flores is another woman from a musical family; the grand-niece of the late Isabel Flores, a noted drummer, singer and spiritual teacher. Julia Lewis also took part in the sessions.
Several artists from Garifuna Women's Project were set to tour with Palacio on a worldwide tour to support the success of Watina, but Palacio suffered a massive heart attack and died in January of 2008, putting the project on hold.
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The tale of Andy Palacio and the Garifuna Collective traces its roots to the early 1980s, when a teenage Palacio traveled from his home in the Central American country of Belize to Nicaragua to serve in a literacy campaign. Palacio is Garifuna, a unique culture based on the Caribbean coast of Central America that blends elements of West African and Native Caribbean heritage. Andy was told that Nicaragua’s local Garifuna traditions and language were all but extinct. He was en route via boat to the Nicaraguan village of Orinoco to begin his first literacy assignment, when a storm forced a change of direction, leading to a surprise encounter that had a lasting impact on Palacio’s music, career, and life mission.
To avoid his own mid-lagoon shipwreck, Palacio’s boat captain decided to take a detour to a nearby village until the storm passed. He said to Palacio, “There is a Garifuna man in this village. You should talk in your language and see how he reacts.” When the eighteen year-old Palacio greeted the old man, Mr. López, in the Garifuna tongue, the elder replied in complete disbelief, “Are you telling the truth?” “I told him, ‘Yes, my uncle; I am Garifuna just like you,’” explains Palacio. “He embraced me and would not let go. He could not believe a man so young could speak Garifuna, having imagined the language would perish with him.”
“From that day I realized that what was happening in Nicaragua, the disappearance of Garifuna culture, foreshadowed what was going to happen in Belize less than a generation down the road,” recalls Palacio. “I decided to follow my passion and focus more on performing Garifuna music as a way to keep the traditions alive long into the future.” At first, Palacio became a local star of Punta rock, an upbeat Garifuna dance music infused with synthetic beats and keyboards. The Punta rock movement of the ‘90s was in keeping with trends established by successful world music artists such as zouk pioneers Kassav who blended the latest studio technology with their traditional music. But that was not to be Palacio’s ultimate musical course.
“Under the direction of my producer Ivan Duran, I made a 180 degree turn,” exclaims Palacio, in his lilting, Caribbean-inflected English. “And I am so happy now to take a completely human experience onto the stage as opposed to where I saw myself heading in the mid ’90s with samplers, sequencers, and instrumental backing tracks. I look back and I cringe. I don’t feel a need to be devoid of technology, I do not want to become a slave to it.”
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Each track on Wátina is based on a traditional Garifuna rhythm and all of the lyrics are in the Garifuna tongue—a unique and endangered language whose root is Arawak influenced by Carib, French, and, possibly, West African languages. In 2001, UNESCO declared the Garifuna language, music, and dance Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. As an official within Belize’s Ministry of Culture at that time, Andy Palacio played a role in securing that proclamation. Today, Palacio is one of those rare musicians with one foot in the world of cultural diplomacy and another foot on the performance stage. His new album brings together his dual passion for the safeguarding of culture and making modern music tied to Garifuna roots.
The songs on Wátina are overflowing with powerful messages and symbolism that speak to the need for the Garifuna to cherish and celebrate their heritage. “Garifuna music in recent times has been popular for punta and parranda; dance oriented music forms for carnival or the dance floor,” says Palacio. “But on this album we’re bringing attention to songs that aren’t like that. ‘Weyu Larigi Weyu,’ for example, which means “Day by Day,’ uses a rhythm extracted from ritual music called dügü, a traditional healing ceremony that unites family members from all over Central America. It is a prayer asking God’s blessings for our people and asking for guidance, strength, and healing in an afflicted world.”
“Ámuñegü”—which is Garifuna for “In Times to Come”— asks “Who will speak to me in Garifuna in times to come? Who will perform the dügü? Who will perform the arumahani song in times to come? We must preserve Garifuna culture now, lest we lose it altogether in times to come.”
Palacio is joined by 75-year-old Garifuna legend Paul Nabor on “Ayó Da,” a song which Nabor wrote 60 years ago to tell the family of a friend that their son was lost on a fishing trip on the river. “All Garifuna songs are very personal in that sense,” says producer Duran. “They are all true stories. This song is how he broke the news to everyone. He doesn’t say it in the song, but Paul told us he thinks that a crocodile ate his friend. The song title simply means ‘Goodbye.’”
Another song, “Baba,” was composed by a young Garifuna songwriter named Adrian Martinez. “‘Baba’ has become like an anthem performed in every Garifuna church,” Duran explains. “It talks about fate. Baba has many meanings: Father, Father as God, and it also could be an ancestor from your family who has died. Ancestors play an important role in Garifuna culture.” Beautiful vocals and chants combine with the Garifuna primero and segunda drums to provide an exciting mix of African and Caribbean rhythms and influences.
Wátina, was released in March of 2007. It has been popular on world music charts around the globe, holding a position in the Top Five on European charts for months at a time.
Andy Palacio & The Garifuna Collective - Watina (flac 249mb)
01 Wátina (I Called Out) 4:45
02 Weyu Larigi Weyu (Day By Day) 4:24
03 Miami 3:46
04 Baba (Father) 4:03
05 Lidan Aban (Together) 4:46
06 Gaganbadibá (Take Advice) 4:19
07 Beiba (Go Away) 4:08
08 Sin Precio (Worthless) 3:17
09 Yagane (My Canoe) 2:25
10 Águyuha Nidúheñu (My People Have Moved On) 5:14
11 Ayó Da (Goodbye My Dear) 3:29
12 Ámuñegü (In Times To Come) 5:28
Andy Palacio & The Garifuna Collective - Watina (ogg 111mb)
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Umalali is not a group name, but the Garifuna word for voice. The Garifuna are descendents of African slaves who escaped from a massive shipwreck in 1635. They intermarried with Carib and Arawak Indians and evolved their own culture over the centuries. The were never conquered by the slave masters, but have been a marginalized minority for years, with a population centered in Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Belize. The United Nations UNESCO arm recognizes their music and culture as a threatened one, part of humanity's intangible treasures. The Garifuna Women's Project is a collection of traditional and composed songs by various well-regarded Garifuna female elders and youngsters. Garifuna music has elements of African, Caribbean, and Native American music, in particular the soca of Trinidad, the reggae of Jamaica, and the rhythms of Cuba. To North American ears the sounds are both strangely familiar and slightly alien, blending many common elements in a unique way. The album was produced by Ivan Duran, the white Belizian who started Stonetree Records to document the music of the Garifuna. The songs are traditional, even those that are newly composed, because the Garifuna see music as an ongoing process of creation. Since it's a way to convey cultural knowledge and communicate with the ancestors, songs are not owned, although everyone knows who composed the most popular tunes. Duran and the backing musicians made no attempt to keep the music traditional, since the Garifuna, like seemingly everyone else in the world, are tech-savvy and own computers and cell phones. The album is best listened to as a single piece of music -- a ceremony, if you will -- but individual performers and arrangements do stand out. "Barübana Yagien" sounds like a combination of calypso and Congolese rhumba, while Silvia Blanco's singing calls to mind the sound of Mali's Oumou Sangare. The driving bass drums and sinuous electric guitar keep the tune moving at a rapid pace. "Hatie," by Sarita Martinez, is the tale of the hurricane that devastated Central America in 1961. It lays spaghetti Western guitar twang on top of a rolling punta rock backbeat complemented by strong call-and-response vocals. Marcela Torres has a forceful alto that stands up to the bass drums that sound like the throbbing heart of West Africa on "Anaha Ya." Sofia Blanco, one of the album's strongest vocalists, and Silvia's mom, sings lead on "Nibari" and "Yündüya Weyu." The first is a greeting to a new grandson and again sounds like the women's vocal music of Mali. Blanco's keening vocals are given minimal accompaniment by drums and guitar to preserve their primal power. "Yündüya Weyu" is more uptempo, with hints of Cuba, West Africa, and Brazil in its paranda rhythm. "Lirun Biganute" is Julia Lewis' lament for her murdered son accompanied only by a treble-heavy electric guitar that sounds oddly like an autoharp. Garifuna women have been given the task of bearing their culture on to future generations. By combining traditional vocals with modern arrangements, Duran and the Garifuna Women's Project singers hope to attract young people and world music lovers to this vital, irreplaceable culture.
The Garifuna Women's Project - Umalali ( flac 225mb)
01 Nibari (My Grandchild) 3:43
02 Mérua 3:10
03 Yündüya Weyu (The Sun Has Set) 3:57
04 Barübana Yagien (Take Me Away) 3:34
05 Hattie 4:02
06 Luwübüri Sigala (Hills Of Tegucigalpa) 3:25
07 Anaha Ya (Here I Am) 4:13
08 Tuguchili Elia (Elia's Father) 2:17
09 Fuleisei (Favours) 2:03
10 Uruwei (The Government) 2:02
11 Áfayahádina (I Have Traveled) 3:41
12 Lirun Biganute (Sad News) 2:01
The Garifuna Women's Project - Umalali (ogg 96mb)
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The Garifuna communities in Belize and nearby countries may well feel a sense of loss at the passing of Andy Palacio, the Collective's guiding light in the past decade. That said this re-grouped version of the Garifuna Collective sounds buoyant and strong, not at all adrift, but rather, they exhibit enough elasticity as a musical group to accomodate the work of a few different singers. West African-style vocal melodies are filtered thru Amer-Indian sensibilities. There's a more pronounced African influence this time, and the tunes sound very "organic," relying on clean or slightly gritty electric guitars and bass over a few layers of hand percussion that sound collectively more West-African than say, Cuban. No musical athletes here, but solid grooving and many brief moments of fine guitar and vocal interplay. The producer / recording engineers seem to appreciate the vintage sound of certain classic African recordings, and the production is a somewhat sonically cleaner version of the old sound, meaning that some the "grit" is left in.
This Garifuna music album has the most useful liner notes for those interested in the Garífuna language or in ethnomusicology or anthropological aspects of Garífuna music. It has the words of the songs in Garífuna with an English translation. It also has a summary of what type of song it is and what would have been the occassion to write this song. It has beautiful color photos of both common and rare instruments that the Garífunas use like the jaw bone of a horse or mule and claves both instruments of African origin and Garífunas playing music in traditional settings.
The Garifuna Collective - Ayo (flac 263mb)
01 Ayo 2:35
02 Galuma 2:50
03 Kame Bawara 3:18
04 Ubou 3:40
05 Mongulu 3:18
06 Pomona 3:05
07 Beiba Nuwari 2:48
08 Gudemei 4:22
09 Dungua 3:12
10 Aganba 3:45
11 Alagan 3:12
12 Seremei Buguya 4:12
The Garifuna Collective - Ayo (ogg 111mb)
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Today's artist is a music producer and musician, and the founder and director of Stonetree Records, an independent record label and music recording studio based in Benque Viejo del Carmen in Belize. He has produced over 30 albums featuring the musical styles of Belize and the region. Since founding Stonetree in 1995, Duran has been a promoter of Belizean music overseas, attending World Music trade fairs and presenting local artists in music festivals around the world. In 2007 he received the WOMEX award alongside Andy Palacio for their work on the Watina album, voted by Amazon.com as the #1 World Music album of all time...... N'Joy
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
More than ten years ago, Ivan Duran, a white Belizian, started Stonetree Records to document the music of the Garifuna (gar-RI-foo-nah), one of Central America's forgotten minorities.
Some history: the Garifuna are descendants of African slaves who escaped from a massive shipwreck on the island of Saint Vincent in 1635. The island of Saint Vincent was inhabited by descendent's of a Native tribe from mainland South America called the Kalipuna. They had invaded the island and slaughtered all the men of the Arawak Indians who had lived there and took their women for wives. When the Spanish conquered the Kalipuna/Arawaks they called them Caribe (cannibal). It's the word that gave rise to the term Caribbean. In 1635 two slave ships sank off the coast of Saint Vincent. After the expected bloodshed died down Africans and Natives intermarried and merged cultures to produce the Garifuna. This race of independent black Indians posed a problem for the colonial slave masters, who tried to alternately enslave and deport them. Eventually they were resettled in what is today Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Belize, the area known as the Mosquito Coast. The United Nations UNESCO arm recognizes their music and culture as a threatened one, part of humanity's intangible treasures. Their language includes words from Arawak, French, Yoruba, Bantu, Swahili, English, and Spanish and the culture is a blend of African, Catholic and Native American traditions. Against all odds, and partially because they have been marginalized due to racism, Garifuna culture still exhibits strong elements of ancient Native American traditions and the rhythms of the African motherland.
Ivan Duran was born in Belize and picked up guitar as a teen. He studied formally in Mexico, Spain, and Cuba at the Escuela Nacional de Música where he took classical and jazz training. In 1993, back in Belize, he began working with Andy Palacio, the best-known musician in Belize. When Duran realized Palacio couldn't record his music locally, he created Stonetree Records. Stonetree records Creole, Maya, and Garifuna artists, but it was the music of Palacio that took the label worldwide. When Palacio's Watina was licensed by Cumbancha Records in 2007, the album caused a worldwide sensation, reaching number one on many international world music charts and giving the music and the culture of the Garifuna more visibility than it has ever had. In the process of recording many Garifuna artists over the years, Duran began to see that Garifuna women, mostly hired as backup singers, knew a lot more traditional music than the men, who often used elements of modern international culture in their music. Duran found the women were the primary culture bearers and the songs they sang, be they traditional or newly composed, sung at ceremonies or in secular settings, contained important cultural messages for the Garifuna community. After more than a decade of research, and with the help of Palacio, Duran put together the music for Garifuna Women's Project, naming the collective Umalali. ("Umalali" is the Garifuna word for voice.)
When Duran set out to record a representative collection of female singers and songwriters, he had no pretense about "preserving" a tradition. Like many traditional cultures, the Garifuna do not separate music into folk and popular, or traditional and contemporary. The same melodies with different words, and the same words with different melodies, pop up all along the Mosquito Coast. Palacio put together a band of backing musicians who brought elements of Trinidad's soca, Jamaica's reggae, and the rhythms of Cuba to the music's modern punta rock and primal Afro/Amerindian styles and the sessions commenced. The women Duran and Palacio chose to record represent a wide cross section of Garifuna styles. Sofia Blanco, from Livingston, Guatemala, comes from a long line of female singers and often performs with her husband Goyo. Her singing is an American echo of the women's vocal music of Mali. Silvia Blanco, Sofia's daughter, knows many traditional songs and composes her own tunes as well. Desere Diego is a ceremonial singer from Belize, who summons the ancestral spirits with her music. She also has a wide knowledge of traditional secular songs. Marcela Torres is from Honduras, Rosa Bermudez, Sarita Martinez, and Elodia Nolberto are singers from Southern Belize. Bernadine Flores is another woman from a musical family; the grand-niece of the late Isabel Flores, a noted drummer, singer and spiritual teacher. Julia Lewis also took part in the sessions.
Several artists from Garifuna Women's Project were set to tour with Palacio on a worldwide tour to support the success of Watina, but Palacio suffered a massive heart attack and died in January of 2008, putting the project on hold.
xxxxx
The tale of Andy Palacio and the Garifuna Collective traces its roots to the early 1980s, when a teenage Palacio traveled from his home in the Central American country of Belize to Nicaragua to serve in a literacy campaign. Palacio is Garifuna, a unique culture based on the Caribbean coast of Central America that blends elements of West African and Native Caribbean heritage. Andy was told that Nicaragua’s local Garifuna traditions and language were all but extinct. He was en route via boat to the Nicaraguan village of Orinoco to begin his first literacy assignment, when a storm forced a change of direction, leading to a surprise encounter that had a lasting impact on Palacio’s music, career, and life mission.
To avoid his own mid-lagoon shipwreck, Palacio’s boat captain decided to take a detour to a nearby village until the storm passed. He said to Palacio, “There is a Garifuna man in this village. You should talk in your language and see how he reacts.” When the eighteen year-old Palacio greeted the old man, Mr. López, in the Garifuna tongue, the elder replied in complete disbelief, “Are you telling the truth?” “I told him, ‘Yes, my uncle; I am Garifuna just like you,’” explains Palacio. “He embraced me and would not let go. He could not believe a man so young could speak Garifuna, having imagined the language would perish with him.”
“From that day I realized that what was happening in Nicaragua, the disappearance of Garifuna culture, foreshadowed what was going to happen in Belize less than a generation down the road,” recalls Palacio. “I decided to follow my passion and focus more on performing Garifuna music as a way to keep the traditions alive long into the future.” At first, Palacio became a local star of Punta rock, an upbeat Garifuna dance music infused with synthetic beats and keyboards. The Punta rock movement of the ‘90s was in keeping with trends established by successful world music artists such as zouk pioneers Kassav who blended the latest studio technology with their traditional music. But that was not to be Palacio’s ultimate musical course.
“Under the direction of my producer Ivan Duran, I made a 180 degree turn,” exclaims Palacio, in his lilting, Caribbean-inflected English. “And I am so happy now to take a completely human experience onto the stage as opposed to where I saw myself heading in the mid ’90s with samplers, sequencers, and instrumental backing tracks. I look back and I cringe. I don’t feel a need to be devoid of technology, I do not want to become a slave to it.”
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Each track on Wátina is based on a traditional Garifuna rhythm and all of the lyrics are in the Garifuna tongue—a unique and endangered language whose root is Arawak influenced by Carib, French, and, possibly, West African languages. In 2001, UNESCO declared the Garifuna language, music, and dance Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. As an official within Belize’s Ministry of Culture at that time, Andy Palacio played a role in securing that proclamation. Today, Palacio is one of those rare musicians with one foot in the world of cultural diplomacy and another foot on the performance stage. His new album brings together his dual passion for the safeguarding of culture and making modern music tied to Garifuna roots.
The songs on Wátina are overflowing with powerful messages and symbolism that speak to the need for the Garifuna to cherish and celebrate their heritage. “Garifuna music in recent times has been popular for punta and parranda; dance oriented music forms for carnival or the dance floor,” says Palacio. “But on this album we’re bringing attention to songs that aren’t like that. ‘Weyu Larigi Weyu,’ for example, which means “Day by Day,’ uses a rhythm extracted from ritual music called dügü, a traditional healing ceremony that unites family members from all over Central America. It is a prayer asking God’s blessings for our people and asking for guidance, strength, and healing in an afflicted world.”
“Ámuñegü”—which is Garifuna for “In Times to Come”— asks “Who will speak to me in Garifuna in times to come? Who will perform the dügü? Who will perform the arumahani song in times to come? We must preserve Garifuna culture now, lest we lose it altogether in times to come.”
Palacio is joined by 75-year-old Garifuna legend Paul Nabor on “Ayó Da,” a song which Nabor wrote 60 years ago to tell the family of a friend that their son was lost on a fishing trip on the river. “All Garifuna songs are very personal in that sense,” says producer Duran. “They are all true stories. This song is how he broke the news to everyone. He doesn’t say it in the song, but Paul told us he thinks that a crocodile ate his friend. The song title simply means ‘Goodbye.’”
Another song, “Baba,” was composed by a young Garifuna songwriter named Adrian Martinez. “‘Baba’ has become like an anthem performed in every Garifuna church,” Duran explains. “It talks about fate. Baba has many meanings: Father, Father as God, and it also could be an ancestor from your family who has died. Ancestors play an important role in Garifuna culture.” Beautiful vocals and chants combine with the Garifuna primero and segunda drums to provide an exciting mix of African and Caribbean rhythms and influences.
Wátina, was released in March of 2007. It has been popular on world music charts around the globe, holding a position in the Top Five on European charts for months at a time.
Andy Palacio & The Garifuna Collective - Watina (flac 249mb)
01 Wátina (I Called Out) 4:45
02 Weyu Larigi Weyu (Day By Day) 4:24
03 Miami 3:46
04 Baba (Father) 4:03
05 Lidan Aban (Together) 4:46
06 Gaganbadibá (Take Advice) 4:19
07 Beiba (Go Away) 4:08
08 Sin Precio (Worthless) 3:17
09 Yagane (My Canoe) 2:25
10 Águyuha Nidúheñu (My People Have Moved On) 5:14
11 Ayó Da (Goodbye My Dear) 3:29
12 Ámuñegü (In Times To Come) 5:28
Andy Palacio & The Garifuna Collective - Watina (ogg 111mb)
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Umalali is not a group name, but the Garifuna word for voice. The Garifuna are descendents of African slaves who escaped from a massive shipwreck in 1635. They intermarried with Carib and Arawak Indians and evolved their own culture over the centuries. The were never conquered by the slave masters, but have been a marginalized minority for years, with a population centered in Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Belize. The United Nations UNESCO arm recognizes their music and culture as a threatened one, part of humanity's intangible treasures. The Garifuna Women's Project is a collection of traditional and composed songs by various well-regarded Garifuna female elders and youngsters. Garifuna music has elements of African, Caribbean, and Native American music, in particular the soca of Trinidad, the reggae of Jamaica, and the rhythms of Cuba. To North American ears the sounds are both strangely familiar and slightly alien, blending many common elements in a unique way. The album was produced by Ivan Duran, the white Belizian who started Stonetree Records to document the music of the Garifuna. The songs are traditional, even those that are newly composed, because the Garifuna see music as an ongoing process of creation. Since it's a way to convey cultural knowledge and communicate with the ancestors, songs are not owned, although everyone knows who composed the most popular tunes. Duran and the backing musicians made no attempt to keep the music traditional, since the Garifuna, like seemingly everyone else in the world, are tech-savvy and own computers and cell phones. The album is best listened to as a single piece of music -- a ceremony, if you will -- but individual performers and arrangements do stand out. "Barübana Yagien" sounds like a combination of calypso and Congolese rhumba, while Silvia Blanco's singing calls to mind the sound of Mali's Oumou Sangare. The driving bass drums and sinuous electric guitar keep the tune moving at a rapid pace. "Hatie," by Sarita Martinez, is the tale of the hurricane that devastated Central America in 1961. It lays spaghetti Western guitar twang on top of a rolling punta rock backbeat complemented by strong call-and-response vocals. Marcela Torres has a forceful alto that stands up to the bass drums that sound like the throbbing heart of West Africa on "Anaha Ya." Sofia Blanco, one of the album's strongest vocalists, and Silvia's mom, sings lead on "Nibari" and "Yündüya Weyu." The first is a greeting to a new grandson and again sounds like the women's vocal music of Mali. Blanco's keening vocals are given minimal accompaniment by drums and guitar to preserve their primal power. "Yündüya Weyu" is more uptempo, with hints of Cuba, West Africa, and Brazil in its paranda rhythm. "Lirun Biganute" is Julia Lewis' lament for her murdered son accompanied only by a treble-heavy electric guitar that sounds oddly like an autoharp. Garifuna women have been given the task of bearing their culture on to future generations. By combining traditional vocals with modern arrangements, Duran and the Garifuna Women's Project singers hope to attract young people and world music lovers to this vital, irreplaceable culture.
The Garifuna Women's Project - Umalali ( flac 225mb)
01 Nibari (My Grandchild) 3:43
02 Mérua 3:10
03 Yündüya Weyu (The Sun Has Set) 3:57
04 Barübana Yagien (Take Me Away) 3:34
05 Hattie 4:02
06 Luwübüri Sigala (Hills Of Tegucigalpa) 3:25
07 Anaha Ya (Here I Am) 4:13
08 Tuguchili Elia (Elia's Father) 2:17
09 Fuleisei (Favours) 2:03
10 Uruwei (The Government) 2:02
11 Áfayahádina (I Have Traveled) 3:41
12 Lirun Biganute (Sad News) 2:01
The Garifuna Women's Project - Umalali (ogg 96mb)
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The Garifuna communities in Belize and nearby countries may well feel a sense of loss at the passing of Andy Palacio, the Collective's guiding light in the past decade. That said this re-grouped version of the Garifuna Collective sounds buoyant and strong, not at all adrift, but rather, they exhibit enough elasticity as a musical group to accomodate the work of a few different singers. West African-style vocal melodies are filtered thru Amer-Indian sensibilities. There's a more pronounced African influence this time, and the tunes sound very "organic," relying on clean or slightly gritty electric guitars and bass over a few layers of hand percussion that sound collectively more West-African than say, Cuban. No musical athletes here, but solid grooving and many brief moments of fine guitar and vocal interplay. The producer / recording engineers seem to appreciate the vintage sound of certain classic African recordings, and the production is a somewhat sonically cleaner version of the old sound, meaning that some the "grit" is left in.
This Garifuna music album has the most useful liner notes for those interested in the Garífuna language or in ethnomusicology or anthropological aspects of Garífuna music. It has the words of the songs in Garífuna with an English translation. It also has a summary of what type of song it is and what would have been the occassion to write this song. It has beautiful color photos of both common and rare instruments that the Garífunas use like the jaw bone of a horse or mule and claves both instruments of African origin and Garífunas playing music in traditional settings.
The Garifuna Collective - Ayo (flac 263mb)
01 Ayo 2:35
02 Galuma 2:50
03 Kame Bawara 3:18
04 Ubou 3:40
05 Mongulu 3:18
06 Pomona 3:05
07 Beiba Nuwari 2:48
08 Gudemei 4:22
09 Dungua 3:12
10 Aganba 3:45
11 Alagan 3:12
12 Seremei Buguya 4:12
The Garifuna Collective - Ayo (ogg 111mb)
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