Sunday, January 11, 2009
Wicked Rhythms
Labels: Barbados, Calypso, Caribbean Dave Martins and The Tradewinds, World Music
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Tuk Band Celebration
Happy New Year! It's a season of celebrations and in Barbados, that usually means the raucous sounds of a tuk band will be streaming through the streets. Tuk bands produce Bajan folk music that truly represents the offbeat mix of African and British culture. Since traditional African rhythms were outlawed during slavery, enslaved Africans learned the music of British military and maritime bands, along with classical waltzes. After emancipation, a sound that merged all of these rhythms surfaced. The band plays a kittle drum also known as a snare drum, which was originally made from animal skins, the bass drum, a penny whistle and a triangle.
Labels: Barbados, Barbados culture, Caribbean Travel, Tuk Band, World Music
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Mama Africa
Three weeks ago, I woke up feeling very edgy and unhappy. All morning, a cloud seemed to cling to my spirit and I couldn't shake it. Then I saw the day's headlines. I understood. Miriam was gone. Miriam Zenzi Makeba died of a heart attack on November 10 after a concert performance outside of Naples, Italy. To her fans she was Mama Africa and the Empress of African Song, an icon of African political activism and the high-flying spirit of African music. To me, she was a comforting , lyrical presence throughout my life.
Miriam Makeba started performing in the 50s but a lot of younger Americans were first introduced to her in the 80s, when she appeared on an episode of the Cosby Show. I had the good fortune of experiencing a live Miriam concert before the Cosby episode and that performance will stay with me for the rest of my life. Her voice was at once overwhelming with a range that swooped from the sky and back, as well as intimate and soothing, scatting and swirling with a rich and melodious tone. She sang in her native Xhosa as well as Zulu, Swahili, English, Portuguese and Yiddish. Miriam truly represented global awareness before the term was even created. Her most famous tunes are "The Click Song" and the rollicking "Pata Pata" but the songs that touched me were the gentle love song "Malaika" and "Mbube," a traditional Zulu song which was adapted by Pete Seeger and popularized by the Tokens as "The Lion Sleeps Tonight."
During my wedding ceremony, I walked down the aisle to "Malaika." When my daughter was born in a cozy birthing room with low lighting and music, it was Miriam's "Sangoma" that was playing. My daughter came out smiling, with her thumb in her mouth. I'm convinced that being greeted with Miriam's caressing vocals had something to do with this. Whenever I'm feeling excited or introspective, I reach for a CD by Miriam. Her music has provided the soundtrack for most of my life.
A lot has been written about Miriam Makeba over the last three weeks. It's taken me all this time to absorb the cultural loss. As a music critic, I know that Miriam holds a significant place in music history. She was the first African woman to win a Grammy. She performed at Kennedy's famous birthday celebration in 1962. She was the only performer invited by Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie to sing at the inauguration of the Organization of African Unity in 1963. She also sang at several marches for Martin Luther King Jr. There are few contemporary r&b singers that I've interviewed, from Erykah Badu and Jill Scott, to Les Nubians and Zap Mama, that don't cite Miriam as an influence.
But her impact stretches much further than music. Although she always insisted that she was not a political activist, her very life was a work in political activism. She was exiled from her South Africa home for 30 years because she spoke of the brutality and injustice of apartheid. She never recorded a protest song technically but her refusal to abandon her culture and her attention to traditional African folk singing, supplied enough protest. Her songs were banned in South Africa and she became the voice and the personification, along with Nelson Mandela and Stephen Biko, of the Anti-Apartheid Movement.
Fittingly, Miriam's last concert was also an act of political protest. She was performing at a concert in Southern Italy in tribute to six Ghanaian immigrants who had been murdered in the region in September. The mafia is accused of carrying out the killings and the concert was to promote anti-racism and anti-mafia activity. She collapsed after performing her signature "Pata Pata" tune. She died as she lived, protesting injustice and spreading the joy of African music. Miriam Makeba is gone but her spirit lives on.
Labels: African culture, Global music, Miriam Makeba, World Music
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Soca Warriors!
Labels: Barbados, Caribbean Travel, Global music, Krosfyah, Soca, World Music
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Aromatic String
As I bustled past street vendors selling coconut candy bars and the sleek, shiny-haired, hotties that fill Rio streets, I realized that I missed something. I couldn't put my finger on what exactly. When I neared the the orgy of beauty called Copacabana Beach, observing the languid motions of skimpily-clad cariocas strolling in the sand, it hit me. There was supposed to be a samba soundtrack to all of these scenes! How can you have a true Brazilian experience without samba as the backdrop? I needed to hear some live Brazilian rhythms! It happened to be a Sunday when I made my proclamation and my guide Da'vid didn't look too confident about it. It seems that most musicians take Sundays off in Rio. There I was, in the party capitol of the universe and it stops on Sunday? It didn't make much sense to me so we headed to the famous bohemian district of Lapa. Overflowing with street hustlers and artists of all stripes, Lapa does not close down. Built in the 18th century and marked by two towering arches, Lapa is part of old Rio. Punctuated by crumbling, deserted mansions and dimly lit, dodgy looking streets, Lapa feels like something out of the Brazilian drug war movie, "City Of God," which it probably is. It is the only place that I visited in Brazil that prompted me to remember the high crime rate.
I got over it, though. Lapa looks iffy but I never witnessed anything other than beaming friendliness while I was there. We found a tiny, closet-sized bar called Acaso Bar, which literally translates to random bar. Bursting with laughing, dancing people, all the patrons sing and play instruments along with the musicians. Red, gold and orange walls frame scuffed cherry wood tables filled with Skol beer bottles. Dav`id and I order bacalau or salt fish balls and the zesty, local Skol beer, while we absorb the festivities.
Three or four men gather in a circle and play samba classics with guitars and percussion. I can't tell exactly who was in the band and who's not because every single person in the bar shakes a tambourine, bangs on a pot or jingles bells. The crowd belts along with tunes that were created to encourage hip and derriere shimmying. Four women dance enthusiastically. Because they are Brazilian, they are gorgeous; with long, lustrous hair and sinewy bodies. I can't tell if they are in the band either.
After two sweaty sets, a band member comes over and introduces the group. It's called Coisas Nossas or literally translated, aromatic string. He hands me a wisp of sweetly perfumed string with a tiny safety pin to remember them. In street carnivals, the line of people dancing samba is called a string. Curly-haired and charming, he is the grandson of one of Brazil's most significant Samba composers, Cartola. As we are surrounded by everyday Brazilians singing and dancing, I'm sure it's just the way Cartola would have wanted samba to be experienced.
Labels: Brazil Travel, Lapa, Rio, Samba, World Music
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Fly Obama Mamas
Blending fierce African flavor with sophisticated French flair, Les Nubians personify global style. Crooning their signature mix of soaring harmonies, jazz melodies and African beats, the sister duo appeared at Chicago's African Festival of the Arts over Labor Day weekend. I covered the sizzling show and was struck by just how well they reflect the connections between Africa and the Western world. Slinking out in curve-skimming halter dresses inlaid with African print fabric at the top and embellished with beads and cowrie shells, Celia rocked a curly 'fro and Helene an afro puff. They sang in French and shimmied their hips in traditional African dance. They rapped in English and announced the African concept for audience participation: "You can't shake it with your brain. You shake it with your yaunch. That means your ass. The original Africanology is very simple. If you don't dance, we don't dance!" Les Nubians connected it all together when they explained their hit "Demain" from their debut album. "Demain means tomorrow in French," said Helene. "There are so many things we are foreseeing for tomorrow, like, the new president of the United Sates! The whole world is watching you! They used to mark time with before Christ, after Christ. Now it will be before Obama, after Obama! " Giving a nod to the ultimate symbol joining Africa and the West, Les Nubians repped Obama in true fly girl style.Labels: African culture, Global fashion, Global music, global style, Les Nubians, Obama, World Music
Friday, August 29, 2008
Understanding Samba
If you've heard of Brazil, you've heard of samba. Most people have glimpsed photos or scenes from Brazilian Carnaval, with sexy revelers festooned with a feather or two, writhing to samba rhythms. But what exactly, is samba? I always thought it was a music genre but I discovered that it's music, dance, and so much more, at Santo Amaro's House of Samba.
Stepping into the terraced building that also holds a studio and performance space, before you can even get to the samba exhibits, the altars of seven saints loom. Like all African art forms, samba does not separate the spiritual from the mundane. The heavy percussion of samba beats derive from candomble music used for sacred ceremonies. Statues of Saints Lazarus, Joan, Barbara, Bonfim, Anthony, Roue, and the Portuguese twin Saints(! ) Cosme and Daniel, line the first wall of the Samba House. The corresponding colors for the candomble orishas or deities, adorn the background of each altar. The beads representing the orisha connected with the saint hang dramatically over each statue. I stood in front of the altars, a little overwhelmed. I was raised Catholic so most of the figures were familiar but I couldn't figure out all the symbolism and how the orishas connected specifically. The candomble religion is embedded in Brazilian culture but it's a very complex system. I'll be discussing it in detail in a later post.
An exhibit highlighting samba instruments was next. Besides the all important drum, (pandeiro)there were tambourines and guitars (cavaco) and plates and knives, over a floor filled with sand. The floors of poor houses were typically made of sand and samba music and dance is traditionally performed in the sand. Bahia is known for its rural, folk versions of samba, which is very different from the contemporary samba you see in Rio. Samba De Roda, or circle dance, is the most famous. It features women dancing in and out of a circle and men playing guitar, tambourine and plate and knife. a defining move of the samba de roda is the umbigada, where the women bounce gently off of each others bellies. The music and dance can be traced to African Bantu culture and the exhibits spotlight this point, displaying all the clearly African characteristics of samba.
Labels: Bahia culture, Brazil Travel, Global music, Samba, Santo Amaro, World Music
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Poetry Santo Amaro Style
The name Santo Amaro da Purificacao sounds like the title of a poem or novel and in a lot of ways, this quaint rural town on the Northern coast of Brazil reflects the very essence of poetry. Starting from the sun-baked streets and ice cream-colored buildings, this place screams with charm. The cobblestone roads are narrow and seem to be overflowing with people, animals and products for sale. The marketplace, which features an array of tropical fruits and vegetables as well as homemade hootch, is famous for its Bembe do Mercado Festival, which is the only candomble ceremony that takes place in an open setting. The sunflower yellow courthouse, with its cannons still aimed at intruders, is a national monument that commemorates Brazil's independence from Portugal in 1822.
Perhaps Santo Amaro's ultimate claim to fame rests plainly in the middle of town. That's where you'll find the childhood home of the poet of Salvador, Brazilian musical icon Caetano Veloso. Caetano's 100-year-old mother remains the village matriarch and I was taken by the white-washed house to meet her. Tired out from meeting officials for the independence ceremonies, she was napping but I enjoyed hearing about the family's lasting influence on Santo Amaro from my guides. A lyrical genius and political artist on the level of Bob Marley, Caetano has even been compared to Leonardo da Vinci because of his renaissance-man ability to write poetry, paint, sing and direct movies. Caetano founded the Tropicalismo movement with Gilberto Gil in the 60s, blending rock, jazz and Brazilian folk genres with densely political lyrics. That music forced Caetano and Gilberto into exile by Brazil's military dictatorship until 1972.
Although he's now retirement-aged, Caetano continues to pump out innovative tunes laced with his breezy, sinuous vocals. Considering standouts from his ginormous catalog of albums, one of my favorites is 2000's "A Bossa de Caetano." He re-interprets bossa nova classics and throws in an extra twist with a stunning cover of Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean." This was the soundtrack that flowed through my mind as I explored the poetry of Santo Amaro.
Labels: Bahia culture, Brazil Travel, Caetano Veloso, Global music, Santo Amaro, World Music
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
