Umalali


When I first stumbled on the Garifunas of Central America in 1987 I was struck by the vitality of their music culture, particularly in Belize, a state that had only gained independence six years earlier. The three days of nonstop celebrations in Belize City marking September’s Independence Day was drenched in traditional paranda sounds, punta rock and soca music. It was all shrouded in an impressive stream of beer, violence and inebriated Belizeans. Much of the cacophony was unseemly as synthesisers and guitars imported by the sizable Belizean diaspora in the US drowned out the Garifuna rhythms and harmonies. But the powerful vocals, exotic turtle-shell xylophone and gripping percussions hinted at a repertoire that could go beyond the borders of this tiny nation. And distant echoes of blues; rock, funk, African and Latino music only amplified the impression.

A few years later, a young Belizean musician of Spanish and Mexican parenthood turned such pipe dreams into reality. In 1995 Ivan Duran founded Stonetree Records and allied himself with the startling musical talents of Andy Palacio. In 1997, he started a voyage along the Atlantic coast into Garifuna communities in Belize, Honduras and Guatemala to seek out the best female voices he could. For, it was the women who had always been the guardians of traditions going back to 1635, when enslaved Africans had first escaped to the inhospitable shores of Central America. For five years Duran researched; recorded and prepared his project. He then built a recording studio in a thatched-roofed hut on stilts in the Belizean village of Hopkins. For months he recorded the best voices he had found, coaxing out original songs on the daily lives of these courageous women.

The following five years were devoted to giving extra texture and backbone to the songs. The women he handpicked were lead by a 54-year-old Guatemalean called Sofia Blanco who features in two of the albums most outstanding songs “Niban” and “Yunduya Weyu”. Her piercing voice has an eerie resemblance to that of Dona Rosa, the blind Portuguese diva who also came good late in her life. The traditional songs Blanco and the other women in the collective offer up are transformed by Duran’s aesthetic decision to infuse them with layers of guitars, African percussions and extra voices. At times; the openly pop and Afropop direction harmonies disserve the original tunes (“Mérua” and “Hattie” in particular). But, in the main, they wrench the songs away from a folkloric ghetto and transform them into haunting and beautifully-crafted works.

This labour of love is also a searching panorama of the preoccupations of a beleaguered Garifuna population that are numeric minorities in all the countries they live in. The women recount a wide gammut of experiences: the agony of childbirth, the violence of a hurricane that destroyed their homes, the sacrifices for the upbringing of a child or the brutal murder of a son in a far-off village. Sometimes, as in “Yunduya Weyu”, the rhythm is upbeat and the singing joyful, even if the lyrics relate a difficult childbirth. Elsewhere, like in “Anaha Ya”, “Tuguchili Elia” and the excellent “Afayahadina”, Duran gives the songs a sense of urgency and intensity. This is mainly thanks to the outstanding guitar-playing by the likes of Eduardo “Guayo” Cedeño (a Garifuna Hendrix, suggests Duran), Rolando “Chichiman” Sosa and Duran himself.

The album is superbly presented with sleevenotes that provide informal and personal details about its making, beautiful photos and several videos of its protagonists. None of these women are professional singers. Yet, as Duran confides to Banning Eyre in an interview, their “amazing voices and personalities and stories” carry the day. “I’ve seen an amazing improvement in all of them,” he insists. This has allowed the producer to overcome the cultural and material challenges of bringing these working women into the world music arena and touring circuit. “The best thing that could happen with the Umalali project,” he concludes, “is that it convinces women in the Garifuna community that they can dedicate themselves to music and be rewarded by (it).”


Daniel Brown

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