Garifuna Music
Located in 2 routes
The sound is built on two hand drums carved from hardwood and headed with deerskin — the low, steady segunda and the talking, higher-pitched primera that answers the dancer — locked together with sisira rattles, turtle-shell and conch percussion, and in the paranda style a single nylon-string Spanish guitar picking a rolling arpeggio underneath; the core punta rhythm is a fast, hip-driven duple pulse with a two-against-three cross-accent that makes the beat feel like it is tipping forward, while paranda slows the same feel into a bluesy, minor-tinged ballad, wanaragua/jankunu and hunguhungu carry masked-dance and processional patterns, and the sacred dügü drumming sits closest to West Africa; vocals are almost always in the Garifuna language, delivered in a plain, unornamented, slightly nasal chest voice — often by women singing lead in unison or close call-and-response with the group — and the overall feel is sparse and hypnotic rather than lush, mournful and celebratory at once, with punta rock adding electric guitar, bass and keyboards over the same drums for carnival dance floors.
History
The Garifuna descend from Africans and Kalinago who intermarried on St. Vincent and were deported by the British in 1797 to Roatán and the Central American coast, seeding communities in Belize, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua that kept their drum repertoire intact while paranda absorbed the Spanish guitar during the nineteenth century; the modern era begins in Dangriga, Belize, in the late 1970s when painter-musician Pen Cayetano put turtle shells and an electric guitar behind the punta rhythm and invented punta rock with his Turtle Shell Band, a style Andy Palacio carried across Latin America on Keimoun (1995) and that Honduras's Banda Blanca turned into a global novelty smash with "Sopa de Caracol" (1991), written by Belizean Hernán "Chico" Ramos and a Billboard Latin chart-topper; the traditional side was rescued by producer Ivan Duran's Stonetree Records in Benque Viejo del Carmen, whose compilation Paranda: Africa in Central America (2000) brought the aged Punta Gorda parandero Paul Nabor and his lament "Náguya Nei" to an international audience, and whose Wátina (2007, with Cumbancha) won Palacio and Duran the WOMEX Award, made Palacio a UNESCO Artist for Peace, and is still the tradition's calling card; Palacio's sudden death in 2008 did not stop the wave — Umalali: The Garifuna Women's Project (2008) surfaced village singers such as Sofia Blanco, Honduran singer Aurelio Martínez moved from Garifuna Soul (2004) to Laru Beya (2011) and the live Darandi (2017) on Real World, and the Garifuna Collective continued with Ayó (2013) and Aban (2019); UNESCO had already proclaimed Garifuna language, dance and music a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2001, and the music's Caribbean-coast diaspora ties keep it cross-listed alongside reggae and dancehall scenes in Belize and Honduras.
Defining artists
Essential listening
- Wátina(2007) — Andy Palacio & the Garifuna CollectiveSpotifyYouTube
- Weyu Lárigi Weyu(2007) — Andy Palacio & the Garifuna CollectiveSpotifyYouTube
- Gimme Punta Rock(1995) — Andy PalacioSpotifyYouTube
- Náguya Nei(2000) — Paul NaborSpotifyYouTube
- Yalifu(2004) — Aurelio MartínezSpotifyYouTube
- Laru Beya(2011) — Aurelio MartínezSpotifyYouTube
Sources
- UNESCO, "Language, dance and music of the Garifuna" (UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, proclaimed 2001), https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/language-dance-and-music-of-the-garifuna-00001
- Stonetree Records, "Wátina — Andy Palacio & The Garifuna Collective" (Stonetree Records, 2007), http://www.stonetreerecords.com/music/watina/
- Real World Records, "Darandi — Aurelio" (Real World Records, 2017), https://realworldrecords.com/releases/darandi/
- Smithsonian Folklife Festival, "Festival Audio: Teaching Garifuna Music and Language" (Smithsonian Institution, 2013), https://festival.si.edu/blog/2013/festival-audio-teaching-garifuna-music-and-language/