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| The San Francisco Chronicle Wednesday, September 24, 1997 Baca Keeps Afro-Peruvian Music Alive by J. Poet Susana Baca, the leading diva of Afro-Peruvian music, has a magical voice. Even talking long distance from Lima, she expresses herself in a soothing cadence that makes every word sound like poetry. “It’s wonderful to know people in the United States are interested in Afro-Peruvian music,” Baca said through a translator. “A lot of young people (in Peru) are rediscovering it too, and mixing it with rock and popular music to create new compositions. I only hope it’s not a fad.” The Spanish conquerors brought West African slaves to Peru, but they avoided importing large numbers of any one ethnic group, knowinig a common language could foster resistance to slavery, as it did in Cuba. Using small groups from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds allowed the masters to divide and conquer. The descendants of those slaves were integrated into their new country, but the rhythms of Africa still dominated their music. Black Peruvians combined elements from Spanish, African and the indigenous Andean cultures to produce the unique Afro-Peruvian sound. They also invented several percussion instruments, including the cajon, a wooden box held between the legs and played with the hands, and the quIjada de burro, a burro’s jawbone with loosened teeth that sounds alot like the Cuban giro. “There was always discrimination against Negroes,” Baca said. “Being black meant being a slave, being lazy or having rhythm in your blood. As economic conditions improved, people didn’t want to be considered black, and many Afro-Peruvians didn’t want to talk about the old slave songs. For this reason, a lot of the music was lost.” In the ’60s, the black consciousness movement reached Peru, and Afro-Peruvian artists began to revive Afro-Peruvian roots music. The band Peru Negro created an Afro-Peruvian dance craze in the mid-’70s that still resonates in Lima’s nightclubs. “Peruvian radio is dominated by foreign music,” Baca said. “Growing up, I was surrounded by black music, but l never heard it on the radio, and I could find no mention of Afro-Peruvians in history books. When I started singing, I wanted to know more about my own culture and began searching for my roots, speaking to older people in my city and documenting what I heard.” As Baca got deeper into the songs and stories the elders gave her, she began documenting the history of African Peru. After seven years of research, Baca produced Del Fuego y del Agua, an album that includes a 150-page book of historical and folkloric articles about Afro-Peruvian music and history with a 16-track CD containg examples of Afro-Peruvian music that range from simple acoustic treatments to synthesizer driven examples of current Afro-Peruvian dance music. The success of Del Fuego led to the creation of Negro Continuo, a foundation Baca started to preserve the music and culture of Afro-Peru. “We used synthesizers because that’s common in Afro-Peruvian music today, but I prefer guitar and natural acoustic instrumets,” Baca said. “The new album, Susana Baca (her international debut for David Byrne’s Luaka Bop label), is more to my liking.” Byrne discovered Afro-Peruvian music through a serendipitous accident. “I was taking Spansh Iessons from an Argentine musician in the East Village,” Byrne explained. “Between lessons, he showed me a video of Susana in her garden singing ‘Maria Lando.’” Baca’s singing, and her Afro-Peruvian groove, captivated the former leader of the Talking Heads. It took a while to track her down, but Byrne was fascinated by what he found. “I found a music that survived in isolation for centuries, then had a resurgence in the ’60s and ’70s, the same way the blues almost died in the U.S. Now it’s quite popular in the middle-class clubs of Lima, a blend of Spanish, African and Andean slyles, and while the music is based on traditional things, the Iyrics are very poetic and sophisticated.” Byrne Traveled to Peru, met Baca and pulled together The Soul of Black Peru. To help promote the album, Baca came to the United States for a couple of concerts. “People were entranced by her perfomance,” Byrne said. “She was elegant and the music was basic, yet very moving. When we decided to do an album with her, that was the approach we agreed on.” The material on Susana Baca, an album recorded in Lima by San Francisco-based producer Greg Landau, includes traditional Afro-Peruvian songs and newer material that draws on Latin American poetry. There are elements of Brazilian music and Cuban song, mixed with tradilional Afro-Peruvian rythims like the lando and the Peruvian vals (waltz). “These records are part of an ongoing work,” Baca said. “So we close the the rythems and tempos that haven’t been explored commercially yet. I looked for traditional songs, the ones that I can sing best, and also songs that will capture the interest of the youth, so this tradition will not die out.” |
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