Afropop Worldwide travels to Mexico for the “Puerta de las Americas” music festival. We got a chance to talk to some of the hottest artists there – check out our exclusive interviews with Aurelio Martinez, Seraphim Ibarra, and Gilberto Gutierrez, three artists fighting to keep their exciting traditions alive.

Aurelio Martinez – Garifuna Soul

Aurelio Martinez is a man on a mission. As well as having been the lead singer of several of the most popular dance orchestras in Honduras, he represents his province of Atlantida in the National Congress  – the first black man to ever be elected in his region. Aurelio is a proud member of  the Garifuna people, a close knit group descended Africans who were shipwrecked in the Caribbean, mixed with local Arawak peoples, and fought off colonists for generations.

The Garifuna live in Honduras, Belize, and Guatamala and share a vibrant culture with its own rhythms, language, and spiritual traditions. After years of playing Garifuna based punta rock, Aurelio returns to traditional roots-music with his new album Garifuna Soul, which features Aurelio’s hearty vocals delivering  social messages over the traditional punta and paranda rhythms of his people. Aurelio talks with Sean Barlow on his desires to show the world Garifuna culture and elevate his people to better living conditions.

Sean Barlow: Welcome to Afropop Worldwide, Aurelio. Tell us your story. How did you begin in music? What are the highlights of your musical career. Start at the beginning.

AM: Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be able to be part of your program and my people’s music. I am from a small community in Honduras called Plaplaya, which is part of the Atlántida province on the coast of Honduras. In the village I was born, there is still no electricity. It’s a very small community really. When I was a child, I didn’t have electronic toys, I had very natural toys. My first toy was a guitar I built for myself from wood taken from a fishing rod. So that’s how I played my first chords. My grandfather and my uncles were musicians and played in a group in the village. They were my first music teachers, my family. At 8 years old, the older people would include me as a percussionist with them and I was drawn in the garifuna tradition.

At 14 I left the village to study in La Ceiba, the provincial capital. After a year I found myself in an orchestra, where my cousin was playing, that played on the professional level. I started singing and playing percussion with them. From there I evolved as a musician, taking private music classes with teachers, to develop my musical understanding a little. But we never strayed from the tradition.

I started a garifuna music and dance group called Litaridan. We recorded a disc of traditional music with the label Jotavece de japon. This is the first garifuna CD that entered the world, in that you could buy it on the internet. It was the first disc that could. appear on the internet f you looked for garifuna music. I continued evolving from there, doing commercial music, such as Gatos Bravos, one of the biggest orchestras in Honduras and Central America.  People came to know me first through Andy Palacios. Andy is a Belizian friend of mine who put together a big festival in Honduras in celebration of the 200 years of Garifuna history in Central America. Artists from all over Central America came, so I met Andy there. He is a great friend, a great Belizean artist, and he has made a great effort to bring to the Garifuna music to the foreground.

SB: Andy Palacio, I’ve talked to him, he’s a wonderful guy. So you worked with commercial groups as well as more traditional music?

AM: Yes, exactly. And people know me more as part of Punta Rock, really. I wasn’t a solo artist back then, working within the idea of a commercial orchestra. Its something I did, really, to survive, because promoting traditional Garifuna music is a slower process, it has a smaller audience, those who want to listen to something really different. In my country, the Garifuna community is well-known as is our music, we can share it with other people. But in the world it’s a new concept that we are trying to push forward. But garifuna music is a big genre, we have gunchei, punta, paranda, abaimajani. There are garifuna rhythms that are all really different. Each one of them is something that needs to be promoted on the international level.

SB: Could you tell me a little about these different styles?

AM:  Sure. Most people know the modern, commercial version of punta. The traditional punta is different. Only the women dance it, around a bonfire. When a brother dies, another must be born to take his place. It’s a fertility song, a fertility dance, really. The woman does a sensual dance around the flames. I believe that the world doesn’t know this – people only know about the commercialized version.

There is another rhythm called gunchei, and paranda, which is slower. There is also acapella singing, abaijamani which a female singing genre and oujamani is male singing. They are songs of the old men of the village, not songs of young people, but songs of the elders that get together. They can’t dance anymore and can’t do all sorts of things but can still sing and hold hand in the afternoon. They get together so that they can share and talk about anecdotes, speak of situations that happen, talk about women. It's a form of sharing.

SB: Garifuna is like no other language I’ve ever heard. Can you tell us the story of the Garifuna and how you came to be?

AM: That’s good question. In the past, black Africans were brought to America and other parts of the world to be turned into slaves. Some boats that came, one from Nigeria, and another from a different part of Africa, became shipwrecked, by coincidence. The people had to stay in San Vicente, an island in the Lesser Antilles. They lived there for a long time, mixing with the Caribbean Indians, the Arawaks. And that’s how the Garifano came about – a mix between black African and Caribbean Indian. There they lived for many years. However, the English and the French wanted their lands, and fought against the Garifunas for many years.

After many years of struggle they were deported when the English finally won the battles in San Vicente. They were sent out to the sea and they reached the island of Punta Gorda in Honduras. That was the first community that was founded. Later they crossed  towards the north coast of Honduras, from there to Belize, to Guatemala, to Nicaragua, which are the places where Garifunas live. They kept with them many African elements, like their drums. We have our maternal religious practices, called gugú. We have our own food, our our music, our dances, our own society structure.There is really nothing like it in the world, although really every day we are being culturally inundated by Western culture, by way of television and everything. But really, the Garifuna culture still lives, and it’s still a culture that can be exported and that must be protected. We have been declared Patrimony of Humanity  by UNESCO. I think this is important – that the world knows this culture, and that we all protect it as if it were all of ours, like a world culture. We are people that really like to life in peace, very sociable people, and a very open culture.

SB: That’s good. And Garifuna identity is strong. Your people have a community no matter  where they live. Is Garifuna identity stronger than national identities?

AM: Well…Garifuna identity, more than others, is the strongest thing that Central America has if you’re looking for a cultural identity on the level of dance, the level of music. Really, it’s the African root that prevails in the worlds in every place that we look for an identity that can be danced – like salsa, merengue. All of that is Africa. Honduras is a very multicultural place - we  have Miskito, Pech, Mayas – many indigenous communities. And really, every one of them has their rhythm.But I think that in the Garifuna we can find a collective identity for Central Americans.

SB: Why don’t we move on to your album. What are your songs about?

AM:  In our composition for this album, I have tried to change things in the concept of Garifuna song. Garifuna song is always tragic in content. We are always talking about problems with our communities, problems of one woman with her neighbor. Instead of fighting, we work our problems in music, its an indirect way.of our music. I’m trying to move it away from that, to orient our community towards development. Number 9, “Lumala Lumaniga”, “The voice that quiets the silence.” It’s a song that we did because there are times that the leaders and celebrities act as if they were more important than the community. They stand in front in every aspect while the children continue bearing hunger and cold. This song asks corrupt organizations to be much more conscientious with how they work, to move them to help people instead of fattening their own salaries. I’m trying to make songs that ask questions that can really reorient people’s conduct.

Number 7, “Yalifo” is about a child who is abandoned by his parents, who to to America to hope for the American dream. This is a common problem. Anyway, the child misses his parents, is looking at the sea, and he asks a pelican, “Lend me your wings so I can find my father. Papa, where are you?” This is why I like paranda, because through the paranda I can go towards this child, who I was also. My father also left us for the American dream, I finally met him in the United States when I was 23 years old. This is part of my life as well.

There are also songs about racial equality, lighter songs about a man who wants them to sing his favorite song when he dies. These are questions of life, common questions and situations of daily life, especially the social problems that face my community. But when we take a look outside to the rest of the word we realize that a lot of people are dealing with the same type of stuff.

I hope that every day the world learns more about this culture, but I have to pause that work right now. This is a historic moment for my community. In 209 years there has not been a Garifuna or black congressman in my province. But we’re not going to let this cultunce. My number one ambition is to continue teaching the world about this culture of my grandparents, of my ancestors. Few people know about it, but I love it, I adore it, and it’s the greatest part of my life. We are such good people, people with a special ability to love fellow human beings, without thinking of questions of race or religion. I hope that people open their doors and their hearts for Garifuna Soul, within it lies the heart of the music and the culture of the Garifuna.

SB: What does it mean to you to be the first ever Garifuna to have been elected to congress from your area?

AM: First – for me as a musician, it’s an honor. A true honor. Whites, blacks, and all those who we see in the province and the country recognize the value of artistic work, because I’m not there for my political experience. Politics is not my strong suit, rather what I do is the projection of social realities through music. People have identified with me and given me their respect for that. This means, to me, that Aurelio Martinez has done something for this country, raising the Honduran flag for this culture in the world, and that the community recognizes that I am a contributors that I contribute to the education and orientation of my people for the united struggle for our rights. That has to do with the personal angle.

For the political side, to show to the children of my community that this is possible, that young Garifunas feel that anything is possible, in whatever country, that we can participate politically. It's important that we can ignite the struggle, without thinking that somebody is going to discriminate against us. I believe that anything is possible when one truly recognizes their rights. This also helps the self-esteem of our people, of our race. And not just the Garifunas, the amerindians, who live in Honduras – there are 9 indigenous communities in Honduras – that really still don’t have any representation in the governmental system in the country. This hasn’t happened because they feel disempowered.  Really nobody can defend the interests of a community like a member of the community. Nobody can fight for a community like us who understand the idiosyncrasies and needs of our communities.

I think that more than anything, this is an example who all of those who think its not possible to enter politics. They can do it to defend the interests of their people. As for me, I’m not that interested in the political aspect, to be a big-shot politician because I’m not a beaurocrat. (Laughs) But of course, beaurocracy is how nations are managed. I have to deal with it if I want to defend my people in the national congress.

SB: Congratulations.

AM: Thank you. We need to channel funds so that they really arrive at the people who need them. The Garifuna are really rich in culture, and we need to use this to help support our community. But we need aliances outside Honduras to bring social development to these forgotten communities. There are Peches, Mezquitos, Tahwakas, there are Maya in Belize -  so many ethnic groups that need a lot of support, because they still live in sub-human conditions – limited education, limited health care. I, too, have dreams, like Martin Luther King had, I have dreams to achieve a way to help my people.

SB: Aurelio for president! And you can write you own campaign song too!

AM: (Laughs) Thank you. I am truly thankful to have the privilege to be in front of this microphone and this program. Honduras, Central America to the world!

Seraphim Ibarra – Fiery Violin Jams from the Hot Lands

Mexico, although best known this side of the Rio Grande for the accordion-led norteno popular among Mexican-Americans and loony mariachi bands, is a big country that hosts a huge array of regional styles. At the heart of nearly all traditional Mexican music are a series of song types: son, paso doble, gusto, danzon, to name a few. These are traditional song forms from the early colonial period, varying in meter, tempo, and structure. Everybody plays them, but everybody plays them according to local taste, on different instruments, in vastly different ways.

Seraphim Ibarra comes from the tropical southwest known as “las tierras calientes,” the Hot Lands, where violins twist and leap through traditional melodies with particular dexterity. The music from his home state of Michoacán is called musica calentana, and according to him, its disappearing fast. As the leader of one of the nation’s top calentana groups, los Caracurros, Ibarra is fighting to keep the music alive and relevant today. The virtuoso violinist talks with Sean Barlow on his love for that Hot Lands sound.

Sean Barlow: Welcome to Afropop Worldwide, Seraphim. To start, why don’t you tell me a little about your musical history.

Seaphim Ibarra: I was born into a family of musicians. My grandparents on both sides were musicians, my great-grandparents as well. They played calentana violin music. It’s very beautiful. So, I first started to play the guitar when I was 8 years old. I had to play abandoned instruments, because no one wanted to lend me an instrument because I was little and they thought I was going to break it or something. So I began to play a little.

At 11 years old, I asked my grandfather if he would give me violin lessons. So he asked me, “You like the violin?” And I said, “I don’t just like it, I love it” He said “Ok, I have a 3/4 size violin, so you can start out.” He began to give me classes in calentana music, but I learned other music as well, huasteca music, purépecha music. I did all of that.

SB: But you prefer to play calentana style?

SI: Yes, I developed a great love for calentana music, my traditional music. And now I’m fighting to preserve it. Right now it worries us that there are almost no musicians left in the Calentana region, in southeast Michoacán. The musicans who are left are over 70 years old.

SB: Wow.

SI: There are almost no young people. Very few - every now and then someone is interested and stays on to learn this type of music. I was saying, this genre called calentana music is only played in 9 muicipalities in the the state of Mishoacán,  in the southeast, in 8 municipalitise in the state of Guerrero, and two municipalities in the state of Mexico. Three states that share this musical culture. I have to repeat that for me its really important to work to preserve this tradition, because there is an absense of musicians. 

SB: What do you think needs to change?

SI: We need to start a school, so we can get people that come and stay with the music, maintaining the tradition of this music. Recording is great, but  many times we buy CDs, listen to it, and then we put in the archive and forget about it. And that’s as far as it goes. However if we start a school, the people who are interested will learn it and continue to play it.

I feel the need, to teach people who are interested. Then begin to see other people, young people… age doesn’t matter, but if its young people, it would be good because theres a better chance that this will last longer. I hope that they have the desire to preserve the tradition and teach more people, so this music stays on for future generations. . I remember still that in the 70s, when I started to study music, there were many people playuing. There was the master Juan Reynoso, that we are fortunate to still have with us. He was called the “Paganini of the the Hotlands.” There were so many great musicians, it was a precious thing. If you were 20 meteres away and didn’t see who was playing, you would think two classical violinists were playing, it was so refined. Its something that that is lost, that noone rememberes anymore. We have lost it

SB: It’s too bad, really, everywhere people are losing their traditional music. Let’s switch gears. Why don’t you tell me about your CD.

SI: This CD was produced by a civil organization called Dos Tradiciones, directed by Linda Joy. I don’t remember the other names but nice people who did us a great favor by recording this disc in which we include new gustos, new sones. For example this son called Gregorio Silva, who was one my teachers. I wrote it remembering him. This other, “Linda Alegria” is a paso doble which I played with great pleasure, thanking Linda Joy, who is a person who has struggled a lot to help us to promote calentana music.

SB: What exactly is a paso doble?

SI: It's like a polka. There is a difference between polka and paso doble that depends on in the structure of the song. Here is another I wrote called “El Sureno” It alludes to the Mishucán hot lands. It also speaks of Juan Reynosa. In the song, I sing: “The soul goes East, it sees its splendor/ I live in the warm lands of Juan Reynoso the troubadour.” 

SB: So you play paso dobles, sones… what are all the different styles on this disc?

SI: This is one single style, but within the sytle there are variations in that there are gustos, sones, pasos dobles, but all in the Hot Lands style. In the Michuacan southeast, there is a huge reperatory. Some people thing that there are only gustos and sones. But no. There are also pasos dobles, marches, waltzez, dazones, songs and coridos. It’s a huge reperatory.

SB: What’s the difference between these styles? How is a son different from a gusto?

SI: Son is a 6/8 melody, but they cycle more. The gusto is slower, its 6/8 also but slower.

SB: I see. I’d like to hear a little about your band.

SI: Los Caracurros. I have played with this group for 20 years. I’ve directed the group for 16 years. So, this group was founded in 1932. It’s an institution – it’s been around for over 70 years.

SB: That’s amazing. Well good luck,  Seraphim, and thank you.

Gilberto Gutiérrez –  Afro-Mejicano!?!

Mexico has less African influence than many other countries in Latin America, the province of Verecruz on the East coast is a hotspot for Afro-Mexican music due a slave population brought there as well as frequent trade with Cuba. They too play Mexican son, but with the jorocho spin infused with African rhythms. The style has gotten some airplay – crossover hit “La Bamba” for one, but is pretty under the radar for the most part.

Gilberto Gutiérrez is leading the jorocho revival with his band Monos Blancos (The White Monkeys), bringing in young people made interested by his band’s national success. Afropop got a chance to talk with Gutiérrez about his life’s work, the African connection, and how to throw a good fandango.

Sean Barlow: Tell us, Gilberto, a little bit of your story – where you were born, how you came in to music.

Gilberto Gutiérrez: I was born on a farm in Veracruz in 1958 – it was all cows and chickens and pigs. My family are farmers. Everyone in my family plays music or sings, so I grew up listening to music all the time. My homeland is very green. It's very festive. When I was 15, I said goodbye to my father because my mother and father separated. I came to Mexico City by myself. I was alone, I looked for a job. In Veracruz, people don’t go to the US, I didn’t even think it. Two years later, I was listening to a lot music from Peru, Venezuela and I had the idea to do music. I asked asked myself “What about my music.” I thought about my tradition in my homeland, well, and in that moment I felt music in my heart, music in my mind. “I want to make music, I am a musician,” I thought. I went to buy my first instrument.

SB: Which is what?

GG: It’s a jarana, a traditional instrument from Veracruz. It was not easy to find one, because in Mexico City you can buy guitar, charango, cuarto venezolano, but no jarana. I went to my homeland to find a jarana. My next idea was to go to old musicians and record them to learn the art.  I played music all the time. So in 1977, Mono Blanco was born in Mexico City. The history now is very long. In that moment, when I began to play my music, nobody was interested in the music. My father asked, “Why do you play this music, there’s no money in it. You need to work.” I am lucky, because two years later I had a lot of work with my group. In 1979, Arkady Hidalgo, a very old musician from Veracruz, came to Mono Blanco.

SB: You  recorded an album with him?

GG: Yes, in 1980, we did our first album. At that time, the Secretary of Public Education began a cultural project. They sent groups from different disciplines – dance, music, classical music, poetry – and they contracted Mono Blanco.  We went to play in all of Mexico. But we had some money at that time, we played 8 concerts a week. We took planes to the North, to the South, in the whole country. For three years we continued, we played 8 months of the year. When I had enough money, we would go to Veracruz in an old car with a recording machine. We would visit old musicians to learn from them, friends of Arkady Hidalgo, but people he hadn’t seen for 50 years. We went to many places to find these people, sometimes they had already died.

SB: What kind of music were these old timers playing?

GG:  They played jarana, or guitara de son, but all of this is son jorocho, all of this. Our tradition. I learned the music, the poems, the different instruments, the different places. Our tradition has people from the riverside, people from the highlands, the mountains. People’s different disciplines – carpenters, fishermen, cowboys. They play music with a different feeling, you know. I learnt from them. Later we set up workshops for the kids, because they had no chance to learn. The transmission from generation to generation is broken nowadays. We did a lot of workshops, and later did some fandangos.

SB: Describe a fandango, what is it?

GG: Fandango… well, it’s a party for our music. Musicians come to play, but usually its not professional groups, but peoples who come to play together… because they are friends. People come to dance, people come to sing, people come to improvise lyrics. Women dance. There is a wooden stage made of plywood - really it’s an instrument. When people go up they play percussion while they dance, zapateo, but it's percussion. 

SB: Zapateo is a style of dance?

GG: Yes, its called zapateo because shoe is zapato in Spanish. You have special shoes for dance, its like a tap-dance, music and dancing at the same time. So the fandango is all night, people play, dance, drink, eat. To make a fandango, you need a good reason - it's only for weddings, for birthdays, for celebrations for remembering a person that died in your family a long time ago. Or to celebrate for the saints – we are Catholics and in our tradition, every town has a patron Saint. We make a fandango to celebrate San Pablo, San Jose, the Virgin of Guadalupe. All year long. The most famous in Veracruz is for the Virgin de la Candelaria, in February.

SB:  I need to go someday, I’ve heard Veracruz is a really fun place. OK. So lets talk a little bit about your instrument.

GG: My instrument is the jarana. I like to play jarana becayse it’s really good for playing rythms and harmonies. I made a special jarana for me, because the traditional one has 5 courses. My jarana has 3 courses – its triple 9 strings for 3 notes. The jarana is like the Baroque guitar, its small. It has a special construction because its made from one piece of wood, so it has a different sound, its very strong. Because when we play, in our tradition, we play outside. Its very humid and hot, and you’re wet. So to make it from one piece of wood makes it very strong. But I play tambourine too, and I dance as well, I like to dance on stage, zapateo.

SB: I’ve heard that Veracruz has more African roots than other parts of Mexico, can you talk about that a little bit?

GG: Well, for example, we have a song on our album called “El Toro Sacamandú.” This is a very old song, its traditional, it has strong African roots. Our music is a mix of Spanish roots, African roots, and Amerindian roots. This song  can be heard in Peru, in Dominican Republic, in the Afro-Caribbean.

In the colonial time, the Spanish brought a lot of people from Africa as slaves. From Senegal, from that part of Africa. When we play together with people from Senegal, they say “This music is like Senegalese music.” The rhythms.. the kora sounds like the harp. We have strong African and Afro-Caribbean roots, because Veracruz has traded for a long time with Cuba, Venezuela, Puerto Rico.

SB: So Africans came in number to Veracruz. Are there still descendents of Africans there?

GG: Sometimes you can see people as dark as in Africa…but most people are mixed. This is because African males married with Indian women so his sons could be free. In fact, jarocho is the name that the Spanish people gave to people of African-Amerindian mixes.

SB: Do you hear the black influence in the music. Did Africans bring instruments?… ways of playing?

GG: Well, in zapateo, we make the same rhythm as the djembe does. But Africa is not only drums, they have string instruments, the kora, which is like a harp. I think maybe the music of the kora was changed to the harp in Veracruz. When I listen to music in Senegal or Mali, they play music that is very similar to our music. Sometimes we play together with the kora. Its easy to communicate, because we have the same roots. Ethnomusicologists, they have a explanation for exactly why our music sounds like an Africans. In the form, in the tuning style. This is not exactly Western. Sometimes we play between major and minor. People say this is very old idea from Africa.

SB: This is very interesting. So overall you play son jorocho.

GG: Yes, I play son jorocho, but I explore other possibilities, because…

SB: Yeah, that a good thing.  Somebody told me that you are more responsible that anyone else for reviving son jorocho in Veracruz, that there’s a lot of young kids now doing it. Are you happy that the tradition is alive and young people are picking it up?

GG:  I learned to find money from the government to set up workshops in the countryside, make fandangos. Later, Mono Blanco made a tour in Mexico and then went back to the homeland to teach the kids and the young people. The young people can see that – “Mono Blanco gets to travel all the time”, and this was a stimulus for the kids to play. They can come to play with Mono Blanco to different places in Veracruz, and they like that, you know.

They feel good when they play, and people clap, and sometimes receive a little bit of money, no? It’s in their blood to play music. Before they didn’t play, because nobody valued the music But when they see Mono Blanco, they like to play. Our tradition is usually in families, specific families – The Utrera family, the Faria family, the Vega family, the Gutierez family. I went to these families to seek out students, because they have strong roots in these families. I provide them good instruments. When I went to buy my first jarana, it was hard to find  a good one. But in 1981, I went to learn to make instruments with the old luthier in Veracruz. I had some money, so I went to live two months with him, to learn how to do it. Later I thought a lot of people how to do it. And now, a lot of people are making instruments, to sell. And they make money that way, its good for the economy. I make instruments too.

All interviews were translated, transcribed, and edited for Afropop Worldwide and World Music Productions by Marlon Bishop

First published: www.afropop.org