For decades Peruvian diva Susana Baca has dedicated her life to the preservation and revival of Afro-Peruvian culture and music. On her latest album, Afrodiaspora, she looks outward, with a repertoire that reflects not only her heritage, but also her curiosity about music from New Orleans, Puerto Rico, and Pernambuco, to name just a few places. Singing mostly in her native Spanish with occasional excursions into Portuguese and English, Baca weaves together a diasporic tapestry of rhythms from the familiar cumbia and son to less commonly heard genres, such as the Afro-Peruvian landó and Mexican huapango (both dances in 6/8). She treats the songs on this album with the same care she takes in researching her own culture, performing them with sincerity and diligently footnoting historical and cultural references in the lyrics.
