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This isn’t the primary time I’ve written about music devoted to the deities often called Orishas: Most not too long ago, there’s “Afro-Latinas sing to the santos, the ancestors, and the tradition.” In 2011, I wrote “¡Qué viva Changó!: West African deities within the Americas,” and there’s additionally a 2016 commentary on President Barack Obama’s referencing the Orisha Ochun in his deal with to Cubans. Previous to that, again in 2014, I featured the huge New Yr’s celebration in Brazil in “New Yr’s Eve celebration in Rio for the Goddess of the ocean, Iemanjá.”
Most readers reside inside the mainland boundaries of the U.S., and lots of reside in cities with massive Caribbean populations. Typically the idea is made that the non secular and religious practices of these teams match into neat Catholic or Protestant bins. This isn’t the truth: Many practitioners have integrated each European- and African-derived religious traditions. Nonetheless, when surveyed, they reply demographers with socially acceptable responses, thus many Caribbean Latinos are listed merely as “Catholics.” Whereas they could be attending Mass on Sunday, they had been doubtless additionally at a competition for the Orishas on Saturday. In Haitian American areas, the state of affairs is identical for practitioners of Voudou, a lot as it’s for people from Trinidad, the place the “Baptist” moniker consists of what is called Shango, or Non secular Baptists.
The revolutionary Cuban authorities underneath Fidel Castro initially tried to repress African diasporic non secular practices on the island, however shifted gears when it turned a folkloric vacationer attraction. The Conjunto Folklorico Nacional was established in 1962, and there are regional dance firms as effectively.
To get a way of the mixture of Orisha music and dance, we’ll begin with a Yorùbá Andabo efficiency.
Yoruba Andabo was established in 1961 and since then its status, each within the nationwide and worldwide scene, has by no means cease rising. This group from Havana has been named with the identification roots of Cuban nationality. Yoruba: representing the faith of the good African continent that later was built-in into the Cuban tradition and Andabo: which means good friend or admirer in language carabalí.
This video illustrates the normal type of singing, dancing, and enjoying drums to the Orisha. The dancer’s actions echo the sensation of water and waves. She is wearing a conventional dance outfit for Yemaya, in her colour of blue. Dance is tied to music, for it’s throughout dancing to sacred drums {that a} priest is “mounted” by the Orisha; that ritual spirit possession is considered by adherents as a chance to talk with or be with the divine.
On this video, you’ll be able to watch Yusimi Moya Rodriguez, who was a dancer with aforementioned Conjunto Folklorico Nacional in Cuba, demonstrating some primary Lukumí (Yorùbá) dances for Yemaya, set to ritual drums and songs.
Historically, any Orisha occasion or ceremony is opened with an invocation to Elegua, an Orisha who’s each a messenger and the proprietor of the crossroads. Blues followers are most likely conscious of hoodoo myths surrounding bluesman Robert Johnson making a cope with Elegua on the crossroads.
That is my favourite a capella invocation to Elegua, from Sexto Sentido.
In the event you suppose that songs for the Orisha and different West African non secular traditions that had been introduced right here throughout enslavement have solely been maintained amongst Spanish-speaking populations, meet Ella Andall.
Andall, whose voice is well-known all through the Caribbean and in world music circles, might not be a well-known identify for you. Carolyn Taylor wrote this profile of her for Caribbean Beat again in 2014.
Andall was born in Grenada—one dare not ask the date—and moved to Trinidad when she was eight or 9. She discovered Trinidad extraordinarily completely different from Grenada. For the primary time, she encountered a discomfort with “blackness”, and mistrust of something “too African”. However she had been raised in a house and a household that had inherited the West African traditions of her ancestors, and he or she studiously resisted any makes an attempt to take away her from these traditions, even refusing to sing at school choirs the place she could be made to sing otherwise.
Andall is an olorisha, or Orisha devotee. It’s a lifestyle that celebrates the ancestors and the divine in nature, with numerous features and forces of the pure world represented within the Orisha, who’re every a manifestation of God, or Olodumare. Two of Andall’s CDs—Oriki Ogun and Sango Baba Wa—comprise oriki, or reward songs, sung in Yoruba, to particular Orishas. Two extra collections of oriki, in honour of Oshun and Eshu, are due out later this 12 months. Lots of the oriki have been handed down by the generations, whereas some are unique compositions. When the Orisha are invoked by chanting and prayer, you’ll be able to witness—or expertise—the type of manifestations which Andall’s performances are recognized to supply. You don’t even have to be an olorisha to expertise a manifestation—the Orisha don’t discriminate by creed, color, or every other classification.
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Along with her suites of oriki to Ogun and Shango, her recordings have crammed a void. Oriki Ogun has turn into the soundtrack for each context calling for an genuine African vibration. Trinidadian filmmaker Yao Ramesar used her music in his movie Sista God, which premiered on the Toronto Worldwide Movie Pageant in 2006. “I’ve at all times cherished her music,” he says. “For me she ranks proper up there with Billie Vacation, Bessie Smith, Mahalia Jackson, Miriam Makeba, Ella Fitzgerald.”
Listed below are Andall’s orikis (reward songs) to Yemaya. A lot to my shock, when watching the accompanying visible montage put collectively by YouTuber Nathaniel Lewis, at 1:56, I noticed a photograph of myself!
It’s not Orisha-associated, however I really like this uplifting tune from Andall, which calls upon the facility of affection.
Lyrics:
Carry down the facility of affection, I say. Carry down the facility!
The ability of affection, I say, is the best energy!
Cease hell and damnation. Carry down the facility!
Like to heal a nation is the best energy!
A wind of destruction is blowing over this land [Over this land]
And now the earth is a-trembling with man’s oppression of man. [Bring down the power!]
Now the time come to take a seat down and rediscover what’s life. [What is life]
Present the world the true which means of actual love energy, not strife. [Bring down the power!]
Carry down the facility of affection, I say [Bring down the power!]
The ability of affection, I say, is the best energy.
Cease hell and damnation [Bring down the power!]
Like to heal a nation. [Is the greatest power!]
Anybody accustomed to Afro-Cuban music is effectively conscious of Celia Cruz, who was recognized the world over as “The Queen of Salsa.”
Celia de la Caridad Cruz Alfonso – Celia Cruz – was born in 1925 in Barrio Santos Suarez in Havana, one in every of 4 youngsters. In a profession that spanned six many years, Celia turned the “Queen of Salsa,” and was central to the style’s rising recognition.
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Celia joined the Tito Puente Orchestra within the mid–1960’s. Her flamboyant apparel and magnetic character meteorically expanded the group’s fan base. The group was central to the brand new sound growing within the Nineteen Sixties and ‘70s – music born of Cuban and Afro-Latin combined musical custom – which got here to be often called “Salsa.” A brand new report label, “Fania,” was launched, devoted solely to the style. In 1974, Celia joined the label and recorded “Celia y Johnny” with Johnny Pacheco. One of many album’s tracks, “Quimbera” turned a signature tune for her. Celia was the one lady within the Fania All Stars, and one of many few girls to reach the male-dominated salsa world. She would go on to carry out with the Willie Colon Orchestra and the Sonora Poncena, with Pete “El Conde” Rodriguez.
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Celia was a real pioneer of AfroLatinidad, specializing in the African components of her identification (music, lyrics and gown) at a time when it was not widespread to take action.
It ought to come as no shock that a part of Cruz’s repertoire could be songs to the Orisha. Right here she is reside, singing to Yemaya, at a 1987 tribute to her and Tito Puente in Puerto Rico.
Paying homage to Orisha continues in widespread Afro-Cuban traditions, as a vigorous tune from Elito Revé y Su Charangon, “Agua pa’ Yemaya” (“Water for Yemaya”), illustrates.
Orquesta Reve, generally often called ‘El Charangon de Elito Reve’, is a music legend in Cuba and a worldwide recognized artist of fame. The Orquesta Reve was based in 1956 by Elio Reve Matos, an excellent musician from Guantanamo, who died in 1997. As we speak his son, Elito Reve, continues the musical route of the band.
Lots of the musicians and singers presently within the forefront of the Cuban music scene, have been members of Orquesta Reve. In additional than half-century of historical past, the Orquesta Reve was not solely an incomparable orchestra of widespread dance music, however a laboratory from which derived different orchestras, different innovating and profitable musical formulation. As an example one can cite Ritmo Oriental, Los Van Van, Dan Den, Pupy y los Que Son Son. When in the course of the Fifties Elio Reve settles in Havana, he determined to kind an orchestra of the Charanga kind with the intention of modernizing the normal Changui.
The video incorporates photos of clergymen on the island, making choices of water and fruit to Yemaya, each at her shrine and within the ocean.
It’s additionally nice dance music!
This one has me up and dancing round the home. How about you?
Be part of me within the feedback for much more music and celebrating. I want you the blessings of well being and pleasure in the present day, notably in the course of the tough occasions we’re all experiencing.
¡Maferefun Yemaya!
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