The Whole Music Experience

Aurelio Laru Beya Next Ambiance I had not heard of the Garifuna people until 2007 when Andy Palacio made an international splash with his efforts to preserve Garifuna culture including language and music. Unfortunately, Palacio’s life was cut short in 2008, right at the time when his star ascended. A Garifuna women’s recording project followed the death of Palacio and then the music seeped out of my life, as music tends to do. Now, Aurelio Martinez, a 39-year old Garifuna musician hailing from Honduras, rekindles the sparks of the Garifuna legacy that Palacio left in his wake. His album, Laru Beya distributed in North America by Subpop’s African arm Next Ambiance, promises to entice a few hips. In 2007 I was in no position to describe Garifuna music with its perfect blend of African polyphonic rhythms and rattle and roll of Latin American indigenous people. And I’m no closer to untangling these roots now. The history of the Garifuna people, former African slaves that fir...

Andy Palacio & The Garifuna Collective Watina Stonetree Records/Cumbancha Only in his 40s, the musician and preserver of Garifuna culture, Andy Palacio died recently of a stroke. It's true musicians have been dropping like flies lately, with so many passing away from pneumonia, strokes, heart attacks and cancer. In the last couple of days, Cape Verdian vocalist Cesaria Evora suffered a stroke, right before she was going to headline at the WOMAD festival in Australia. (She is still alive). While the death of a musician to me is always tragic, Palacio's passing on hit both the global music community and the Garifuna peoples of Belize (and beyond), like a ton of bricks falling out of the sky. In a way, you might say that Palacio's journey into preserving Garifuna culture goes back to 1635 when shipwrecked African slaves liberated themselves and found solace on the Caribbean island, St. Vincent. There the African slaves were welcomed by the Arawak Indians and the...