This is not the first time that I have written about music dedicated to the deities known as the Orishas: More recently, there is “Afro-Latinas sing for santos, ancestors and culture.” In 2011, I wrote “¡Qué viva Changó! : West African Deities in the Americas”, and there is also a comment from 2016 on President Barack Obama’s reference to Orisha Ochun in his address to Cubans. Before that, in 2014, I presented the big New Year celebration in Brazil in “New Year celebration in Rio for the goddess of the sea, Iemanjá.”
Most readers live within the continental borders of the United States, and many live in cities with large Caribbean populations. Often, the religious and spiritual practices of these groups are assumed to fit neat Catholic or Protestant boxes. This is not the reality: many practitioners have incorporated spiritual traditions of European and African origin. However, when questioned, they respond to demographers with socially acceptable responses, thus many Latinos in the Caribbean are simply listed as “Catholic”. Although they attend mass on Sunday, they were probably also at a festival for the Orishas on Saturday. In the Haitian American regions, the situation is the same for practitioners of voodoo, as it is for people in Trinidad, where the nickname “baptist” includes what is called Shango, or Spiritual Baptists.
The Cuban revolutionary government under Fidel Castro initially attempted to suppress the religious practices of the African diaspora on the island, but shifted gears when it became a folk tourist attraction. The Conjunto Folklorico Nacional was established in 1962, and there are also regional dance companies.
To get an idea of the combination of music and orisha dance, we will start with a Andabo Yoruba performance.
Yoruba Andabo was established in 1961 and since then its prestige, both nationally and internationally, has steadily increased. This group from Havana was named with the identity roots of Cuban nationality. Yoruba: representing the religion of the great African continent which was later integrated into Cuban culture and Andabo: meaning friend or admirer in the Carabalí language.
This video demonstrates the traditional Orisha style of singing, dancing and drumming. The dancer’s movements echo the sensation of water and waves. She is dressed in a traditional dance outfit for Yemaya, in her color of blue. The dance is linked to the music, because it is during the dance on sacred drums that a priest is “mounted” by the Orisha; this ritual spiritual possession is seen by adherents as an opportunity to speak or be with the divine.
In this video you can watch Yusimi Moya Rodriguezwho was a dancer with the aforementioned Conjunto Folklorico Nacional in Cuba, demonstrating some basic Lukumí (Yorùbá) dances for Yemaya, to ritual drums and songs.
Traditionally, any Orisha event or ceremony is opened with an invocation to Elegua, an Orisha who is both messenger and owner of the crossroads. Blues fans are probably aware of the hoodoo myths surrounding bluesman Robert Johnson strikes deal with Elegua at crossroads.
This is my favorite a capella invocation in Elegua, from Sext Sentido.
If you think songs for the Orisha and other West African religious traditions that were brought here during slavery were only maintained among Spanish-speaking populations, meet Ella Andall.
Andall, whose voice is well known in the Caribbean and in world music circles, may not be a household name to you. Caroline Taylor wrote this profile of her for Caribbean Beat back in 2014.
Andall was born in Granada – we dare not ask the date – and moved to Trinidad when she was eight or nine years old. She found Trinidad extremely different from Granada. For the first time, she encounters a discomfort with “darkness”, and a distrust of anything that is “too African”. But she had been raised in a home and family that had inherited West African traditions from her ancestors, and she carefully resisted any attempt to remove her from those traditions, even refusing to sing in school choirs where she would be brought. to sing differently. .
Andall is an olorisha, or devotee of Orisha. It is a way of life that celebrates the ancestors and the divine nature, with various aspects and forces of the natural world represented in the Orisha, each of which is a manifestation of God, or Olodumare. Two of Andall’s CDs – Oriki Ogun and Sango Baba Wa – include oriki, or songs of praise, sung in Yoruba, to specific Orishas. Two more oriki collections, honoring Oshun and Eshu, are due out later this year. Many oriki have been passed down from generation to generation, while some are original compositions. When the Orisha are invoked through song and prayer, you can witness – or experience – the kind of manifestations that Andall’s performances are known to produce. You don’t even have to be an olorisha to experience a manifestation – the Orisha do not discriminate by creed, color or any other classification.
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With his oriki suites in Ogun and Shango, his recordings filled a void. Oriki Ogun has become the soundtrack of all contexts calling for an authentic African vibe. Trinidadian filmmaker Yao Ramesar used his music in his film Sista God, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2006. “I’ve always loved his music,” he says. “To me, she ranks up there with Billie Holiday, Bessie Smith, Mahalia Jackson, Miriam Makeba, Ella Fitzgerald.”
Here are the orikis (songs of praise) from Andall to Yemaya. To my surprise, while watching the accompanying visual montage by YouTuber Nathaniel Lewis, at 1:56, I saw a photo of me!
I’m wearing ritual attire in the image, taken while dancing with the Wemba Music Ensemble in upstate New York. lewis found the picture on my site.
It’s not related to Orisha, but I love this uplifting melody by Andall, which calls on the power of love.
Bring down the power of love, I say. Turn down the power!
The power of love, I say, is the greatest power!
Stop hell and damnation. Turn down the power!
Love to heal a nation is the greatest power!
A wind of destruction is blowing over this land [Over this land]And now the earth trembles under the oppression of man over man. [Bring down the power!]Now is the time to sit down and rediscover what life is all about. [What is life]Show the world the true meaning of the true power of love, not conflict. [Bring down the power!]Bring down the power of love, I say [Bring down the power!]The power of love, I say, is the greatest power.
Stop hell and damnation [Bring down the power!]Love to heal a nation. [Is the greatest power!]
Anyone familiar with Afro-Cuban music is familiar with Celia Cruz, who was known around the world as “The Salsa Queen.”
Celia de la Caridad Cruz Alfonso – Celia Cruz – was born in 1925 in Barrio Santos Suarez in Havana, one of 4 children. In a career that spanned six decades, Celia became the “Queen of Salsa” and played a pivotal role in the genre’s growing popularity.
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Celia joined the Tito Puente Orchestra in the mid-1960s. Her flamboyant attire and magnetic personality greatly expanded the band’s fan base. The band played a central role in the new sound that developed in the 1960s and 1970s – music born out of the mixed Cuban and Afro-Latin musical tradition – known as “Salsa”. A new label, “Fania”, was launched, devoted solely to the genre. In 1974, Celia joined the label and recorded “Celia y Johnny” with Johnny Pacheco. One of the tracks on the album, “Quimbera” became a signature song for her. Celia was the only woman in the Fania All Stars and one of the few successful women in the male-dominated world of salsa. She will then perform with the Willie Colon Orchestra and the Sonora Poncena, with Pete “El Conde” Rodriguez.
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Celia was a true pioneer of AfroLatinidad, focusing on the African elements of her identity (music, lyrics and clothing) at a time when it was not popular to do so.
It’s no surprise that part of Cruz’s repertoire consists of Orisha-esque songs. Here she is live, singing for Yemaya, during a 1987 tribute to her and Tito Puente in Puerto Rico.
The homage to Orisha continues in popular Afro-Cuban traditions, like a catchy tune from Elito Reve and Su Charagon“Agua pa’ Yemaya” (“Water for Yemaya”), illustrious.
Orquesta Reve, commonly referred to as “El Charangon de Elito Reve”, is a Cuban music legend and world-renowned artist. The Orquesta Reve was founded in 1956 by Elio Reve Matos, a brilliant musician from Guantanamo, who died in 1997. Today, his son, Elito Reve, continues the musical direction of the group.
Many musicians and singers currently at the forefront of the Cuban music scene have been members of the Orquesta Reve. In more than half a century of history, the Orquesta Reve has not only been an incomparable orchestra of popular dance music, but a laboratory from which other orchestras have come, other innovative musical formulas and accomplished. For example, we can mention Ritmo Oriental, Los Van Van, Dan Den, Pupy y los Que Son Son. When Elio Reve moved to Havana in the mid-1950s, he decided to form a Charanga-type orchestra with the intention of modernizing the traditional Changui.
The video incorporates footage of priests on the island, making offerings of water and fruit to Yemaya, both in her shrine and in the ocean.
It’s also good dance music!
This one has me dancing around the house. And you?
Join me in the comments for even more music and celebration. I wish you the blessings of health and joy today, especially during the difficult times we are all going through.
¡Maferefun Yemaya!
