Celebrating 30 years of Garifuna music by one of the region's most important contemporary artists, Darandi is a tour de force of Latin American music. The CD is packaged in an illustrated hard-cover book with historical and biographical notes, as well as notes on each of the songs.

Michael Stone writes:
"Aurelio Mart�nez is arguably Central America's most gifted and vibrant musical talent, a key tradition bearer of one the most threatened cultures of the isthmus, the African-Amerindian Garifuna people. Apprenticed from an early age to his cultural elders, later a collaborator of Garifuna masters Paul "Nabi" Nabor (1928�2014) and Andy Palacio (1960�2008), Aurelio is the foremost champion of the music, dance and language traditions proclaimed by UNESCO to be among the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity... With its emphasis on vocal artistry, polyrhythmic complexity and dense percussive base, Garifuna music speaks across the African diaspora to its Central American, Caribbean and Latin America counterparts.
Read Michael's full review.

Listen!: "Yange" "Dondo" "Naguya Nei" "Laru Beya" "Seilpa"

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Since childhood, Aurelio Martinez has been performing the music of his Garifuna ancestors. Descended from shipwrecked African slaves and the Island Caribs of St Vincent, the Garifuna faced imprisonment and exile in the late 18th century, eventually finding home in Honduras, Belize, Guatemala and Nicaragua.

Darandi is a collection of Aurelio's favourite songs from his career recorded to capture the sound of his incendiary live performances. Accompanied by some of the Garifuna world's brightest musical talents, pairing upbeat, dynamic rhythms with melancholy, heartfelt melodies, this music is both deep and danceable.

Aurelio Martinez is, without exaggeration, the greatest living interpreter of Garifuna music. Specifically, he is a master of the paranda, a style based around the acoustic guitar that often draws comparisons to the blues for its often bittersweet melodies and sharp social commentary concealed within songs about everyday life. Although not as well known as Cuban son or Colombian cumbia, it is without doubt one of the continent's great music traditions; a style deeply African and Latin American at once.