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Lebeha Drummers
Ethnomusicologist Doris Stone first documented the music of the Garifuna in the early 1950s, work furthered in the early 1980s by anthropologists Carol and Travis Jenkins. Once known as the “Black Carib” (a name bestowed upon this maroon, i.e., non-enslaved, African-Amerindian people by British colonial forces, who defeated and deported them en masse from St. Vincent to Caribbean Central America in 1797), the Garifuna established coastal fishing and farming villages from Belize to Nicaragua. Over the past century, emigrants developed vibrant overseas communities in New York, Chicago, New Orleans, Houston and Los Angeles that nonetheless continue to look to their Central American family and community ties and cultural and spiritual inspiration.
This is the third recording from the Lebeha project, which includes two of its original students, Warren Martinez (vocals, primero drum, shakkas, turtle shell percussion) and Clayton Williams (vocals, primero, drum, segunda drum, shakkas). Rounding out the ensemble are Lebeha founder Jabbar Lambey (segunda) and Marcela Torres (vocals, claves). Torres has also performed with the Garifuna Collective and Garifuna Women’s Project.
The album was recorded at Ivan Duran’s Stonetree Studios in Belize, and engineered by Al Obando. In keeping with Stonetree’s well-earned reputation as a regional recording mecca, the production values are excellent. This disc is unique, however, in hewing to the traditional Garifuna roots of voice and percussion, versus the experimental acoustic and electric guitars, bass, sampling, etc. characteristic of the work of Palacio, Martinez, and others Garifuna music luminaries. For a foundational grasp of one of Central America’s most enduring and vibrant folk traditions, Biama is an excellent introduction.
More about this remarkable cultural tradition
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