"One Tribe, Many Voices" Podcast Episode 106

The animated feature: "Chico & Rita" is fantastic!

If you haven't heard of the animated Cuban feature: "Chico & Rita" you need to go out and see it by any means necessary! It has to be the most incredible work of art I've seen in quite some time. I'm not sure how many people know about this indie film but it resonates in the same way "Black Orpheus" ("Orfeo Negro") still resonates for me.

"Chico & Rita" is a subtle slither of Afro-Caribbean culture captured on film, a chance for those of us of the African Diaspora to see ourselves portrayed lovingly as cartoon characters. How cool is that? Ironically, it embodies roughly the same time period as "Black Orpheus", which was released in 1954.

"Chico & Rita" presents a window to a long-ago, pre-revolutionary Cuba. It is so rich in the subtleties of Afro-Caribbean culture that you forget you are watching an animated, cartoon reality. I cannot say that I've ever seen anything quite like this film, I've instantly installed this it among my All-Time Favorites.

Like "Black Orpheus", it is the power and presence of the music that carries this film deep into your psyche. Identical to "Black Orpheus" in that it is a love story that features a musician as the central character. In this case, "Chico & Rita" goes one step further since Chico is a pianist-composer and Rita is an evocative singer and his muse. Go see this film or buy it, you will find yourself falling in love with these richly tinted brown cartoon lovers.

intro: Quem me Guia / Almir Guineto

Set one:

1. A Linguagem do Amor / Rasheed Ali & Rain People / Tristeza e Beleza na Cidade Negra
2. Camina y Ven / Celina Gonzalez
3. I Faram Gami I Faram / Mulatu Astatke / Mulatu Steps Ahead

Set two:

1. llego el Sabor / Oscar D'Leon Y Jose "El Canario" Alberto / Exitos Eternos
2. Sin Cadena / L'Essentiel Faudel / Faudel w/ Yuri Buenaventura
3. N'Zambi / Andres Mingas / Telling Stories to the Sea

Set three:

1. Radio Belize / Deep Forest (Eric Mouquet & Michel Sanchez) / Comparsa
2. Khaled / Alech Taadi / N'ssi N'ssi
3. African Woman / Baaba Maal / Firin' In Fouta

Set four:

1. Epelo / Papa Wemba / Molokai
2. Vuela la Paloma / Conjunto Rumbavana

3. Santa Massa Chegou / DJ Dolores e Santa Massa / Contraditorio
4. Sabu Yerkoy / Ali Farka Toure & Toumani Diabate / Ali & Toumani



"Chico & Rita" Official Site.

"One Tribe, Many Voices" Podcast Episode 105

Afro-Colombian folk dance

Intro: Africano / Rasheed Ali & Rain People / Thunder in the Jungle

Set one:

1. Agua Que Cae del Cielo / Omara Portuondo

2. Para Chango / Oscar D'Leon / 15 Exitos de

Set two:

1. Me Voy pa' Cali / Oscar D'Leon / En Vivo 

2. A San Lazaro / Yolanda Rayo

3. Galeron Con una Negra / Tambor Urbano / La Rumba

Set three:

1. Yo Me Siento Como en Casa / Oscar D'Leon / Tranquilamente

2. El Mensaje / Sol del Almendro / Ruta Tropical

Set four:

1. A Quien No Le Va a Gustar / Tambor Urbano / Solo Exitos

2. Yo Te Canto / Eva Ayllon 

3. Burundanga / Celia Cruz

Set five:

1. Yubakere / Sol del Almendro / Ruta Tropical

2. Canto de Pilon / Tambor Urbano / Solo Exitos

3. Agayyu / Francisco Aguabella  y Su Grupo Oriza / Bembe

4. Oriza Eh / Tambor Urbano / Que No Se Pare la Rumba

Today's show illustrates the unbridled energy of African music that exists in the Spanish-speaking Americas. Though largely invisible in media portrayals of what Latinos look like, the African presence in Latin America and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean cannot be ignored. The connections between Africans of Latin America are more profound than those of the dominant Euro-centric Hispanics. Music, culture, dialect and syntax, dance and food easily cross the borders that separate New World Africans.
Though separated by more than 54,000 merchant slave ship voyages, the Africans cultural expressions were inseparable. Listen to an Afro-Venezuelan musician call upon Chango in the same way that a Cuban or Boricua does. Listen to the sameness in the spiritual language of Afro-Peruvians and Afro-Colombians. Forget the hyphen, we are New World Africans of the African Diaspora. Children of the holocaust. 

"One Tribe, Many Voices" Podcast Episode 104

   

Intro: Columbia pa' Miguel Angel / Venissa Santi / Bienvenida

Set one:

1. Latin Goes Ska / Skatellites
2. El Quarto de Tula / Eliades Ochoa / Cuban Essentials

Set two:

1. Agua / Zeep / Far Out: Chill Brazil
2. Agua Que Va a Caer / Rasheed Ali & Rain People
3. Bensema / Afro-Cubism

Set three:

1. Showroom Dummies / Senor Coconut
2. The Model / Seu Jorge & Almaz**
3. Bem Querer / Seu Jorge / Cru

Set four:

1. Fanm Kreyol / Belo / Care for Haiti (Benefit CD)*
2. Besteira / Clara Moreno / Far Out: Chill Brazil
3. Prestame La Bicicleta / Ruben Gonzales / Cuban Essentials

Visit: Care For Haiti Website*

**Click the link to see the Seu Jorge & Almaz Short Films

"One Tribe, Many Voices" Podcast Episode 103

intro: Bakwetu / Papa Wemba / Molokai

Set one:


1. Oba Oyebade Lipede / King Sunny Ade / Classics Vol.3
2. Mifono Yami / Papa Wemba / Molokai

Set two:

1. Masvingo Netara / Robson Banda & The New Black Eagles / Zimbabwe Frontline
2. Erelu Dosumum / King Sunny Ade / Classics Vol.3

Set three:

1. Neg yo Danjere / Boukan Ginen / Rev An Nou
2. Shofele / Papa Wemba / Molokai
3. Omo Lododo Eye / King Sunny Ade / Classics Vol.3

Set four:

1. Nyamutamba Ne Mombe / Thomas Mapfumo / Zimbabwe Frontline
2. Kouman Sat' A Ye / Boukman Esperyans / Kalfou Danjere
3. Image / Papa Wemba / Molokai
4. N' Vunda Ku Muceque / Ricardo Lemvo / Retrospectiva
5. Afrika / Boukan Ginen / Rev An Nou

Bantu

The word Abantu itself, incidentally, simply means "human beings". These tribes all have ntu as a core language in common, while their own languages usually comprise many dialects and variations. 

They are part of the Niger-Congo language group and have strong ancestral affinities with a group of languages being spoken today in southeastern Nigeria.

They came from Central Africa, from where they began to expand to other parts around 2000 BC. These migrations are believed to have been the result of an increasingly settled agricultural lifestyle: although needing little land (far less than herding cattle use), land had to be fertile and well watered for cultivation to be a viable alternative. Population pressure in Central Africa may therefore have prompted the first Bantu migrations.

They had entered southern Uganda probably by the end of the first millennium A.D. and they had developed centralized kingdoms by the fifteenth or the sixteenth century. Pioneering groups had reached modern KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa along the coast by 300 A.D., and the modern Northern Province (formerly called the Transvaal) by 500 A.D.

The Bantu expansion was a millenia long series of physical migrations, a diffusion of language and knowledge out into and in from neighbouring populations, and a creation of new society groups involving inter-marriage among communities and small groups moving to communities and small groups moving to new areas.