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Palenque Palenque : Champeta roots


Palenque Palenque : Champeta roots

Colombia’s Carribean coast rocks to the sound of champeta. Yannis Ruel investigates the transatlantic roots of a killer party beat.

 

We meet up at the bus terminal in Barranquilla. Fabian Altahona has offered to be my guide through the record stores of this port city on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, a mecca for collectors of tropical music gems. Altahona is a seasoned crate-digger, as documented in his Africolombia blog, dedicated to treasured finds of rare recordings from Africa, Colombia and the Caribbean. This golden transatlantic triangle powers the syncretic sound of the Afro-Colombian communities of Cartagena and Barranquilla – the source of champeta.

 

Since the 1970s, the popular dances of this region of Colombia buzzed to the beats of mobile sound-systems dubbed picós (the name comes from ‘pick-up’). The most celebrated sound-systems combined Latin traditions with a heady brew of rhythms from Africa and the Caribbean – highlife, compas, afrobeat, soca, soukous and zouk. Applying the mix and remix techniques used in Jamaica, this cocktail of pan-African and Caribbean sounds was mashed into Colombian rhythms and tagged champeta. A hybrid sound emerged, a new urban folklore, with its own slang, fashion, dance-moves and graphic language. The story goes that these African and Caribbean beats arrived on vinyl LPs in the hands of music-loving sailors and found their way onto the sound-system decks, rocking the parties and directly influencing local bands. You can hear it in the way guitarist Abelardo Carbono plays, his liquid riffs a loving echo of soukous. Singer Justo Valdez’s group Son Palenque experimented with a fusion of Afro-Colombian percussion and African music, and the repertoire of Fruko’s fabled Wganda Kenya combo specialised in reworking African songs.

 

The recordings by these groups dominated locally but until recently were pretty much unknown away from the Caribbean coast. But tucked away in the archives of the Discolombia record store in Barranquilla, there’s a champeta treasure trove. It was the HQ of Felito Records, the label responsible for some of the best releases, and these days the owner is ready with vintage stock for the crate-diggers who show up at his door from all over the world, seeking out rare tunes. That’s where you’ll find for example, three Colombian versions of the Fela Kuti classic ‘Shakara’, a champeta dancefloor favourite in 1974. “Colombia was the first country to record Afrobeat outside of Africa” says Bogota producer and sonic archaeologist Lucas Silva, who got together with Soundway Records to release Palenque, Palenque - the first compilation dedicated to the roots of champeta. It’s a sweet revival for the wildly inventive talents of the pioneers of the genre.

 

 

 

 

Various Artists – Palenque, Palenque: Champeta Criolla & Afro Roots in Colombia 1975-1991 is out now on Soundway

 

 

Yannis Ruel

 

-Read the blog Africolombia



>> See the report: Palenque Palenque : Champeta roots







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