Garifuna: Music and Resistance
Fernando Marroquín Mendoza, Northern Illinois University
ABSTRACT
The Garifuna people are an ethnic group that inhabit the Caribbean coasts of Central America. Specifically, the coasts of Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. The Garifuna have a rich musical culture product of the clash of enslaved Africans and Carab and Arak, native population of the island of St Vincent in the Caribbean in 1635. In the words of the belizean musician and composer Andy Palacio, the Garifuna are a small minority and suffer what minorities suffer. Due to tourism, marginalization and globalization the culture of the Garifuna is in constant danger of disappearing. Musicians like Andy Palacio and the Garifuna Collective have been able to preserve spiritual beliefs, stories, language and traditions through music in their album “Watina”. Thanks to the success of the album Palacio was named artist for peace by UNESCO, received the WOMEX award and in 2008 received the award for World Music awarded by BBC3 Radio. According to Carlos Perrote, cuban music producer, the album became a standard for Garifuna musicians and is often referred as a before and after in Garifuna music. In this paper, through the analysis of the reception of the album, musical and lyrical analysis of the songs and analysis of the culture and history of the Garifuna people I will analyze how Andy Palacio and the Garifuna collective have used music as a way of preserving culture.
Keywords: Garifuna, Music, Cultural preservation, Caribbean Culture