| Ritual Rhythms: Candombe |
This documentary explores the history and modern reality of candombe, the drum music of Uruguay's black parade bands. It is a way of life that was born in the musical gatherings of slaves in urban marketplaces and plazas. Despite persistent racism, past and present, the 200,000 Uruguayans of African descent experience candombe as a way of life, as part of the cast of characters that inhabit the tenements of Montevideo's Reus and Ansina neighborhoods, where parents rock cradles with drummed lullabies, and children learn to play drums on oil cans. Moving from riveting musical performances to detailed discussions of the history of slavery and the historical development of candombe, Ritual Rhythms is an exciting and informative introduction to candombe, the music of Afro-Uruguay. |
Reviews |
| "Beautifully shot… interviews, primarily with candombe drummers, are intercut with street performances from Montevideo" - David Henderson, Society of Ethnomusicology Film/Videography |
ancient rhythms ritual Trinidad youtube
doc Candombe - Uruguay
the soul of the drum / el alma del tambor #animalshamanichealing #
Much like the traditions of candombe, the clave is one that has been spread to the Latin American diaspora from peoples originally from sub-Saharan Africa.
In the nineteenth century, candombe was still a powerful mode of collective expression for indentured African laborers. “As an alternative to the oppressive, painful, dehumanizing movements of coerced labor, the candombes offered the deeply pleasurable, healing movements of dance--and dance, furthermore, performed collectively, in concert, with friends and countrymen from one’s homeland” (p. 27). Beginning with the Montevideo carnival of 1876, large performing groups of sociedades de negros emerged, frequently calling themselves esclavos as a commentary on labor conditions, and singing the praises of an African homeland. Ironically, the performers in these groups were rarely black, giving rise to the powerful tradition of the negro lubolo--the blackface performer of candombe.For Andrews, “So strong was the blackface and Afro-Uruguayan presence in Carnival that, to a very high degree, to celebrate Carnival was to come listen to and watch the candombe/tangos of the African-based groups” (p. 62). It is here that Andrews’s history takes a fascinating turn, for throughout most of the twentieth century, the history of Afro-Uruguayan cultural expression through candombe cannot be separated from the negros lubolos. Racial minstrelsy thus forms the foundation for articulations of racial identity, as the performance of the negros lubolos are, for Andrews (quoting Eric Lott), replete with “the dialectical flickering of racial insult and racial envy, moments of domination and moments of liberation” (p. 56). The lubolos of Montevideo carnival, through minstrel performance, led to the continued production and maintenance of racial difference.In Andrews’s account, such minstrelsy effectively illustrates the interplay between sexual desire, racial ambivalence, and carnivalesque performance. Uruguayan blackface was frequently paired with potent sexual connotations of attraction to and fear of black men, underscored by song lyrics where allusions to gender barriers between black men and white women stand in for racial barriers. Particularly noteworthy is Andrews’s tracing of the cultural histories of mama vieja and vedette, two important female characters in Uruguayan carnival. Andrews reads the cultural development of both characters against evolving social ideas of the sexual role and identity of black women, particularly as black female sexuality was characterized as present and accessible, while white women were distant and untouchable. Emerging out of negros lubolos groups in the early 1900s, mama vieja is a figure symbolic of maternal, domestic sexual power that necessarily carries with it deep class implications. Though this character--a servile, aged, maternal black woman--was frequently performed by white men in the early twentieth century, Andrews does not fully explore its queer and transgendered implications. Andrews contrasts “her” to the vedette, the overtly sexualized female figure of contemporary carnival.
spirit possession and Candombe googlebook preview
Isn't Hip Hop closer to talking than music anyway? the older language is the more MUSICAL or tonal - so the original human culture - the San Bushmen language - has the most sounds and most musical tones (and is the most sophisticated culture on the planet with NO war, no rape and ecologically sustainable). Funny how if language is more like MUSIC then the healing songs of the San bushmen intentionally use GIBBERISH words for their music. So much for phonetic semantic "meaning." The tones as frequency pitch have more meaning as emotions then do the "rhythms" of phonetic-based languages.
Adam Neely on a particular rhythm due to particular languages - vid
Isn't Hip Hop closer to talking than music anyway? the older language is the more MUSICAL or tonal - so the original human culture - the San Bushmen language - has the most sounds and most musical tones (and is the most sophisticated culture on the planet with NO war, no rape and ecologically sustainable). Funny how if language is more like MUSIC then the healing songs of the San bushmen intentionally use GIBBERISH words for their music. So much for phonetic semantic "meaning." The tones as frequency pitch have more meaning as emotions then do the "rhythms" of phonetic-based languages.
Adam Neely on a particular rhythm due to particular languages - vid
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