Search - Grupo Afrocuba De Matanzas :: Rituales Afrocubanos

A rare treasure

www.batadrums.com | CA, USA | 05/09/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Rituales Afrocubanos by Grupo Afrocuba de Matanzas is an incredible CD, released in 1993, on Cuba's EGREM label. You can find better sound quality on other CDs of folkloric afrocuban music, but the material here more than makes up for the sound quality.This CD includes Yoruba-based bata drumming and singing, Arara music, and Bantu music.The style of Yoruba-based music on this CD is important, but is rarely recorded - the Havana style of bata drumming and singing is much more widely heard (with the Muñequitos de Matanzas being an exception). This CD includes an entire Oru Cantado, or a special sequence of bata drumming and singing, in the Matanzas style, to praise the Orishas, the AfroCuban deities. This music is part of the Santeria or Regla de Ocha religion practiced in Cuba and elsewhere. It is called an Oru Lucumi here because "Lucumi" was a term used to refer to Yoruba in Cuba.There are very few recordings that have Arara or Bantu music at all.The Bantu peoples, brought to Cuba in the slave trade from south of the equator, were the most influential in Cuba and arguably all of Afro-America. They were from northern Angola, southern Zaire, and southern Congo, as well as Mozambique. They, especially the the subgroup called the Bakongo, formed the religion Palo Monte which survives in Cuba.The Arara music is derived from the Ewe/Fon people, from the Dahomey Kingdom, which was in present day Benin. The Yoruba kingdom attacked Dahomey and many Ewe/Fon were brought to Cuba 1750-1800. The Ewe/Fon created the religion known in Cuba as Regla Arara, mostly in Matanzas, but this religious practice has been largely assimilated by Santeria. Arara music is religious music that lives on in Cuba.This CD is a deep and raw performance of religious drumming and singing, music that is essentially African, representing practices that have been kept alive through the slave trade and beyond, in Matanzas, Cuba."