Search - Grupo Afrocuba :: Raices Africanas

This is a fine introduction to the strong cultural foundation that underlies much of Cuban popular music. The dynamic Grupo Afrocuba ensemble of dancers, drummers, and singers perform roots music of their northern Cuban home. On this release they sing and play sacred songs of their ancestor-revering Santeria religion, invoking the deities that guard the way to the afterlife, and allowing them to seek advice and to gain insights from those who have gone before. Afrocuba have also adapted the instrumentation of the sacred songs to cover more secular issues, inventing a new form, the Batarumba (named for the hourglass shaped bata drums). Raices Africanas is Afrocuba's first full-length recording since their founding over 30 years ago. They have brought their generations of experience into play on this CD, overlaying complex rhythms with memorable call and response singing. The drums rumble and mutter, then push and compel. The singers voices, sometimes plaintive, then rising in glorious harmony, sing of spiritual matters, as well as the joys and sorrows of life--and always with deep pride in their living, vibrant cultural heritage. --Jeff Grubb