Nueva Canción – ROOTNOTEMUSIC BLOG

Beats, rhymes, & life along the journey… & goodbye to Facundo Cabral

My good friend DJ Moonbaby was spinning some gems tonight and she inspired me to write a blog post and share some of the musical wealth with you. Some beats, rhymes and life to help push us through as we walk along this sometimes bumpy and unexpected road…Speaking of journeymen, I have to acknowledge the passing of Argentine folk singer and peace activist Facundo Cabral, who was murdered in Guatemala today in an ambush style attack – truly horrific. As a 9 year old child, he once walked 1800 miles to look for work to support his mother and six siblings after his father abandoned them. He literally grew up dirt poor, illiterate, and went to on to teach himself to read, to learn, and his consciousness was raised and he went on to become one of the most beloved folk singers in Latin America. In the year 2011, a killing like this reminds us that oppression and fear still are alive and well and we must continue to rise up together as a human family and do what we can to bring peace and justice to the world. At the end of the post you can see his signature song from a performance, which I believe is from the 1970s.

Back to the music at hand. From the Moonbaby playlist here is Tribe Called Quest with the song “Electric Relaxation” from the album Midnight Marauders from the year 1993. Sheer perfection:

That jogged my memory of this 1995 classic from the LA group, Pharcyde, “Runnin”, featuring sample from Brazilian samba:

Another Moonbaby tune. Talib Kweli featuring Norah Jones with the gorgeous “Soon The New Day”:

This song ties it all together for me, “History” by Mos Def featuring Talib Kweli:

If we don’t understand the past and where we came from we are doomed to repeat….Here is Facundo Cabral with a hauntingly profound performance of “Yo No Soy De Aqui Ni Soy De Alla.” May he continue his journey with our ancestors and find peace on the other side:

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
~Martin Luther King Jr.

From DC to Digable Planets to DJ LadybugMek

Bringing the (City of) Angels back to higher ground: DJ Moonbaby

Meandering through the homeland of Los Angeles: DJ Moonbaby, Canter’s Deli, Lalo Guerrero, & Petrovic Blasting Company

07/10/2011

Goodbye Lhasa: this space had become too small

I was so sad to find out that singer/artist Lhasa de Sela passed away on January 1, 2010 at the young age of 37 after a two-year battle with breast cancer. I first fell in love with her when I heard her song, “De Cara A La Pared”. I listened to that song on repeat for months on end and to this day it remains one of my all time favorite songs. She had an unusual upbringing and life right out of a surreal novel. Raised on a traveling bus with her parents, singing in cafes at 13 years old; she was very much a troubadour in the purest sense of the word. She left unrealized a plan to record an album featuring the songs of Victor Jara and Violetta Para, singers of the Nueva Cancion movement. See her website for more about Lhasa’s life and projects.

I had the privilege of seeing her live ~ she had a way of telling stories before each song that created a sense of magical mysticism about life. One particular haunting explanation of a song, especially poignant after learning of her passing, was about when you’re a baby, you’re in this small space and you see a tiny light…as you grow and grow the space gets smaller but the light gets bigger and soon this space will be too small…as you are born, the world is so big, but as you grow and grow, soon this space will be small….

Here is my favorite Lhasa De Sela song, “De Cara A La Pared”:

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01/09/2010

La poesía, nueva canción, y trovadores

I’ve been absent from my blog for the past few weeks as I said my final goodbye to my paternal grandmother as she made her transition. As I feel the grief, it also brings back the poignant loss of my father several years ago. I have been reflecting on the treasures they passed on in the form of musical and poetic passion. In their native country of Honduras, my family was very poor but rich in spirit, curiosity, intelligence and passion. A love of literature, poetry, and music was the fuel that fed their inspiration and ambition to create a life beyond the cruel and crushing poverty they endured before they came to the United States.

As I was born and raised here in the US, as was my mom (with roots in New Mexico and Mexico), I cannot even comprehend the profundity of their Honduran experience (Honduras literally translates to “depths”), but through the poetry and music they loved, I catch a glimpse of what it means.

I often heard recited the works of Pablo Neruda, Rubén Darío, Juan Ramon Molina, Walt Whitman, and countless other poets both Latin and American. Grandma loved romantic music and would continuously play Julio Iglesias and Luis Miguel. She had a passion for tango and would often dance very dramatically at our family Christmas parties in Los Angeles. While my father loved anything from Nina Simone to the romantic boleros/ballads of Latin America, he was a revolutionary in his soul. He loved the Nueva Canción singer Mercedes Sosa, who passed on just a few weeks ago, as well as songs of the Cuban revolution and Spanish Civil War.

I’ll first start with a favorite poem of both my grandmother and my father. She recited the first few stanzas less than week before her death. This is “A Roosevelt” by Nicaraguan Poet Rubén Darío, recited by Jorge Cafrune. The English translation is “To Roosevelt”:

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11/08/2009

Category: Nueva Canción

Beats, rhymes, & life along the journey… & goodbye to Facundo Cabral

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Goodbye Lhasa: this space had become too small

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La poesía, nueva canción, y trovadores

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