Andy Palacio and the Garifuna Collective returned home on Monday, on a three-week break from a hectic world tour. Andy does hope to kick back and enjoy some of that Caribbean breeze and Belizean serenity he’s been missing for the past seven weeks, but before he gets fully settled into that relaxation mode, he has a big appearance coming up this weekend in the “Culture Capital,” Dangriga.
The artist will headline a star line-up of Garifuna artists who will be featured in Expulsion Fest, planned for Saturday night, July 14, at Y-Not Island, Dangriga. (See details in advert placed elsewhere in this edition of Amandala.)
The show’s chief organizer, Simeon Boyd Lorenzo, told Amandala that the event is a big homecoming for Palacio and the Garifuna Collective, because their accomplishments on the world stage must be celebrated.
Lorenzo told us that the emphasis would be on Paranda music. July is a great time to awaken people’s interests in the culture, and the July fest seeks to highlight the survival and struggle of the Garinagu since their ancestors were exiled from St. Vincent over 200 years ago, he said.
Apart from Palacio, the show will feature Garifuna legend – Paul Nabor, along with Adrian “The Doc” Martinez, Lugua Centino, Justo Miranda, Joshua Miranda, Felix “Reckless” Flores, and Lloyd Augustine, who will be performing some hits from his recently released album, This is It. Ligiya Le, backed by the New Rebels. The Los Angeles-based artist, Dayaan “Nuru” Ellis, who is presently in Belize working on his new album The Journey, will perform backed by Ugurau.
Promoting Belize on the world stage
Belizeans will see Andy perform at home for the first time in a while. Seven weeks ago he embarked on an international tour, beginning with Slovenia on May 24 and ending with London, Ontario, Canada, last Saturday, July 7.
“The best part of the tour is the opportunity that’s being given to me to tell the world about us, and I feel personally gratified about being able to make a contribution to be remembered in a good way for doing something that I actually love,” said Palacio in an interview with our newspaper today.
“When you show up at an immigration officer’s desk who has never heard about Belize before and who has never seen a Belizean passport before, you feel a sense of urgency to shout out the name of your country to the world, to make Belize known not only for the fact that we exist, but that we have valuable things,” he added.
There were some comical interactions with those to whom the very name of Belize and the Garifuna culture were quite foreign.
“Somebody asked, ‘Where are you from?’
“We said, ‘Belize.’
“He said, ‘I know, but in which country is that?’” Palacio recollected, laughing.
“A journalist asked me, ‘Now this language you’re singing in, is it really a language?’
“I told him, ‘Even sign language is a language,’ and then I schooled him about the issue of superior language and inferior languages, as a culture official, I don’t believe in such things.”
Palacio traveled with a 9-member delegation. The world-class band was comprised of Honduran additions: Guayo Cedeño of Orchestra de la Papaya on lead guitar and Rolando Sosa on rhythm guitar and maracas. They joined Belize musicians Carlos Perrote on segunda drum and percussion, Al Ovando on bass, Giovanni Chi on percussion, Joshua Arana on primero, and parandero Paul Nabor, making guest appearances with Andy, who appeared on rhythm guitar and lead vocals. Alexandro Colinas of Mexico, who worked with Andy on Keimoun and ‘Til da Mawnin, was the sound engineer and road manager.
Together they won the hearts of fans in places like Paris, Germany, Liverpool, Switzerland, and Dublin—many of them places Andy had never ventured to in his life. There were also more familiar venues like Canada, Chicago and New York.
It was a wonderfully exhilarating experience meeting new acquaintances and rediscovering old ones, and all the hype that the advance press and publicity provoked meant that everywhere the delegation of musicians made their appearances, there was an anxious audience waiting to soak up their riveting compositions.
“In most cases, they’ve heard the [Watiná] CD, they’ve read about us, even in major publications, and in some cases they’ve seen some television stuff that I’ve done – promo appearances, so that they came out to find out if this was for real,” said Palacio.
During the tour, Watiná soared to number one on the World Music Chart (Europe), and Palacio and his producer, Ivan Duran, won the internationally acclaimed WOMEX [World Music Expo] Award for 2007.
“When you make it to number one, beating out outstanding names like Angelique Kidjo…[and] Salif Keita, this is the company we found ourselves in, and to outrank such big names on the charts, you have to be able to show the proof on stage,” Palacio elaborated.
Re-establishing lost linkages to home
In the midst of those hundreds and sometimes thousands of people who flocked to see Andy Palacio and the Garifuna Collective were many Belizeans, some of them elated at the golden opportunity the tour had presented for them to reestablish long-lost linkages to their homeland.
Such was the case with a childless widower, Mr. Ortiz, originally from Dangriga, who had been living in Liverpool, UK, for over 50 years.
“He saw the festival poster and he saw Belize on it. He had been completely disconnected from Belize and doesn’t remember any relatives in Dangriga. After the show, I invited him backstage. Now Joshua [one of the band members] has taken on the assignment of reconnecting him with his relatives in Dangriga,” Palacio gleefully reported.
It was experiences like these that made the whole Liverpool experience special and intimate:
“I saw people who worked with me at Cultural Partnerships Ltd. in 1987. They read about me in THE GUARDIAN and heard me on the BBC. They bought tickets to come. I ran into old acquaintances like Philip Lewis, the artist and poet [author of ‘A tink a si wah new Belize’]. This is probably where I saw the biggest showing of Belizeans, apart from London [Canada] and Chicago. I never experienced the intimacy of London in Chicago, however.
“There were two particularly interesting scenarios in Liverpool. I met the granddaughters of Simon Martinez, a Garifuna man (originally from PG) who had gone to Scotland as part of the Forestry Unit during World War II from Belize. He remained in Scotland and started a family. Carrie and Stacey Simon [his granddaughters] are writing a book about him. They heard me on the BBC [doing my April promo], and they became interested in the work… They wanted to use some lyrics of ‘Watiná’ in the book – because they had bought the CD – and they came down to Liverpool and met the band.”
Apart from connecting with diverse Belizeans abroad, Palacio also connected with Garinagu from other countries, such as Honduras, who are living in foreign countries. In Paris, for example, a Honduran woman came with her two daughters raised in Paris.
In Germany, Allan Partis, a Belizean who is enlisted in the US military and based in Germany, came out with his Garifuna drum. Others arrived at the performances with their Belizean and Central American flags or shirts that told the entourage that they had some link to Belize or the Garifuna culture.
An outpouring of love and acceptance
Even though it was a heartwarming experience for the group to connect with people of their own, it was also a motivating experience to be embraced by people outside their cultural and national domains.
Palacio said that these fans showed them “pure love.”
The audience was mostly comprised of adults, but Andy could not help but take note of the children who had gone with their family to the outdoor performance in Canada. For him, it was refreshing to see them jumping and skipping to the beat of the music.
“The music seems to speak for itself, but nothing seems to move [the audience] more than the message. The story behind the music accounts for perhaps half of the success of the music itself. When I do my introductions, I don’t just say this is Paul Nabor, but I tell them what he represents,” Palacio asserted. “He is a living legend of the oral tradition…and when this 79-year-old man walks onstage, the audience not only pays attention, the journalists and photographers swarm onstage to get the best view, capture a moment. That is usually the highlight. Nabor must be the most photographed person this touring season in Europe.”
Apart from the many pictorial memorabilia fans will have of Andy Palacio and the Garifuna Collective, they will also have cherished autographed memorabilia. Whereas autograph signing by famous Belizean artists is not a big thing at home, even when the energy was waning on tour, it was the least the musicians could have done in a show of love and respect for their fans.
A few critical travel mishaps
Palacio told us that one of the major differences between this recent tour and tours he had done in the past was the high level of professionalism in the way the entire tour was organized. However, the journey was not without its share of mishaps, and a one-day delay in returning home.
These mishaps were of the most worrying nature, however, since they involved instruments that are the very essence of the Garifuna soul sound.
First, British Airways lost the segunda (a Garifuna drum) and broke Joshua’s primero drum. It was not until hours before their first show in Slovenia that they got the segunda returned.
Then, when Ryan Air was carrying them from Paris, France, to Dublin, Ireland, they refused to let the musicians carry their fragile instruments, such as guitars, on to the plane with them, as other airlines allow them to do. They were charged 30 Euros (about 80 Belize dollars) for each instrument and forced to sign a paper saying that the airline would not be responsible for them. It so turns out that a guitar broke while being transported.
“I won’t fly them again,” Palacio declared.
Proud moments and more possibilities
Despite these few misfortunes, the entire seven week tour in North America and the UK has been a great one for the group, but more than that, the whole of Belize has earned wider international acclaim from their being in the spotlight.
“Belize can be proud of its musicians. We’ve always known that we have great Belizean talent, and we’ve proven it. With Al Obando, Josh, Chi, Perrote, these guys hold their own with the best of them in the world. A Garifuna primero player from Belize could be on par with a seasoned jazz pianist from Chicago, just skilled in different instruments,” Palacio observed.
“We could truly be proud of our boys. More opportunities are opening up, because the [Garifuna] Collective has to grow. We’ll be looking out for alternate musicians, in case someone can’t make it on tour. We need somebody else that we can call. With the release of the Garifuna women’s CD [Umalali], we will be looking for more people to back the project. Some members of the Garifuna women’s project will be touring with the collective in the fall when I go up to receive the WOMEX award,” he further explained.
As we have recently reported, Andy Palacio and his producer, Ivan Duran of Stonetree, were selected for this year’s WOMEX Award, which he holds as a great honor.
The award will be presented in Seville, Spain, on Sunday, October 28, 2007, when the group makes a grand appearance promoting the upcoming Umalali.
Andy resumes his tour on July 28 with an appearance at FloydFest in Floyd, Virginia. But before then, he hopes to spend some quiet time in his village, Barranco, Toledo, where he hopes to unwind from the buzz of his first international tour in four years.