As an assistant coach in the nineties to one of Belize’s most successful sporting franchises, the Raiders, I received one of my most important foundation lessons from my father, who was the owner of the team. My father’s message was simple: “We prepare with local ingredients, but we aspire for international achievements”. Although for the most part we were chiseled out of our opportunities on the regional and international scene, making sure our efforts were geared toward building what could be measured by global standards rewarded us with local success. Unfortunately, as a nation, our preparations in most disciplines have not had such lofty aspirations. Over the past twenty years or so we have been mired in straight-out mediocrity, if not a tragic spiral of deterioration. To make it worse, not only have we not set our expectations high, but we have also penalized those who have; and are very often guilty of not recognizing their great works. The true measure of achievement cannot be quantified by local dimensions; we live in an ultra-competitive world, where talent and potential need to be matched equally by our tenacity and efficiency, and a regard for international excellence.
In mid to late 2007, Belize had one of its rare breakthroughs to international acclaim when Andy Palacio and the Garifuna Collective’s Watina album soared to the top of the musical charts in Europe. Centuries of preserved traditions, culture and rhythms of the Garifuna people spilled out through its emissary, the artist from Barranco. In the Stonetree studios, Ivan Duran the scientist, as a researcher would with flasks and petri dishes, combined these rich elements with musical instruments, mixers and effects machines, into the stable and sweet molecules that struck the soul upon the release of Watina’s contents. As the story goes, the Watina success was not the child of chance or only talent; it was the product of pain and sacrifice. Like Albert Einstein required many years to bring space and time into its most stable equation form in the theory of relativity, so too did this effort to bring the elements of Barranco down to its final equations in Benque. The results speak for themselves. Global acclaim and accolades. The artist and the scientist ignited a musical phenomenon, and then sadly fate played its unkind hand, and far too soon we lost the artist at the peak of, not his climb, but his possibilities.
Earlier this week I visited Ivan at his laboratory in Benque, where “The Scientist of Sounds” is at it again. Ivan has only recently returned from Senegal, where he had been recording Honduran superstar Aurelio Martinez. On this project the Scientist is even more ambitious, as he attempts in his words to fulfill one of Andy’s dreams: to connect the Garifuna musical traditions to its genetic forebearer in West Africa. In his latest assimilation, Ivan attempts to pollinate the sounds of Aurelio with some of Africa’s best, including Senegalese musicians Orquesta Boabab, Super Etoille band from Dakar and Youssou N’dour, one of Africa’s greatest living artists who recorded a tribute song for Andy. Mix in elements from the Garifuna Collective and the Umalali women singers, and gargantuan anticipation is most natural and obligatory.
Though excited by his upcoming works, Ivan seems worried. “The Scientist” is troubled by loss of momentum, and presence of the predictable prejudices and cynicism. The Watina success has not been without its detractors and naysayers. The Watina success was not concocted by the former government, although that perception remains, and if one understands how partisan politics can kill the best of initiatives with its small-mindedness, you can understand the trouble that lurks if that is left unchecked. That does not mean that policy makers under the former administration did not play critical roles. As Ivan explains, and as was abundantly clear, the former director of NICH was on board fully and lubricated where he could. The unpopularity of the former administration should not, however, colour the magnitude of the accomplishment in the Watina album. To the best of my knowledge none of the former or present administrators can sing or produce an album worth putting in the garbage, much less putting in the record store. The tourism or sugar industry is not ignored because it made its ascent under a particular party. Accomplishment has to be the accepted currency. Looking around here, I believe Ivan Duran has a whole lot of this currency in his account. Until others earn some, I believe the scientist and his efforts should be treated as precious commodities. We can’t do anything more important to truly pay tribute to Andy Palacio than to value the Scientist and his lab.
Very often our biases prevail upon us— who we think our heroes should look like or come from. We often become uncomfortable with the origins, and unfortunately the class and in some cases the ethnicity, of those who emerge with world-class gifts. I believe there are undercurrents of resentment, and like a bogeyman, these lurk in the shadows, off radar, but immensely real and influential. The fact that a Garifuna Belizean star and a Belizean producer of European descent have combined to produce greatness is exactly the type of storyline that pays tribute to the unique and very special experiment that is the nation of Belize. It’s this type of fusion that represents our greatest potential.
On a sad note, Ivan told me about some difficulties he was having getting his Belizean passport renewed. Yes, Ivan Duran is getting the run-around. Only in Belize, my friends… I found it absolutely disheartening. I pray that this is the result of some oversight, and not a sign of any deeper disrespect in store. For sure such disrespect wouldn’t be a first, but we can no longer find excuses for our failure to exalt those who have been so blessed amongst us and to celebrate that they have elevated themselves by achievement, and they now soar high, taking with them the exotic aspects of our jewel to the galaxies out yonder. Their greatness is our greatness. Treat our heroes right, Belize.