Musicians Reflect their Roots in Lumbalú

 

by Washington Quezada

( lu =collective, mbalu = melancholy in the Bantu Africana language)

Lumbalu are the funeral ritual chants used by the community of African descent in San Basilio de Palenque in Northern Colombia.

With this same name, there is also a musical group founded in 1984 by a group of young people interested in their roots. The members of Lumbalú started a field study of traditional music and dances from the Afro-Colombian communities on the coasts of their country. Learning from the masters, they began making their own presentations, and thanks to the support of the people who listened to them, they became a musical group on their own. Already with the name of Lumbalú, they recorded their first album, “Fandango Alegre,” in 1993, and in 1997 the second one called, “Balada de un tambor sobre el mapa del caribe.” read more

La Chilena and the Dancing Bull

by Lindajoy Fenley

April 9, 2011

Most tourists in Mexico never go south of Acapulco, but that’s the beginning of the Costa Chica, a little-traveled region I had long dreamt of exploring. Last December, I finally went, spending two weeks searching for musical traditions unique to the region along the Pacific Coast of Guerrero and Oaxaca states.

At the end of my first-ever sojourn into the region, I regretted not seeing the flirtatious chilena dance more than once. I had been too shy to take out my camera the first day of my trip when I had happened upon a small roadside celebration where women danced the chilena. I thought I’d see the dance again, but hadn’t. As I left the region, I stopped in Chilpancingo, the capital of Guerrero, to see a pre-Christmas parade of music and dance each year that attracts musicians and dancers from throughout the state. read more

Chico State Spanish Major Examines Language in Music Musical Linguistics

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by Alfredo Oropeza

Since I was a small child I have loved music. It didn’t matter what kind of music it was or where it came from; if it was something that sounded interesting to me and had good rhythm, I would play it. Thanks to the Spanish linguistics class that I took at Chico State, I have learned new things about the music I love.

For instance, now that I have studied the varieties of Spanish spoken throughout the world, I can differentiate between a Caribbean and an Argentinean singer. It fascinates me how I have been able to combine something that I’ve learned in a linguistics class with the pastime that I love so much: listening to music. read more

Jtatic Samuel’s Legacy

Samuel Ruiz

by Ana Luisa Anza

Samuel Ruiz was known as the Bishop of the Indians and became a symbol of struggle for oppressed people in Chiapas, Mexico. Ruiz, who died Jan. 24, came originally from the Catholic Church’s conservative diocese of León, Guanajuato, in the central part of México.

Everything indicated that he would follow the path of an extremely conservative Church. But the social upheavals of 1968, as well as new streams of thought that emerged within the Catholic Church, influenced him considerably and he opted to work — like Church bishops Hélder Cámara in Brazil and Óscar Romero in El Salvador — with the poor. read more

Afromestizo Musical Tradition Falters

In her third in a series of reports from Mexico, Lindajoy Fenley explores the Afromestizo traditions of southern Mexico’s Costa Chica that includes parts of the states of Guerrero and Oaxaca.


               video by Lindajoy Fenley

by Lindajoy Fenley

Silvestre Tiburcio Noyola is one of the few remaining son de artesa musicians on the Costa Chica of southern Mexico. I recently sat with Tiburcio in his front yard in the dusty town of San Nicolas Tolontino near Cuajinicuilapa, Guerrero, on Mexico’s Pacific Coast. “You don’t know my life story,” he said, and then, as if he could summarize it this way, he added, “In 2001, I won the Premio Nacional [the national award for science and the arts.]” read more

Fight for Records Access Scrutinized

by Leslie Layton

When Glenn County newspaper publisher Tim Crews gave a seminar in Chico on Saturday, he wore his standard fare — suspenders over a Sacramento Valley Mirror t-shirt. Had Crews worn a cautionary button on his lapel, it might have read: “Lie to me and I’ll ask for the goods.”

During the seminar at Cal Northern School of Law, “Getting Access to Public Records,” Crews mentioned that he hates being lied to. Incidentally, this is a man who can recite, by heart, sections of the California Public Records Act that gives citizens access to official documents. And he can recite the entire Ralph M. Brown Act, the state’s Open Meeting Law. read more