Casa Paoli's

Notes on the African influence in Puerto Rican music

       by Emanuel Dufrasne González

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The African presence in Puerto Rico has been occurring for quite a long time, if you consider that many Spanish immigrants to Puerto Rico were originally from Seville and nearby areas: Seville and Lisbon were the two Western European cities with the largest African populations. About ten percent of the population of Seville was of African origin during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. These Africans were called ladinos because they spoke either Spanish or Portuguese, neo-Latin or Romance languages.

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Puerto Rico has many musical genres that display a more or less African influence. If you ask any Puerto Rican what Puerto Rican music is more African, he or she may very probably say: bomba y plena. Bomba is distinct from plena. They are different genres but they share traits: often bomba songs are interpreted as plenas. 

One example of a plena is the following composed by Flor Morales Ramos (Ramito, 1915-1990):

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¡Qué bonita bandera, 

qué bonita bandera, 

qué bonita bandera 

 es la bandera puertorriqueña! [refrain]

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The first verse is repeated twice. The fourth and last verse of this refrain completes the statement and is metrically longer. These characteristics are present in Angolan music.

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Since 1979 musical ensemble Paracumbé has cultivated plena and bomba in traditional and nontraditional fashions. It has been several decades since, by the initiative of Nelie Lebrón Robles, the ensemble replaced heterophonies[1] with particular harmonies for the vocal parts, usually the refrains.

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In plenas, hand drums (panderos) are used to perform different but simultaneous and interlocking rhythms that produce the multipart complex that is so characteristic of plena. A gourd scraper (güiro, güícharo or carracho) is part of the ensemble. It sounds very similar to the Ekonda boyeke and the Angolan dikanza. A large lamellophone of African origin may be used. It is called marimbola. Plenas may include stringed instruments such as Puerto Rican cuatro, Cuban tres, guitar, bass and accordeon, among other possibilities.

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These instruments are also employed in African nontraditional musical genres. Puerto Rican string instruments may be reminiscent of their African counterparts. 

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Hand drums as well as bomba drums are played with bare hands. This makes possible the production of sounds with different timbres on each drum. The drummers derive diverse sounds by striking the drumhead in different areas. Simultaneous rhythms are produced on drums with distinct tunings. Multipart complexes are characteristic to plena and bomba. Plena and bomba events can be quite loud. All these characteristics are very African.

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Bomba drums are similar to other drums in the Caribbean area. Garífuna[2] garaon are similar in functions and sonority, but they are made in completely different ways. The garaon are made from sections of hollowed tree trunks. Bombas are made from empty barrels that, in yesteryear, may have contained products such as codfish, bacon or rum. There is no need to hollow a section of a tree trunk because barrels are already hollow. These containers are made of wood staves maintained by the pressure of metal hoops along the length of the barrel. The drums of the Anlo-Ewe (atsimevu, sogo, kidi and kaganu) of Togo and Benin are also constructed with wooden staves under pressure with metal hoops.

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Another of bomba’s affinity with African performance is the relation between the dancer or dancers with the motifs beaten on the lead drum, rhythms that convert visible dance steps into audible drumming patterns. The lead drummer traces the dancer’s steps and movements with ingenious outbursts of rhythms. Other simultaneous but constant drumming patterns constitute danceable and irresistible basis for improvisations of the dancers and the lead drummer. Dancers portray their stamina, coordination and talents while the lead drummer produces sounds that coincide with the dance steps. This phenomenon is also found in Africa and in Afro America. 

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Paracumbé has had many opportunities to alternate and to perform together with other distinguished ensembles that cultivate and portray their own Afro American music and dance traditions. We have shared our music with brothers and sisters from Belize, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Kenya, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Uganda and the United States, among others. 

 

 

 

[1] Heterophony is a musical texture where multiple voices or instruments play the same melody at the same time, but with slight variations. The variations can be in rhythm, tempo, or embellishments

 

[2] The Garifuna are a people of mixed free African and Amerindian ancestry that originated in the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent and traditionally speak Garifuna, an Arawakan language.