We have arrived at our second stop in our search for the musical gold of the Americas and it is quite a contrast to Argentina. From the pampas to the swamps, from one of the continent's largest countries to the second smallest in terms of both size and population. Welcome to Belize.
Squeezed into a corner between Mexico and Guatemala and 750 miles due west of Jamaica, the former British colony of British Honduras can offer the visitor delights such as a Barrier Reef, jungles and more than 450 islands. Apart from tourism the country makes its living from sugar, papaya and money laundering.
Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the main language and perhaps because of that much of the music I have dug up seems to my inexpert ears to have more in common with Jamaica and some other Caribbean countries than its mainland neighbours. But what do I know.
As far as indigenous music is concerned the best known is probably the punta music of the Garifuna, a people of mixed African and Amerindian ancestry who have a minority presence in several countries in the region - in Belize they account for around 5% of the population. The interest in Garifuna music and culture will hopefully only increase following Tavo Man's Grammy nomination, the first for a Garifuna artist.
The man who did more than anyone to promote punta and Garifuna culture more broadly was the late Andy Palacio, whose 2007 album "Watina" found worldwide success and led to him being named a UNESCO Artist for Peace and winning the 2007 WOMEX Award. Sadly he died the following year aged only 48.
The track I have selected from Mr Palacio actually comes from an earlier album ("Keimoun" from 1994) but the narrative will stick with "Watina" for now. For that album he gathered together Garifuna performers from Belize and beyond. They became known as The Garifuna Collective and some of them went on to record another album without him under that name in 2013.
Among the members of the Collective was Paul Nabor, one of the premier exponents of paranda music (a sort of speeded up version of punta). Mr Nabor himself passed in 2014 at the rather riper age of 86. The only material of his I have been able to find is on a compilation called "Paranda - Africa in Central America". Some of the other folks on there are pretty nifty too.
As well as the Garifuna, Belize has a large creole population (roughly 25%) who enjoy nothing more than a bit of brukdown on a Saturday night. Brukdown is a sort of local version of calypso and mento with some call and response chucked in and the late Wilfred Peters MBE was the king. When Mr Peters strapped on his trusty squeezebox nobody could resist his blandishments. This track comes from 1997's "Weh Mi Lova Deh".
All the albums featured so far were released on the excellent Stonetree Music label based in Benque Viejo del Carmen in Belize, and you can find plenty more goodies on their Bandcamp site. But back in the day there was only one label in Belize, Compton Fairweather's C.E.S. In 2006 the good folks at the Numero Group put together a compilation of the best C.E.S. recordings under the name "Cult Cargo: Belize City Boil Up". It's fantastic.
I have selected two tracks from "Belize City Boil Up". The first comes from Lord Rhaburn and his Combo who have been stalwarts of the local scene since the 1960s. I am very pleased to report that the good Lord celebrated his 89th birthday earlier this year. The second comes from The Harmonettes, the brainchild of one Godfrey 'D-Mack' MacGregor. You can read a bit more about him and them here.
We are heading back to Stonetree Music for our penultimate selection, and it is highbrow stuff - some dub poetry courtesy of Leroy Young (aka The Grandmaster). Mr Young kindly provides a bit of a bio in the blurb accompanying his 2003 album "Just Like That", from which this track comes. He first made his name in the late 1990s when he used to be invited on to the local TV news every Friday, as explained in this clip from 2017.
We finish up with Bredda David Obi (or Bro David as he was known to the record-buying public of Belize). His debut album "No Fear" (1984) introduced what he considered to be a new sound that he called kungo, but it sounds remarkably like Mandatory American Reggae to me. Either way it is good stuff and you might want to invest in "Modern Music From Belize" which contains highlights from "No Fear" and Bro David's other early albums.
"Mafiougati" - Andy Palacio
"Náguya Nei" - Paul Nabor
"Bilhine Mibak Dehn Taak" - Mr. Peters
"Disco Connection" - Lord Rhaburn Combo
"Can't Go Halfway" - The Harmonettes
"Same Script, Different Cast" - Leroy Young
"Experience" - Bro David
We start the videos with a little bit of politics and history from Cocono Bwai and his good friend Shamrock. Apologies to our many Guatemalan viewers for any offence caused.
The influences in that Paulo Nabor track are remarkable, if I just heard it with no knowledge of origin I would have placed it in southern Africa
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