Luaka Bop is the brainchild of Talking Heads frontman David Byrne. Together with Peter Gabriel's
Real World label, these two companies are largely responsible for the growing "World Music" popularity in the 90's. Nowadays every record shop has a "world music" section, and Cuban music in particular has become very popular since the release of the
Buena Vista Social Club record and documentary in 1996. But back when this compilation was released, Cuban music was mostly known to the West through the influence of the Cuban diaspora on the salsa scene of Miami and New York. Anyone not trying to defect from Cuba was a suspected communist, so how can their music be any good? - tellingly, the previous installment in the series was titled
Dancing With The Enemy. The compilers try to rise above such prejudice and set politics aside, after offering some token anti-communist remarks to appease their American audience e.g. writing about this being a "time of tremendous suffering" for Cubans when somehow they produce some of the most joyous music in the world. Or, while talking about the Metallica-influenced band Zeus, they inform us that being in a Metal band in Cuba isn't easy. At that point one thinks of persecution, jail etc. - but they just mean that Metal musicians aren't salaried employees of the state and have to practice
after they come home from their dayjobs. So how does the rest of the CD fare, being as it is the work of salaried employees of a Communist totalitarian state? Quite well, actually. A lot of the music here is influenced by the
Santería tradition, a local mix of West African animism and Roman Catholicism with deep roots in Cuba. While the regime officially takes a negative stance against religion in general, they have been tolerant of the Santería folklore as a component of the Cuban national identity, so the Afro-American traditions were rekindled rather than suppressed - the opposite of what happened in countries where the Catholic church remained in power. So NG La Banda's "Que Viva Chango!" (a cover of Celina González's classic hit) is dedicated to the African (Yoruba) God of lightning and thunder, and Lazaro Ros' "
Ikiri Ada" starts with an incantation to Ogun, the God of Iron and patron of hunters and blacksmiths. Both these songs (indeed most of the tracks on this album) are classic Afro-Cuban dance tunes, but there's a reason this compilation is subtitled "New Directions In Cuban Music", it's not all salsa-like dance grooves. For example, "
Congo Yambumba" (a devotional song from the Congolese Palo Monte tradition rather than the dominant Yoruba one) is sung a capella by a group of youngsters called Grupo Vocal Sampling. Síntesis (a veteran band that started as prog rockers and have always been on the musical vanguard) play traditional African ritual songs with a modern manner: "Asoyin" features synths, electric guitars and an electronic beat instead of the "sacred" batá drums. Other styles that diverge from the Latin dance direction are the speed metal of the aforementioned Zeus, reggae of Los Blues, and the balladry of Carlos Varela (here with a live recording of satirical protest folk "Guillermo Tell"). Saving the best for last, we get a couple of bonafide hits: the Latin funk "El Baile del Buey Cansao" by Cuban superstars Los Van Van, and "Bacalao con Pan", a 1974 hit for Irakere, successfully bridging Afro-Cuban jazz and popular dance music. Irakere members like the pianist Chucho Valdés, saxophonist Paquito D'Rivera, and trumpeter Arturo Sandoval (who later relocated to the U.S) have subsequently followed illustrious and award-studded careers as jazz soloists and band leaders. As a whole, the CD makes for pleasant listening until the last (metal) song kicks in. Nothing wrong with the song itself, it just feels totally out of place and kind of destroys the mood. As an overview of modern Cuban music, this album fulfilled a need at its time but now sounds too traditionalist and outdated. It'd be nice if someone put out a more current and varied compilation out there.
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