Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/24995
tJ�- rl [ echo against the concrete, they lose their feeling, so you kinda have to take it as it is. IN WORKING SO CLOSELY WITH THESE PEOPLE'S TRADITION AND RITUAL, DID YOU EVER FIND YOURSELF STEPPING ON TOES? While filming the Sons of Gandhi fraternal organization in Bahia, I invited the candomble priestess Zeze to join myself and others in dancing. She did, and got a stern warning reminding her, and us, that dancing was for men only. I was at fault for inviting her, but she should have known bet ter as an inhabitant of the city. I GUESS EVERYONE HAS THEIR OWN IDEAS ABOUT HOW THEIR CULTURE SHOULD BE PRESENTED. People come to the U.S. and they realize that in their country there are great artists, writers ... there may be great classical artists, like in Me>\ico. Yet they keep hearing that their country is backward and Third World. All people are interested in is their primitive music. Now black Peruvian music isn't primitive. It's music of the people, but not any easier to play than a symphony. But you can see people getting tired of being seen as the source of this exoticism. DO YOU THINK THAT ANY ENDEAVOR TO RELATE TO ANOTHER CULTURE FROM THIS ONE IS DOOMED TO THAT KIND OF PATRONIZATION? In 1995, with Luaka Bop recognized as a quirky leader in world music recordings, Byrne was sent some Afro-Peruvian records by a Spanish journalist. Far from the traditional Andean flute and drum music normally associated with Peru, the Afro Peruvian rhythms were a dense, soulful mixture of Spanish poetry, flamenco and African beats. A fact-finding mission to Lima followed. The music lof the black Peruviansl has gotten kind of popular, so it's played in the hip, bohemian-type clubs-like the Bleecker Street of Lima. The communities where the music originated, where it's played around the house, are outside Lima, to the south and along the coast ... Nobody would naturally go to those places, unless someone took you there. SO THIS BLACK MUSIC HAS CROSSED OVER INTO THIS HIP REALM, IT SOUNDS LIKE HOW ROCK 'N' ROLL WAS APPROPRIATED HERE. A little ... you could compare it to the blues. In the sixties, the blues was close to dying out, then British rock bands sta rted playing it and people would say, You gotta hear the original guys, which gave work to Chicago bluesmen. In Peru, a similar kind of thing happened, and it was repopu larized by people who often weren't black, or weren't raised in those communities. That brought out the Afro-Peruvian artists . WHAT KIND OF PEOPLE WOULD GO OUT TO HEAR AFRO-PERUVIAN MUSIC? Mixed. Black Peruvians and Creole people, mostly. Then other times it was more a student crowd. We went to an outdoor performance in a park in downtown Lima that was mostly chicha bands. Chicha is kind of Andean/cumbia/surf music ... lt was a whole festival of these bands, in cel ebration of May Day, I think. That was a real working-class crowd. We had to push a bit to get our Peruvian friends to go to that one, because that kind of music doesn't have any of the hip cachet that the Afro-Peruvian music does. It's kind of like going to Chicago, and rather than going to se� any of the blues players, you say, "I hear there's this great polka fes tival and I gotta see it ." They kinda frown at that. Not always. There are Latin rock bands that have songs that are equal to any thing that's happened here in the last ten years. Those bands are living in the same culture that we are-of MTV, commercials, rock 'n' roll-and they also have their own traditions, whether it's Argentine bands carryihg along mate cups and pots to make mate in their hotel rooms on Hollywood Boulevard. But now there are a lot of American bands traveling with espresso makers. You know, if you're in Kansas, you can't get any good coffee. So we take our machines along. SO MUCH OF YOUR OWN MUSIC INCORPORATES OTHER CULTURES' MUSICAL NOTIONS. DO YOU THINK THAT MUSIC IS A UNIVERSAL LAN GUAGE? I think that's total nonsense. Nobody likes all kinds of music. Some stuff does n't touch me at all. .. LIKE OPERA? I have a lot of trouble with most opera . I can't stand the singing ! Some of the tunes are nice, but it happens to be an extremely stylized kind of singing that I can't get behind. I've tried. At the same time, though, I think people can be open to other styles that are not in their native tongue, to musical structu res and forms and melodies vast ly different from the ones in their hometown. Some people say, "They're not hearin� the way the locals are. They'll never understand the subtleties, " which is true. But I don't think that's a problem. That misunderstanding is where the creative stuff happens.