Cyrille,Dominique (Author), Gidal,Marc Meistrich (Author), and Vaughan,Umi A. (Author)
Format:
Book, Section
Publication Date:
2009
Published:
Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
Explores the relationships between music, religious affiliations, and difference. The primary case study is the multi-ethnic, multi-class Afro-gaucho religious community in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The local term Afro-gaucho calls attention to African descendents in the region and their efforts to valorize their contributions to gaucho culture. Since a majority of the estimated 40,000 worship houses practice three religions (Batuque, Umbanda, and Quimbanda), participants use music to help segregate and mix the religions and their denominations.
Chabela Ramírez, the black singer and activist born in Montevideo in 1958, is a singular personality of candombe, the only multi-form Afro-Uruguayan musical genre. Retracing her trajectory leads us through the history of Uruguay's black community (10% of the total population) and candombe, with particular attention on how this musical expression went from devalued practice to national heritage in a country deeply marked by a Eurocentric ideology. Ramírez founded and gave voice, with Afrogama, the choir and dance group that she leads, to a unique aesthetic thought that brought meaning to candombe via the field of Afro-religions (Umbanda and Batuque).
