Umalali: The Garifuna Women’s Project produced by Ivan Durant
AfroPop: About 10 years ago, Belizian producer Ivan Duran was recording an album of male singers in the Afro-Central American, Garifuna tradition. He noticed that the women singing backup actually knew many more of the traditional Garifuna songs than the male stars. With that insight, Duran began collecting recordings, songs, ideas, and artists for what eventually became this album, a collection of women’s songs produced with a decidedly pop—rather than folkloric—aesthetic. Umalali is a companion to Watina, the brilliant and widely acclaimed 2007 release Duran produced for the most famous Garifuna singer, the late Andy Palacio. The band, the Garifuna Collective, is the same. And Duran uses the same creative, tasteful layerings of guitars, additional voices and percussion, and flavors from Afro-Latin, reggae, Afropop and other styles to arrive at superbly well-imagined roots pop.
