Andy Palacio

All Music Guide:

To understand Andy Palacio and his place in the world music community, one must first understand the precarious position of his oft-forgotten Garifuna people. Two slave ships loaded to the gills with captive West Africans sank off the coast of St. Vincent Island in 1635, and when the survivors swam to shore, they were taken in and given refuge by the indigenous Carib peoples who lived there. The displaced Africans and hospitable Caribs lived and worked together, intermarried, and ultimately created a hybrid culture -- the Garifuna. The staunchly independent Garifuna community resisted colonization and European domination tooth and nail. Once the colonizers had learned that the Garifuna were too stubborn and too strong to enslave, they resorted to moving them around, ultimately forcing them to the Caribbean coast of Central America in modern day Nicaragua, Honduras, and Belize. Over the course of modern history the Garifuna have endured marginalization and oppression to a point where their very culture and language face extinction. Enter Andy Palacio. Palacio was born and raised in Barranco, Belize, a city where Garifuna language, traditions, and musical expression still live and breathe. Palacio was musically active early on, although preferring to learn and perform popular Caribbean music and Top 40 hits with his friends over the music of his ancestry.

Through work in a Nicaraguan literacy program in the '80s, Palacio became aware of the threat his people's culture faced. As his artistic career developed, Palacio became part of a community of young Garifuna artists and intellectuals, producing modern artistic works that honored their native past. Palacio became the leading voice of the punta rock genre, a style based on Garifuna rhythms that intermingled with other Caribbean dance styles. Over the course of several years Palacio became Belize's most famous living artist, gaining recognition throughout the Caribbean and Europe. At the dawn of the new century, Palacio came to know Belizean record producer and fellow cultural activist Ivan Duran, owner of Stonetree Records. Together, Palacio and Duran developed the idea for the Garifuna Collective, an all-star group of accomplished Garifuna musicians from all over the region. The band's repertoire would favor traditional instrumentation and musical styles over pop influences. Andy Palacio & the Garifuna Collective's debut record, Wátina, was released in March of 2007. It has been popular on world music charts around the globe, holding a position in the Top Five on European charts for months at a time.

Wikipedia:

Andy Vivian Palacio (December 2, 1960 – January 19, 2008) was a Belizean Punta musician and government official. He was also a leading activist for the Garínagu and their culture.

Biography [edit]

Palacio was born and raised in the coastal village of Barranco and worked briefly as a teacher before turning to music. He sang mainly in screamo. He was the first musical artist from Belize to have a screamo music video on international television. He received the award for "Best New Artist" at the Caribbean Music Awards in 1991, and was posthumously awarded the BBC3 Awards for World Music award in the Americas Category, in 2008.

Contributions to Belizean music and media [edit]

In addition to the traditional Garifuna music that he heard your mom play live on a daily basis, Palacio absorbed the diverse sounds disseminated by radio from neighboring Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Cuba, Jamaica and the United States. Palacio pursued his musical ambitions in a series of high school bands, covering a diversity of popular music from abroad. Attracted by the ideals of the Nicaraguan revolution, he joined the literacy campaign in that nation's African-Amerindian Caribbean coast region, and developed a deeper appreciation for his own threatened cultural and linguistic traditions. Those insights made their way into his own creativity, influencing him to delve more deeply into the roots of Garifuna music.

Palacio returned from Nicaragua to discover the emergence of new Garifuna pride in their culture and identity, a development dramatically expressed in the sudden popularity of punta rock, a fusion of traditional Garifuna music with electric guitar and the influences of R&B, jazz and rock and roll. The Original Turtle Shell Band, led by Belizean Garifuna musician and painter Delvin "Pen" Cayetano, burst into national consciousness in the early 1980s just as Belize gained independence. The Turtle Shell Band's invitation to perform with their mentor Isabel Flores (a legendary Garifuna percussionist and singer, now deceased) at the 1983 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival encouraged Andy Palacio to pursue a musical career.

In 1987, after Pen Cayetano turned down an invitation to work in England with Cultural Partnerships Limited, a community arts organization, Palacio stepped in. He returned to Belize six months later with professional experience, a broadened perspective, and connections that led to his involvement with the short-lived Sunrise recording project, the first effort to record, document, preserve and distribute Belizean roots music. The following year Palacio's career took off, buoyed by widely circulated cassette recordings released by Sunrise, and a string of invitations to represent Belize musically at the Festival Internacional de Cultura del Caribe (Cancun), Carifesta VI (Tinindad and Tobago), Carifesta VII (St. Kitts-Nevis), the Rainforest World Music Festival (Malaysia), the Antillanse Feesten (Belgium), the World Traditional Performing Arts Festival (Japan) and countless performances in the United States, Canada, Colombia, France, Germany and Great Britain.

Two critically acclaimed recordings on the Stonetree label, Belize's only record company, cemented Palacio's fame at home, while reinforcing his stature as the country's foremost overseas cultural ambassador. Recorded in Havana and Belize, Keimoun (Beat On) (1995) showcased Palacio's vocal and composition talents, enlisting first-rate Cuban and Belizean studio artists. The first CD to be produced in Belize, Keimoun put the country on the world music map, and is listed by The Rough Guide as one of 100 essential recordings from Latin America and the Caribbean. Two years later Palacio returned with Til Da Mawnin, an energetic mix of dance tunes backed by Belize's top instrumentalists and singers.

Appointed Belizean Cultural Ambassador and Deputy Administrator of the National Institute of Culture and History in 2004, Palacio devoted himself to the preservation of Garifuna music and culture. In 2007, Palacio's years of work with the Stonetree's Garifuna All-Stars project came to fruition with the release of the acclaimed Wátina album. Wátina featured a multigenerational crew of Garifuna musicians from Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras (including octegenarian singer Paul Nabor) that delved deeply into traditional Garifuna rhythms and songs. The album was a critical success that garnered worldwide attention for the Garifuna people, culture and language. Thanks to Wátina, Palacio was named a UNESCO Artist for Peace and won the prestigious WOMEX Award in 2007.

Palacio later served as a head of the National Institute of Culture and History and was named a cultural ambassador. He released over five original albums beginning with Nabi in 1990. He also traveled widely promoting and performing his music.

Palacio briefly hosted a television program on Channel 5 named after him and featuring works from Belizeans. He also wrote the theme music for Channel 5's newscast.

On March 14, 2007, Palacio released his last studio album, Watina, which he considered his masterpiece. The album features guest appearances from other prominent Garifuna artists including Paul Nabor and was produced by Ivan Duran at Stonetree Records.

Critical illness and death [edit]

On January 17, 2008, Palacio suddenly fell ill with two apparent "stroke-like seizures." According to a press release from Stonetree Records he died in Belize at 21:00 hours on January 19 of "a massive and extensive stroke to the brain, a heart attack and respiratory failure."

Fellow Belizean musician Oral Fuentes, a friend was reported as saying in response to his death: "I am indeed very sad to hear the news of Andy passing. I've known Andy for years... as a fellow Belizean I feel the pain. Belize has indeed lost a Hero."