In 1987, a compilation of Central American Garifuna music, or punta rock, was recorded in Andy Palacio's Sunrise Recording Studio and released to great acclaim. It featured the unique sound created by Garifuna communities, mainly in Belize and Honduras. Palacio was the big star of punta rock, a popular style in the Caribbean and Central America.
The Garifuna people are a mix of Carib, African (mainly from Nigeria via Jamaica) and Spanish; they were originally known as the "black Caribs" of St Vincent Island. Fiercely independent, they developed a sound based on their triple cultural heritage and rooted in traditional styles like paranda.
Punta rock was well known in the region but not internationally; that changed in 1989, when a cover of the single Bikini Panti found its way onto global dancefloors.
By the early 1990s, Palacio had become the musical icon of punta rock. He made a career switch in 1995, when he joined a local record label initiative Stonetree Records (set up by Ivan Duran to record Garifuna women and their music) and began to focus on developing a more acoustic, roots-based Garifuna style, often with the wonderful harmonies from the Garifuna Women's Project.
Palacio released two excellent albums in the 1990s -- Keimon and Til Da Mawnin -- but it was his 2007 release Watina that topped World Music charts and became known as his masterpiece (it is a must for your record collection). Sadly, Palacio died of a stroke in 1998 at the young age of 47.
One of his collaborators, Aurelio Martinez from Honduras, then stepped up to fill the void left by Palacio's death and became Garifuna culture's musical ambassador.
I narrowly missed seeing Martinez at the Rainforest World Music Festival in Sarawak, Malaysia, some years ago when he cancelled at the last minute. He was one of the main reasons I went to the festival that year, so I was disappointed. But you can hear his lilting, moving music on several wonderful albums. He appeared on an early Stonetree compilation, Paranda, on the traditional roots of Garifuna and he supported Palacio on Watina.
Then, in 2004, Martinez released Garifuna Soul on Stonetree and international audiences began to take note; by this time, he was touring internationally. The success of Garifuna Soul garnered a contract with World Music label Real World Records, leading to the hugely successful Laru Beya album in 2011, which is a must-have album and routinely regarded as one of the best Latin American albums of the 21st century.
Sadly, Martinez died in a plane crash on March 17. Garifuna music and culture has lost a second cultural ambassador prematurely. Honduras lost a national icon as Martinez was not just a musician from 2006 to 2010, he was a member of the Honduran National Congress, the first Afro-Honduran elected to parliament.
You can find most of the music featured in this column at websites like Bandcamp. If you haven't come acrss Garifuna music, and the work of Palacio and Martinez, I highly recommend you star with Watina by Palacio and either Garifuna Soul or Laru Beya by Martinez.
New record releases continue with some fascinating new albums. Riding high on the Transglobal World Music Charts for May 2025 is Songhoy Blues' new album Heritage (Transgressive).
Since their debut album Music In Exile was released as in 2015, the band has focused on a rock oriented Malian sound as can be heard on Resistance (2017). They were nicknamed a "desert blues" band (a limiting label first given to Ali Farka Toure) and have toured the planet for a decade, appearing at festivals worldwide (including Wonderfruit in Thailand).
The new album features the band's acoustic sound, which is much closer to Malian traditional music. Highly recommended.
John Clewley can be contacted at clewley.john@gmail.com.
