At the beginning of 2020, the Peruvian singer Susana Baca was preparing a new album. The rehearsals progressed at a good pace, the mix of sounds was contagious and the selection of songs followed the path of claiming Afro-Peruvian culture that she had started decades before, before becoming famous. However, the arrival of the pandemic stopped everything. After reflecting a lot, her husband proposed an alternative: record a record at her house without any kind of musical accompaniment. The result was the surprising A capella: Recorded at home during the quarantine, with which she infrequently began the celebrations of her fifty-year career.
This album became a rarity in her discography and, as they say, we must take a journey back in time to discover the musical and cultural influence of this legendary singer. Susana Baca was born in 1944 in the coastal neighborhood of Chorrillos, on the outskirts of Lima, where descendants of black slaves have lived since the days of the Spanish empire. During her childhood, she listened to the radio and watched Mexican movies that featured great Cuban rumberos and musicians, such as Pérez Prado and Benny Moré. In addition, her father played the guitar, her mother danced, her aunts sang, and her cousins ??were part of Peru Negro, an emblematic music and dance group. Despite growing up in such a musical environment, she decided to study education and graduated as a teacher in 1968.
His priorities were very clear then, but the music never stopped and acquired a more vindictive dimension, in keeping with the turbulent times in Latin America. In his student days he formed an experimental group that combined poetry and singing, and began acting after receiving scholarships from the Institute of Modern Art of Peru and the National Institute of Peruvian Culture. The barefoot image of him on stage and his torn voice did not go unnoticed by the public that frequented his concerts, until one day in 1970 when magic happened. As fate would have it, the influential Peruvian composer and singer Chabuca Granda crossed her path, who became her mentor and soulmate. Likewise, that initial stage was accompanied by unexpected successes, such as the first prize at the International Sweet Water Festival.
Her style was beginning to be recognizable and Chabuca Granda encouraged her to record an album, but the contract she had signed with the record company did not come to fruition after the death of her mentor in 1983. So, Susana Baca decided to combine her musical activity with the investigation of the Afro-Peruvian culture that she loved so much. Between 1989 and 1991, she and her husband traveled the coast of their country collecting testimonies from the population of African descent, following the example of those folklorists who had recovered centuries-old traditions all over the world. The material was compiled in a book entitled Del fuego y del agua in 1992 and that experience led the couple to create the Centro Experimental de Música Negrocontinuo, dedicated to the study of Afro-Peruvian music and dance.
From that moment on, music resurfaced stronger than ever. In 1995, his version of the song Maria Lando appeared on the Afro-Peruvian Classics: The Soul of Black Peru compilation released by Scottish musician David Byrne’s label. The reviews from the specialized press were enthusiastic and, two years later, he debuted with a self-titled album that included all the influences that had marked his career up to then. In the following decade he continued performing on the most prestigious stages in the world, recording such celebrated albums as Lamento negro (2001), with which he won the Latin Grammy for best folkloric album, and even collaborated with the group Calle 13 on the Latin American song from their album Entren los que quieran (2010), with which they won the Latin Grammy for Recording of the Year.
After editing Afrodiaspora in 2011, Susana Baca was appointed Minister of Culture of Peru, becoming the second Afro-Peruvian woman to hold the position. Nine years had to pass until she returned to the musical news again with the album recorded at her house during the quarantine and won the Latin Grammy for best folk album again. He is currently presenting his latest work, Palabras urgentes (2021), which is produced by Michael League (Snarky Puppy) and includes songs with long stories, such as La herida oscura by his friend Chabuca Granda and the successful 1937 tango Milonga de mis amores by Pedro Laurenz.
Susana Baca’s European tour will stop at the Jamboree venue in Barcelona on July 29, a unique opportunity to enjoy the short distances of this singer who has turned her performances into a tool of poetic protest and who values ??more than ever the importance of being the heir to artists who sang for freedom, social equality and the end of racism.
