On October 9, as part of the Expressions Festivals hosted by the Aaron Davis Hall in New York City, the Caribbean Cultural Center presented the Colombian folk ensemble Totó La Momposina y sus tambores. Totó, whose real name is Sonia Bazanta, was born in the town of Mompós, a colonial Village founded in 1540 on an island in the Magdalena River. The mixed race-descendants of Native Americans, Spaniards, and Africans who escaped slavery populated this important region. Isolation and social marginalization made it possible for them to keep alive many ancestral oral traditions, songs, dances, and rhythms. Toto’s music reflects her native region’s rich heritage--from the percussive energy of African rhythms, to the lyrical language of Spain, to the mystical sounds of Colombia’s indigenous peoples. Perhaps one of the most memorable moments in her long history was when Gabriel García Márquez brought her with him to Stockholm to perform during the ceremony in which he received the Nobel Prize for literature. After the concert in New York, Clave had a chance to dialogue with Totó.

Clave: Totó, why the emphasis on traditional music from Colombia?

Toto: Well, traditional music has a certain characteristic that I believe is universal the world over; it comes from tradition. It’s not that we’ll just form a group that plays traditional music–it’s a heritage we have in the family; we’re all musicians. My mother is a singer and all the musicians who are here come from a musical tradition, or know that to truly make traditional music, the first factor must be to truly want to. That’s fundamental, because this kind of music is expressing the sentiments of a people, and the people belong to the Earth, and the Earth produces the elements for the music. Because of that, the melodies are very beautiful and complex, but the improvisations always speak about love, about everyday life, about social problems, and because of that, traditional music has the characteristic that if one is going to put a group together to play it, the group must be formed with the intention of conserving traditional music. We

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have the structure in place to conserve it, but even so, we are well aware that we have to protect traditional music because traditional groups are finding their own space, for which they have time. They find this, which is like […] because people already recognize it, it’s the same for the whole world, for Colombia, for where ever […] because, what is successful right now in Colombia, they are working to organize themselves in their little towns, each one collaborating where they can because this is our mission. Anyway, I think it’s evident in this situation; it’s evident that we do this music because we love it and because it’s our mission.

Clave: You, like many groups of the Atlantic whom we’ve seen, are also part of a "renaissance" movement of folkloric Colombian music that hasn’t been seen in many years.

Totó: Well…we’ve been doing this work for over thirty years [?]…When I started singing, people told me that this music didn’t exist! [Laughs.] They said: "Where in the world is this music from?" That includes people like maestro Lucho Bermúdez who said to me one day: "Where is this music from? Because it comes from another school, from a school of music that I studied back in the United States." He was a very wealthy person, "acomodado," as we say in Colombia, and he had different ideas about music. But the roots of this music are from the towns […] and from people who are in the fields, and it is really a style of music that, until recently, people had no idea existed. But those of us who knew of it then began to work with it, and that is why there is now that movement in Colombia. We’re like the pioneers of that movement.

Clave: Are there other groups who follow this tradition?

Totó: Of course, there are groups in all the towns, because this is really a comprehensive movement. It has to be that way since traditional music can’t come from the city into the fields–it moves from the fields into the city.

Clave: We’re very impressed to see that the members of the group are so young.

Totó: That’s the mission. What’s important is that the youth learn so that the tradition doesn’t die. For my part, from my family, I have a niece who is also a singer. She learned music differently because she lives in England. She plays the piano, knows the songs, and sings very well. She knows that this is the music that she’s going to sing, and she has further educated herself. My own son plays the drums in our group, because that’s what’s family for all of us, it’s not invented. We’re going to make him an artist so he can become famous! [Laughs.]

Clave: You’ve influenced many people within and outside of Colombia. How important for you is the question of the African influence in Latin America?

Totó: Well, you know, that music…we "primitive" people have the music of the Indians. What happened, though, was that the Indians–when the Africans (the Black slaves – because both were under equal conditions, both were slaves) arrived–associated with them, and this association is clear in the music. The mutual love, the musical coupling, it’s clear in the music–it’s felt and it’s evident that there wasn’t any power struggle. What there was, was understanding, and because of that, the harmony you hear between the drums, and the gaitas (native woodwinds) and [bailes cantados], together with the dress–because the dress is Spanish–it’s all a combination and union of cultures. Take for example, African music–it’s the percussion part. If you consider the heart, it’s percussive, and the rhythm of our stomachs is percussive. If we clap our hands–that’s percussive. And this percussion is accompanied by certain traditional elements, elements that the Earth produces–the trees, bancos, which are special trees, the animals–and this is what the Africans contributed. And those Africans–we can’t say that they don’t exist--in Colombia right now, we have a population of 20 million black people, which is quite a substantial population considering that we populate both coasts. […] It’s the same as in Cuba, except that in Cuba, the music is different. Pirates did away with the Indians, so there was only African music imposed on European music. Our Colombian music mixed with the music of the indigenous peoples, because they weren’t totally annihilated, if you see the difference. As a result, you feel the softness of the music. The softness that you feel is in the drums, but you definitely feel it.

Clave: At the moment, Colombia is going through a rather thorny period in its history. A great deal of the music that you mentioned earlier – the transmission of a message, about being out and about in the towns, about the everyday life of the people – what is its role these days?

Totó: I have always thought that we’re like orphans, that we carry a flag, the flag of identity, and when you carry a flag you can’t be hunched over or hidden. You’ve got to carry it with pride and dignity. You lift up your face and show your flag, which is the identity of your town, and–because this is the greatest of all the problems that exist right now in Colombia--they are problems of a different nature. These days, we’re really suffering, but in time, we’re going to resolve those problems. We’re not going to cry about it; we’ve got to keep singing, because that’s life. If you are suffering, it’s because problems are arising precisely so you can resolve them. If you don’t have any problems, if you don’t fall down, you’ll never pick yourself up. But if you fall, you’ve got to stand up again.

Clave: Precisely. Of all the countries in Latin America, the ones with the deepest roots of South American and Caribbean folkloric music, the ones that have particularly impressed me–and this is a personal opinion–have been Bolivia and Colombia, and certainly Peru as well, because the popular support for folk music is very spread. It’s so much a part of the everyday life that a Colombian could be two thousand miles away from home and that support is still so strong that it attracts and moves and motivates him.

Totó: Right…

Clave: What do you think about that? To me that seems very important, because it signifies that the cultural movement of the country has got to be strong.

Totó: Well, the cultural movement of the country is one that each town undertakes, not the State. And each town undertakes it on the basis of its own intimate knowledge. When I started to sing, I took a trip along the entire coast – I have a record of thirty-two dances from a lot of towns where there was a great deal of expression and the moment we had the opportunity to move them, we did. Because that was the work of restructuring, the work of recovery. The drums were in [los azarsos (atrasos?)] , they were given away, pawned, they didn’t have the money, so all of this work took 15 years, and when you work at something for 15 years, one day you’ve got to see the results. I’m talking about the area of the Caribbean, but this area of the Caribbean propels all the rest of the cultural expressions that we as a group have. We’re protecting traditional music; we’re taking tiples and guitars – why? Because they won’t disappear and take with them the form of what you can do with traditional music. Traditional instruments have a certain presence and they aren’t dying because these days, people are feeling inspired to be part of the scene. It’s the same with [los borbandinos] and trumpets, and what’s done with gaitas, which are given other characteristics, different sounds which are neither Puerto Rican nor Cuban. If it’s not a totally different sound, then at least it shows the feeling of a town, since you know that we Colombians are really a mixture of everything. You can find influences from the Germans, the Italians, the French, the English, the Arabs, the Asians, the indigenous people – right now we have 350 languages or it’s known that there are 350 indigenous tribes, so all of these things show themselves.

Clave: All of those influences have to appear in an overall sound with generally melodious parameters because people say – What good is this? And then begin to investigate and find among many sounds, many expressions a whole continent. Because really, America is a continent that has only one heart – but a lot of sounds! [Laughs.]

That gives you a lot to think about, because that’s exactly the ideological basis for the organization of cultural movements. It’s because of that that we want to ask the question. For us immigrants, it’s a fundamental part of what sustains us.

Totó: Absolutely.

Totó: At least for me. I was in a hotel once, and I said to the woman that I wanted to change rooms because I couldn’t see the sun. Where are you from? –I asked. From Panama, she responded, and I said: Look, Señora, you’re not going to see the sun here [Laughs.] This place is beautiful, but we have the sun in our hearts and this is true in our music, in how we dress, and how we dance…