Jairo Varela, Grupo Niche, and African Oral Traditions

• In Event: Black Aesthetics in Transnational Perspective: Music, Fashion, Politics

Abstract

In an interview with Celeste Fraser Delgado, Jairo Varela, the cofounder and musical director of the world-renowned salsa band Grupo Niche, Delgado and Varela had the following exchange: “When asked about the Colombian roots of Grupo Niche’s salsa sound, Varela answers adamantly: ‘There is no Colombian influence in my music. The influence is African.’ Varela does not mean the influence comes directly from the continent of Africa, however. He explains, ‘The melodies and the rhythms come from the African people where I grew up on the Pacific coast.’” In addition to the musical connection with Africa that Varela asserts, Varela evokes Africa in his lyrics, tells stories of the arrival of enslaved Africans in Colombia, and highlights the experiences of Afro-Colombians in Colombian society at large. Based on Varela’s strong identification with his African heritage, along with the storytelling in his songs, in this essay I examine his work as an extension of African oral
traditions. More specifically, Nina S. De Friedemann’s assertion that Afro-Colombians have used oral traditions to preserve and reconstruct history, as well as Cheryl L. Keyes’s concept of “cultural reversioning: the foregrounding (consciously and unconsciously) of African-centered concepts,” will serve as useful frameworks for examining Varela’s songs.

Author

• Luisa Marcela Ossa, La Salle University