Ay Ae Sankofa Ay Ae Sankofa

After jamming together a whole weekend in Venice at Oscars Murillo´s exhibition “A Storm Is Blowing From Paradise” and a following invitation to bless the SAVVY house in Berlin, we are happy to share with you the recordings we made together with this spectacular group of musicians from Mar, Río y Cordillera. A constellation of about 20 singers, musicians, and percussionists from the Valle del Cauca region of Colombia, and across generations, they bring us traditional music from the Colombian Pacific, which is home and connector for and to the African Diaspora. Their instruments are the Colombian marimba, which resembles the African balafon; guasá, typically made from bamboo and filled with light seeds or rice; as well as maracas, drums, and wind instruments. Their repertoire covers the rich knowledges, beats, and vibrations circulating within the Bullerengue sentado, Bullerengue Chalupa, Bullerengue Fandango, Peregoyo, Puya, Currulao, Bambuco, Cumbia, Gaita corrida, Puya, and Merengue.

This jam session echoes our recent collaboration with Oscar Murillo in Venice where we reverberated with his exhibition “A Storm Is Blowing From Paradise” through an INVOCATIONS programme of diverse tones, marks, gestures, frequencies, and temporalities – together listening to the incantations and readings of our past, present, and shared futures. We give thanks for the families, new and old, we encounter on our paths!

FEATURING  Lucio Murillo Asprilla, Emildo Granja Bonilla, Rufina Hurtado De Garcia, Maicol Estiben Castro Granja, Modesta Hurtado Granja, Jose Carlos Largo Granja, Didier Ferney Vente Grueso, Diego Mauricio Velez Londoño, Laura Marcela Asprilla Lopez, Nicolas Acevedo Palacios, Luis Alfonso Pino Ramírez, Angie Marieth Rengifo Peña, Ana Liza Albornoz Rivas, Milay Mosquera Rodriguez, Natali Sanchez Murillo.

Recording and editing Amuleto Manuela with support by Lynhan Balatbat-Helbock and Lia Milanesio