5. “Las Caras Lindas (De Mi Gente Negra)” — An Ode to Blackness
Alana: There are things that people don’t talk about much in Puerto Rico. Things like sex education – not a frequent topic of polite conversation. The gender binary – also not something you’ll hear all about at the dinner table. But the topic that probably gets the most silence: is race. Many Puerto Ricans just don’t talk about it much. But we do sing about it. It shows up in love songs...like Piel Canela, a beloved bolero that’s been covered, y’know, A LOT...
[MUSIC - “Piel canela,” Felix Manuel Rodriguez Capó: “Ojos negros, piel canela, que me llegan a desesperar”]
Alana: Piel Canela literally means Cinnamon Skin.
Bárbara Idalissee Abadía-Rexach: Actually Piel Canela was written by the Afro-Puerto Rican musician Bobby Capó. He’s comparing a skin tone to what could be seen as an exotic spice, playing into a fetish about brown skin.
Alana: That is Bárbara Idalissee Abadía-Rexach, professor at San Francisco State University. Barbara also wrote a book called: Musicalizando la raza… Musicalizaing race...
Bárbara: The song “Piel canela” is the sexualization of this female body that is not completely Black, not completely white.
Alana: Bobby Capó also wrote another song, called “El Negro Bembón”-- that translates to the “The Thick Lipped Black Man”.
[MUSIC - “El negro bembón,” Felix Manuel Rodriguez Capó: “Mataron el Negro bembon, Mataron el negro bembón”]
Bárbara: In that song a Black man is killed just because he has thick lips--right? And when a Black cop shows up to investigate–
[MUSIC - “El Negro Bembón,” Felix Manuel Rodriguez Capó: “El guardia escondió la bemba y le dijo”]
Bárbara: He hides his own lips. So in this song, Black people and Black features are criminalized.
[MUSIC - “El Negro Bembón,” Felix Manuel Rodriguez Capó: “Eso no es razón, caballero”]
Alana: This one is “Carbonerito”, written by another Black composer, Peter Velazquez.
[MUSIC - “Carbonerito,” Peter Velásquez: “Yo me casé con una negra encantadora”]
Bárbara: Here, they talk about coal and a furnace, linking them to blackness: the song says-- “I married an enchanting Black woman, and since we are both as black as tires,”
[MUSIC - “Carbonerito,” Peter Velásquez: “Y como yo soy un negro color goma”]
Bárbara: “...our product came out black too.”
[MUSIC - “Carbonerito,” Peter Velásquez: “Nuestro producto salió negrito también.”]
Bárbara: So, songs like El negro bembón and Carbonerito use (e)stereotypes and belittle Black people -- even when they might be trying to be satirical. Then we have songs like Piel Canela that are just romanticizing and exoticizing people who are mixed race.
Alana: But, in all the Puerto Rican songs about race that Bárbara has come across, there’s ONE that she just… feels differently about…
[MUSIC - “Las Caras Lindas,” Ismael Rivera: intro]
Bárbara: In “Las Caras Lindas,” what you hear and feel is a deep love for blackness and Black people…
[MUSIC - “Las Caras Lindas,” Ismael Rivera: “Las caras lindas de mi gente negra”]
Bárbara: It is so simple and so direct: Las caras lindas de mi gente negra -- the beautiful faces of my Black folks!
Alana: This song was first recorded by salsa legend Ismael Rivera and it was written by Catalino Curet Alonso...Better known as Don Tite. Here he is cracking a self-deprecating joke during an interview on Puerto Rican TV on“El Show de Tommy” in 1980.
[ARCHIVAL - El Show de Tommy]
Tite: Como músico fui como sastre, un desastre.
Alana: Don Tite Curet wrote more than two thousand hits – yes, more than two thousand. Hit after hit for ALL-STARS like Celia Cruz.
[MUSIC - “Tengo el Idde,” Celia Cruz y Johnny Pachecho: “Si tu brujería me manda...”]
Alana: Cheo Feliciano
[MUSIC - “Anacaona,” Cheo Feliciano: “Anacaona, india de raza cautiva…”]
Alana: La Lupe
[MUSIC - “La Tirana,” La Lupe: “Según tu punto de vista....”]
Alana: Hector Lavoe
[MUSIC - “Periodico de Ayer,” Hector Lavoe: “Tu amor es un periodico de ayer...”]
Alana: And his genius was legendary, even among, well, other geniuses. For instance, there’s this story about renowned Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, you know, he wrote One Hundred Years of Solitude. Apparently, he said he was envious of one of Tite’s songs: Plantación Adentro. Márquez believed… that Tite had done in one song what had taken him a whole book to accomplish-- write the history of all Latin America. But “Las Cara Lindas” -- well this song is something else entirely. It's a love poem to a people. Bárbara told me that in “Las Caras Lindas,” Black people have the possibility of seeing and loving themselves.
Bárbara: When he says, “the beautiful faces of my Black folks”... it is not only for Puerto Ricans -- it is about humanity. It is about recognizing the beauty of blackness and Black people everywhere. He literally gives a face and humanity to Black people… perhaps he was singing to me and my family as well....
[MUSIC - Theme song]
Alana: From Futuro Studios and WNYC Studios, I'm Alana Casanova-Burgess, and this is La Brega. In this episode, Track 5: “Las Caras Lindas:” an ode to blackness.
I leave you now with Bárbara...
Bárbara: I was raised by a mother who was a hardcore salsa fan…and a father that still dreams of painting a mural of “el sonero mayor: Ismael Rivera'' in his backyard… So I'm pretty sure I heard “Las Caras Lindas” many times during my childhood back in the 80s. But I admit that I had never really paid full attention to its lyrics. Then in 2003, I was writing my master's thesis, and “Las Caras Lindas” reappeared. Listening, transcribing, analyzing it over and over, the song revealed a poem that not only celebrates the beauty of blackness but purposely separates it from prejudice and discrimination.
[MUSIC - “Las Caras Lindas,” Ismael Rivera: “Las caras lindas de mi gente negra…”]
Bárbara: The beautiful faces of my Black people. They are a parade of molasses in bloom.
[MUSIC - “Las Caras Lindas,” Ismael Rivera: “Son un desfile de melaza en flor…”]
Bárbara: And when I see them walk by,
[MUSIC - “Las Caras Lindas,” Ismael Rivera: “Que cuando pasa frente a mí se alegra…”]
Bárbara: My whole heart rejoices in its Blackness
[MUSIC - “Las Caras Lindas,” Ismael Rivera: “De su negrura todo el corazón…”]
Bárbara: When I finally took in the lyrics as an adult… this song compelled me to look inward and think about myself differently.
[MUSIC - “Las Caras Lindas,” Ismael Rivera: “Las caras lindas de mi raza prieta…”]
Bárbara: The beautiful faces of my dark skinned folks. They have tears, sorrow and pain
[MUSIC - “Las Caras Lindas,” Ismael Rivera: “Tienen de llanto, de pena y dolor…”]
Bárbara: These are the truths of life’s trials
[MUSIC - “Las Caras Lindas,” Ismael Rivera: “Son las verdades que la vida reta”]
Bárbara: But they carry, deep inside, so much love.
[MUSIC - “Las Caras Lindas,” Ismael Rivera: “Pero que llevan dentro mucho amor”]
Bárbara: In an interview on “El Show de Tommy” on Puerto Rican TV during the 80’s, Tite Curet was asked how he identified.
[ARCHIVAL - El Show de Tommy]
Tite Curet: Yo soy Antillano …
Bárbara: He did NOT say Puerto Rican-- he used the word Antillano -Antillean- to refer to himself as a person from the “West Indies”-- the Caribbean... and then he added:
[ARCHIVAL - El Show de Tommy]
Tite Curet: De visibles raíces africanas [laugh]
Bárbara: With clear african roots! Just as Don Tite called himself a "Black Antillean" first ... I also choose to call myself Black first—because of the ongoing interrogation about MY Puertoricanness. By people that deem my skin “too dark” to be Puerto Rican.
[MUSIC - Dreamy guitar]
Bárbara: I have experienced this type of prejudice during some visits to Old San Juan. Fellow Boricuas have asked me what island I come from, because of their first impression of my skin color. The thing is, here in Puerto Rico, a powerful myth about race still exists and it's held, for many, as gospel: that Boricuas are a racially perfect mix-- that every single boricua has some native taino, some white spaniard and some Black African in them. This myth didn’t come out of nowhere. It was intentionally created.
Back in the 50’s, Puerto Rican politicians wanted to frame Puerto Rico as mixed race and distance it from blackness to make it more attractive to US investors and the political elite. Puerto Rico was not Black! Calling myself Black is a way to resist the myth of “mestizaje.” The idea that we are racially harmonious-- you know, the “great Puerto Rican family”. When in reality, Black people have always been treated differently on this island. I see it everywhere, especially on the beloved beauty pageants where beauty is often equated with whiteness and the beauty of Blackness is always questioned and mostly absent. White bodies are privileged over Black bodies like Tite’s and mine...but in “Las Caras Lindas” this does not happen. In fact…it's kind of the opposite.
Juan Otero Garabís: “Las Caras Lindas” es el poema a la negritud. Más lindo y más profundo de Puerto Rico y cuida’o que de las Américas.
Bárbara: That’s Juan Otero Garabís, a writer and professor of Puerto Rican and Caribbean Literature at the University of Puerto Rico. For Juan, “Las Caras Lindas” is the most beautiful and profound poem written about blackness in Puerto Rico and the whole hemisphere.
Juan: Tite nunca le hizo una composición a la herencia española, no le interesaba.
Bárbara: Juan says Tite was never interested in writing about our “Hispanic white European heritage.” Instead he centered the stories of Caribbean natives and our African heritage.
[MUSIC - “Beachy lo fi beat]
Rubén Blades: Tite cared about the people around him. He cared about humanity.
Bárbara: That is the voice of Ruben Blades-- singer, composer, actor and writer-- he was also a backup singer on “Las Caras Lindas”…
Rubén: He wrote about society and, and not only describing what was happening, the unfairness of things that were happening, but also providing hope that we could, by confronting those realities, could change them for the better.
Hilda: Can you imagine being a girl that is in high school?I had my friends there with me and they say, listen, look, what Hilda's father wrote now. Of course, I felt very proud.
Bárbara: And that is Hilda Curet Velázquez, daughter of Don Tite… talking about how she felt when “Las Caras Lindas” became a hit… just one out of a flood of beautiful memories she has about her father.
Hilda: He was always busy with a book, with a tape recorder or with a piece of paper. Always writing with a pen or a pencil in his hands. And he always was singing, “soneando”, making the rhythm of the songs that he was gonna write.
Bárbara: But Tite’s road to songwriting was bumpy
[ARCHIVAL - Tite Curet Comienzos]
Tite: Papá decía que yo en la música nunca tendría éxito. Porque yo y que era muy bruto para eso de la música.
Bárbara: In this documentary from 2002, Tite tells the filmmaker Sonia Fritz, that his father, who was a Spanish teacher and a musician, thought that Tite was too “dumb” for music....
Hilda: Being the son of a person that teaches Spanish in public schools, I imagine that he was looking for perfection. It was very hard for my father to have a person that most likely was criticizing him. And I imagine that he did his best to show his father that he could, that it was possible for him to be successful.
Bárbara: And Tite could not escape music — it surrounded him. It was inside of him. It was in his genes.
Hilda: My grandma, she was a musician also. She liked to sing songs. She wrote hymns. That's the other gene that my father had. So it came from mother and father.
[MUSIC - Upbeat salsa bass and piano]
Bárbara: When Tite was young, he and his mother moved to Barrio Obrero, Santurce: a predominately Black and working class neighborhood in the middle of San Juan. Living there, he got close with an uncle that used to be an editor at a newspaper. Tite used to accompany him on payday-- and on those trips he found a new passion... Here is Tite again in the documentary.
[ARCHIVAL - Tite Curet Comienzos]
Tite: Si por esto pagan dinero, yo voy a ser periodista, cuando sea grande.
Bárbara: He said: “If people pay for these”, referring to the newspaper, “I will be a journalist when I grow up!” Tite took it seriously. He said that it was journalism that made him a real writer! Journalism gave him the power of description, through verbs and prose. You can hear the power of his lyricism in La Tirana, sung by La Lupe. Here is Tite in another interview, with Venezuelan reporter Lida Santodomingo breaking down his lyrics…
[ARCHIVAL - En Exclusiva news program, Salsa edition]
Tite: (half singing:) …”Según tu punto de vista”…
[MUSIC - “La Tirana,” La Lupe: “Según tu punto de vista...”]
[ARCHIVAL - En Exclusiva news program, Salsa edition]
Tite: “Yo soy la mala”. Mala, adjetivo primero–
[MUSIC - “La Tirana,” La Lupe: “Yo soy la mala…”]
Bárbara: He’s pointing out how he constructs his songs,
[ARCHIVAL - En Exclusiva news program, Salsa edition]
Tite: (half singing) “Vampiresa en tu novela…”
[MUSIC - “La Tirana,” La Lupe: “Vampiresa en tu novela…”]
Bárbara: The grammatical devices he’s using —
[MUSIC - “La Tirana,” La Lupe: “La gran tirana…”]
[ARCHIVAL - En Exclusiva news program, Salsa edition]
Tite: No hay más adjetivo, es a base de verbo.
[MUSIC - slow bongos and bass]
Bárbara: Hilda is pretty sure that her father’s experiences living in this predominantly Black and working class community were fundamental to ALL his work, and ESSENTIAL for the creation of “Las Caras Lindas.”
Hilda: It was a description of his upbringing, even in Barrio Obrero, predominantly Black. Santurce, predominantly Black. That was the experience that moved him to write that song. Of course who was the person that he gave that song to? One of his friends, Ismael Rivera, from Santurce also.
Bárbara: Ismael Rivera, “el sonero mayor”: the most important and influential salsa singer of his generation, and the other half of what makes this song so powerful.
[MUSIC - “Las Caras Lindas,” Ismael Rivera: “Melaza que ríe, melaza que ríe...jajajajaja..¡ay que canta y que llora y en cada beso bien conmovedora. ¡Pero qué linda!...”]
Bárbara: The way this Black man, Ismael, sings the lyrics his Black brother wrote for him-- It’s like they are offering a gift to every Black person they have ever known and loved.
[MUSIC - Beachy guitar lo fi beat]
Hilda: He was able to describe how we were: The daily living of the Blacks in Puerto Rico. They laugh and they cry. That they have beauty within themself. Papi exaltaba mucho a la gente negra.
Bárbara: Hilda says that her father was always lifting Black people up…
[ARCHIVAL - Radio Tropicalisimo program from Radio Universidad de Puerto Rico: Aired May 15, 2000]
Tite: Yo siempre he estado impresionao’ por lo lindas que son esas mulatas de Loíza allá arriba, esas negras que son tan tan bellas.
Bárbara: Here Tite, on his radio show, tells the story of how he first got inspired to write “Las Caras Lindas” when he took in the beauty of the women of Loiza, a predominantly Black town in Puerto Rico. This is why, for Afrika Clivillés, a friend of Tite’s, “Las Caras Lindas” offers a clear and accurate picture of where we come from.
Afrika Clivillés: Es el retrato de dónde venimos.
Bárbara: But it’s also a mirror that shows us: pride
Afrika: El orgullo que sentimos los negros por nuestra negritud.
Bárbara: The pride we Black people feel about our blackness.
[MUSIC - Soft salsa beat]
Bárbara: Afrika carries the pride of being Black that Tite writes about in plain view. When I asked her how she celebrates her blackness she did not miss a beat.
Afrika: Yo soy la mujer negra más hermosa y más feliz de esta patria.
Bárbara: That she was the most beautiful and most joyful Black woman in her homeland!
[MUSIC - Soft salsa beat with dreamy guitar]
Bárbara: I confess that while this made me smile, it also made me feel some resentment… because frankly, I have never felt that way. And that made me wonder: why does it seem to be so easy for Tite and Afrika to celebrate their blackness while I am still burdened by internalized racism?
[MUSIC - Suspenseful lo fi guitar strums]
Alana: We’ll be back after the break, This is La Brega.
MIDROLL
Rubén Blades: Hi folks! This is Ruben Blades and you are listening to La Brega!
Alana: I’m Alana Casanova Burgess and this is La Brega. We’ll continue now with Bárbara Idalissee Abadía Rexach, and the story of Don Tite Curet and his beautiful faces.
Bárbara: Before the break, I asked myself: Why does it seem so effortless for Tite and Afrika to celebrate their blackness while I deal with internalized racism? The truth is: I have never felt like Afrika or Tite. During my childhood-- I felt that my existence was always questioned because my skin was darker than my families: My brother’s were light skinned, with green eyes. Blackness seemed to push me away from my own brothers...
[MUSIC - Emotional guitar strums]
Bárbara: Internalized racism doesn't come out of nowhere. It's a system that's all around us. And we need “community” to face it and unlearn it. “Las Caras Lindas” is a great example of this: it was written in community, for a community. Tite wrote the song thinking that he would give it to his friend Ismael Rivera. He then called other musician friends to join him… among them Panamanian singer songwriter Rubén Blades…
Rubén Blades: Yo me llamo Rubén Blades, Rubén Blades, ¿no? Rubén Blades.
Bárbara: Ruben Blades and Tite Curet had already met each other in Puerto Rico in the early 70’s...
Rubén: And I saw a man showed up and he was dressed in a very special way because he had this big sort of Puerto Rican hat and he had a shirt that looked like African. And for some reason I thought he was a musician.
Bárbara: They were both waiting for the doors to open for a concert of boricua salsa legend Cheo Feliciano.
Rubén: And that's how I met him. And from that moment on, we became very, very good friends
Bárbara: When Ruben talks about Tite you can tell how much he loved him and the great influence he had on Ruben’s life.
Rubén: The first time I ever sang in Puerto Rico by myself, I was nervous and he said, “You're passing your test today, your popular test here, and don't worry, you're gonna do really well.” It was very comforting for me to have him there because he was Tite Curet Alonso, he was bigger than big.
Bárbara: For Ruben, Tite's lyrics are TIMELESS.
Rubén: These songs are– the lyrics have no expiration date because they are based on life.
Bárbara: In “Las Caras Lindas,” Ruben finds an anthem that envisions a better world.
Rubén: And “Las Caras Lindas” continues to be received and integrated and adapted to each generation. You know, we have not fulfilled the dream. We are in the process of fulfilling the dream. So in the interim, every generation is going to be helped by the contributions of generations past: to reach that goal. To try to make the transition towards a better world possible.
Bárbara: Tite wrote about blackness many times from different angles. In “Las Caras Lindas,” Tite celebrates. But in other songs, he condemns racism. Like in “Desahucio''-- which literally means “Eviction.”
[MUSIC - “Desahucio,” Rubén Blades: “La sangre inocente nos cubrió de duelo, los gritos de muerte despertaron a un pueblo.”]
Bárbara: The song is based on the real life eviction of Adolfina Villanueva Osorio. She was a Black housewife from Loíza, Puerto Rico. In 1980, she was murdered by Police as she was forcefully evicted from her home. She was still looking to fight the order when authorities accelerated the process. They surrounded her home and shot through her windows. 16 bullets hit Adolfina. No one was prosecuted for her death. “Desahucio” is a song Tite wrote especially for Ruben to sing… When I asked Ruben about the song, he abruptly stopped our conversation. We were on Zoom.
Rubén: Ahora que estamos hablando de “Desahucio,” ¿me espera, me puede esperar un momentito?
Bárbara: ¡Claro!
Bárbara: He asked me if I could give him a moment. He left the call and then came back holding two things in his hands...
Rubén: Mira lo que yo todavía tengo el cartón…
Bárbara: Guau. Adolfina vive incluso en la casa de Rubén Blades.
[MUSIC - Dreamy guitar]
Bárbara: First, he showed me a piece of cardboard with a handwritten note that read: "Ruben, La Familia de Adolfina”: “Ruben, Adolfina’s family". Then he showed me a handmade wooden Puerto Rican flag...
Rubén: Cuando canté el …(his voice breaks, he shuffles in his seat)
Bárbara: Ruben tells me that it was the surviving members of Adolfina's family who gave him these cherished artifacts. They brought them the first time he sang the song live in Puerto Rico. And as he remembers that moment, tears come to his eyes...
Rubén: Cuando canté el tema por primera vez en Puerto Rico, ellos me dieron el cartón y esto...
Bárbara: That voice break-- that moment of connection between Adolfina’s family and this international salsa superstar, is another testament to the power of Tite’s pen – and it’s a power that is transcendent. And perhaps that is why one of the most iconic covers of “Las caraslindas” was recorded thousands of miles away from Puerto Rico... by the award-winning singer-composer-- and giant of Afro-Peruvian music: Susana Baca.
[MUSIC - “Las Caras Lindas,” Susana Baca cover: “Las caras lindas de mi gente negra...”]
[MUSIC - Afro-Peruvian beat]
Susana Baca: Entonces, escuché por primera vez “Las Caras Lindas”...
Bárbara: Susana remembers when she first heard “Las Caras Lindas” during her college years. The song gave her insight during a period where she was starting to grasp what being a Black Peruvian woman meant.
Susana: Yo no tengo porqué ponerme una peluca.
Bárbara: It helped her realize she did not need to hide her blackness behind a wig or a perm...and that she deserved respect…
Susana: ...Y así comprendí y liberé mi alma.
Bárbara: And Susana says that experience freed her mind and compelled her to cover the song with an afro-peruvian rhythm…
[MUSIC - Afro-Peruvian beat]
Bárbara: …so that the youth of her country could make it their own.
[MUSIC - “Las Caras Lindas,” Susana Baca cover: “Somos la melaza que ríe. Somos la melaza que llora…”]
Bárbara: Susana never had the opportunity to meet Tite. She finally made it to Puerto Rico after he died in 2003. But Tite did have the chance to listen to Susana’s cover because he used to host a public radio show in Puerto Rico.
[ARCHIVAL - Radio Tropicalisimo program from Radio Universidad de Puerto Rico: Aired May 15, 2000]
Tite: Y yo me sentí muy, muy halagado. Al escuchar “Las Caras Lindas” por Susana Baca porque creo que…
Bárbara: And Tite would play her version of “Las Caras Linda” on his show.....
He was so proud his song had traveled all the way to Perú....
[ARCHIVAL - Radio Tropicalisimo program from Radio Universidad de Puerto Rico: Aired May 15, 2000]
Tite: Trascendió los horizontes y fue a parar por allá tan lejos como Perú.
Bárbara: I played this audio from Tite for Susana--
Susana: ¡Ay, qué lindo! ¡Qué lindo! Eh?
Bárbara: Susana was so happy that she just burst into song.
Susana sings acapella: “Tienen su ritmos, tienen melodía, las caras lindas de mi gente negra…” (laughs)
Bárbara: ¡Qué Maravilla!
Susana: Qué belleza...
[MUSIC - “Circulo Sagra,” Bordoneo]
Bárbara: Listening to Susana Baca de la Colina sing her favorite verse of the song acapella-- well, I was just overwhelmed by emotion-- I got teary eyed. It was also my birthday, by the way…
Susana: Creo que no hay otra canción que hable así de nosotros. Con ese amor.
Bárbara: Susana thinks there is no other song in the world that speaks so lovingly about us -- Black people.
Mireya Ramos: I mean, just the chorus too (sings acapella) – ”Las caras lindas, las caras lindas, las caras lindas de mi gente negra.” Simple but on point. it just fills your heart with pride, you know, to be Black and you're beautiful.
Bárbara: This is Mireya Ramos, founding member of Flor de Toloache, an all female mariachi group based in New York City.
Mireya: And that's what it really is: what it says. It's very simple, but it's necessary. It's a phrase that we need to tell ourselves and remind ourselves.
Bárbara: Mireya’s mother is Dominican, her father is Mexican and she was raised in Puerto Rico.
Mireya: I also obviously saw myself in the song. It was one of those only songs that I grew up with where I felt identified and seen.
Bárbara: As a young, Black, mixed girl in Puerto Rico, there was not a lot of representation for her in popular music.
Mireya: I didn't have like a Black woman that I looked up to that was an artist and I knew that I wanted to be an artist since I was little.
Bárbara: So, meeting Tite and hearing his song, reassured her that she was not alone. That she could live how she felt inside — a beautiful Black person and someone capable of being a beautiful Black artist.
Mireya: I've always seen myself in this song and it exalts and celebrates a community that's not often celebrated, which is the Afro Latinos, which I'm very proud to be.
Bárbara: In appreciation for Tite’s work, Flor de Toloache recorded a version of “Las Caras Lindas” for their second album, and also named the album after the song...
[MUSIC - “Las Caras Lindas,” Flor de Toloache cover intro: “¡Huy!”]
Bárbara: They chose to cover the song as a huapango, a Mexican rhythm.
[MUSIC - “Abre La Ventana,” Huapango beat]
Mireya: The cool thing about the huapango is it's very syncopated. 1, 2, 3, 4,5,6: tra, trakata uhmm, trakata , hum, trakata hmmm.. That six eight is, it's that African beat.
Bárbara: It was also an opportunity for collaboration.
Mireya: My brother Velcro, who wrote this beautiful, beautiful rap.
[MUSIC - “Las Caras Lindas,” Flor de Toloache cover: “La luz se cobija en mi pinta oscura, como el otro lao’ de la luna por eso me alegro de mi negrura.”]
Mireya: And then we also invited Pedrito Martínez from Cuba.
[MUSIC - “Las Caras Lindas,” Flor de Toloache cover: “Son las verdades que la vida reta..las caras lindas...”]
Mireya: And it was just like this explosion… you know? (laughs) Of like mariachi… which some of the rhythms have African influence, you know: the roots.
[MUSIC - “Las Caras Lindas,” Flor de Toloache cover: “¡Ay la la li!”]
[MUSIC - “Abre La Ventana,” Huapango beat]
Bárbara: Today, Mireya is basically giving young people what she wanted when she was a kid. At a recent music festival, a family came up to her, after the performance, to tell her how moved they were by “Las Caras Lindas.”
Mireya: And there was a family there with a little girl who's mixed like me. This little girl, even though she didn't understand everything I was singing about, She saw herself in it just the same way I saw myself in it.
Bárbara: This process of analyzing “Las Caras Lindas” has brought me a lot of joy, but it also brought me grief. Because when I tackle the question of where we are now in Puerto Rico regarding race, 45 years after this song was released, the answer is disheartening… The answer is found, in the constant use of “negro” to talk about things that are seen as bad, dirty and ugly… Or when people talk about making their race better or wanting to fix their “bad hair”. Or when you realize our poorest citizens are Black or when the schools that serve Black communities are the ones that are chosen for closure. Or when they arrest 11 year-old Alma Yariela Cruz Cruz after she defended herself against constant racist bullying in her school… Or when I see the constant anti-Black attacks from neighbors towards a family in their hometown of Canóvanas. Every single day, the existence of anti Black racism is confirmed in Puerto Rico. During that struggle, I see that, sometimes, I talk about blackness from a place of pain and frustration. And it’s exhausting! But as Tite’s friend, Afrika, told me. The struggle is a dignified one...even when it feels constant.
Afrika: La lucha sigue, pero no es una lucha triste.
Bárbara: It's never a “sad and hard struggle”.
Afrika: Luchamos cantando, luchamos bailando.
Bárbara: We sing and dance while we fight...
Afrika: Luchamos orgullosos de nuestro color y reclamamos nuestro espacio con el poder de la música.
Bárbara: We stand proud of our skin color, and we take our rightful place, with the power of music...
[MUSIC - “Las Caras Lindas,” Ismael Rivera: intro]
Bárbara: That is why, even when I do recognize that the fight against anti-Black racism will not end anytime soon-- surely not in my lifetime-- I want to honor every single thing that actually celebrates blackness, that celebrates us as the human beings we are: dignified, full of tenderness, full of love and beauty.
[MUSIC - “Las Caras Lindas,” Ismael Rivera: short instrumental]
Bárbara: And “Las Caras Lindas” gives us just that...And the world can never take it away! Thank you Don Tite!
[MUSIC - “Las Caras Lindas,” Ismael Rivera: “Las caras lindas de mi gente negra son un desfile de melaza en flor..que cuando pasan frente a mi se alegran de su negrura todo el corazón...¡Requetelinda!”]
Alana: We’ve heard how “Las Caras Lindas” has made its way around the world. For “La Brega” cover album, we’re bringing it back to P Erre.
[MUSIC - “Las Caras Lindas,” Tribu de Abrante cover: Instrumental intro]
Alana: We asked La Tribu de Abrante, a 12 piece- Afro-Boricua orchestra from the archipelago, to re-imagine it. And they rooted it in a very Puerto Rican sound: bomba.
[MUSIC - “Las Caras Lindas,” Tribu de Abrante cover with bomba drums: “Las caras lindas, las caras lindas, las caras lindas de mi gente negra.”]
Alana: You can hear the full version in the La Brega cover album, out soon.
[MUSIC]
CREDITS:
Alana: This episode was written by Bárbara Abadía-Rexach and produced by Ezequiel Rodríguez Andino with help from Jeanne Montalvo. It was edited by Mark Pagan, Maria Garcia and me, Alana Casanova-Burgess.
Original art for this episode is by Raysa Rodriguez de Colectivo Morivivi.
Additional music this episode by Circulo Saqra, Renee Goust, and Ernesto Lucar.
Special thanks this week to: Radio Universidad de Puerto Rico, Sara Cruz Castro, Osvaldo Rivera Soto, Taller Comunidad La Goyco and Elizabeth Andrade.
Bárbara: Excuse me Alana, I want to dedicate this episode to the memory of my mother Olga Esther Rexach Ayala.
Alana: The La Brega team includes Jeanne Montalvo, Ezequiel Rodriguez Andino, Joaquin Cotler, Liliana Ruiz, Tasha Sandoval, Mark Pagan, Maria Garcia, Victor Ramos Rosado, Juan Diego Ramirez, Marlon Bishop and Jenny Lawton.
Fact checking this season is by Istra Pacheco and Maria Soledad.
Our engineer is Joe Plourde. Our theme song is by Ife and original music is by Balun.
You can hear all the music featured in this episode – and this season – on our Spotify playlist. We’ve got a link in our show notes. And don't forget to tap the heart to save it to your library because we'll be adding to it each week.
This season of La Brega was made possible by the Mellon Foundation.
I’m Alana Casanova Burgess. Join us next week for track six: Boricua En La Luna.
Bai!
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