Track Listing

1. Nibari (My Grandchild)
2. m�Rua
3. Y�nd�ya Weyu (The Sun Has Set)
4. Bar�Bana Yagien (Take me Away)
5. Hattie
6. Luw�b�ri Sigala (Hills of Tegucigalpa)
7. Anaha ya (Here I Am)
8. Tuguchili Elia (Elia?s Father)
9. Fuleisei (Favours)
10. Uruwei (The King)
11. �Fayah�Dina (I Have Traveled)
12. Lirun Biganute (Sad News)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #59983 in Music
• Brand: Dig
• Released on: 2008-03-18
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Enhanced
• Dimensions: .22 pounds

Album Description
Blending the rich vocal textures of women from the Garifuna communities of Central America with echoes of rock, blues, funk, African, Latin and Caribbean music, Umalali is an entrancing journey into the heart and soul of a unique and inspiring culture. From the award-winning producer of Andy Palacio & the Garifuna Collective's Watina comes this album of indescribable emotion, strength and beauty.

Enhanced CD includes over 30 minutes of video footage, bonus tracks, slideshows and other special features.

About the Artist
Umalali: The Garifuna Women's Project is an album overflowing with stories. There is the story of how it was made: a ten-year labor of love that started with five years of collecting songs and discovering striking female voices, followed by recording sessions in a seaside hut, and ending with exquisitely detailed and subtle production wizardry. There are the stories told in the songs: of hurricanes that swept away homes and livelihoods, a son murdered in a far-off village, the pain of childbirth and other struggles and triumphs of daily life. There are the personal stories of the women who participated in this magical recording project: mothers and daughters who, while working tirelessly to support their families, sing songs and pass on the traditions of their people to future generations.

Umalali is also the story of a young, innovative music producer from Belize whose meticulous and inventive craftsmanship has resulted in what will surely be recognized as one of the most uplifting and moving albums in recent memory. Blending the rich vocal textures of Garifuna women with echoes of rock, blues, funk, African, Latin and Caribbean music, Umalali is an entrancing journey into the heart and soul of women whose strength, hard work and perseverance provide the bedrock of their community.

The Garifuna Women's Project groundbreaking album that invites the listener behind closed doors into a fascinating musical world that has remained largely unexposed until now. The project was produced by Ivan Duran, the mastermind behind Andy Palacio & The Garifuna Collective's album Watina, one of the most critically acclaimed albums of any genre in 2007.

Descendents of shipwrecked African slaves who intermarried with the Carib and Arawak Indians of the Caribbean, the Garifuna people live primarily in small towns and villages on the Caribbean coasts of Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Umalali: The Garifuna Women's Project expands on the story of this fascinating community, which is struggling to retain its unique language, music and traditions in the face of globalization.

Customer Reviews

Some beautifully arresting music. It gets under your skin.
Andy Palacio's Wátina was one of last year's most highly rated world albums, a showcase for the music and culture of his Garifuna people, descendants of shipwrecked slaves who retain powerful African influences in their villages on Belize's Caribbean coast.
While Palacio died suddenly in January, his legacy is continued here by his producer, Ivan Duran, who brings together a number of singular female voices to explore the women's side of the Garifuna story.
The Garifuna communities of Central America's Atlantic coast are beginning to seem like the new Cape Verde -- there is so much good music coming out of there. The truth is that it has as much to do with the love of Belizean producer Ivan Duran for the music and the people as any one musician breaking it big.
"Umalali" is one of those records that keeps getting under your skin. Plaintive harmonised voices call and respond over the traditional beat of the music and are subtly and successfully added to by sensitive production and additional instrumentation to produce an album that is every bit as good as the late, great Andy Palacio's and a good deal more consistent throughout.
The album was built up over many years. Research giving way to field recordings, followed by studio recording, giving way to additional instruments and finally the whole thing was painstakingly produced. It is, like the Garifuna themselves, a fusion but where it succeeds over the vast majority of field recordings meet studio time projects is in the seamlessness of the end result. It feels every bit the kind of music you might hear sung on a Caribbean evening by a couple of guys with guitars coming back to the village and jamming with the women folk.
In music as in much of life, intention is every bit as important as execution. No sane person would go about making a recording in this way if their intention was just to spice up some traditional sounds for a global market.
The gnarled and penetrating voice that opens this enchanting disc belongs to 54-year-old Sofia Blanco, and her gently scolding song was composed by her husband Gregorio. They've been singing together for nearly four decades in this lovely Guatemalan/Honduran/Belizean answer to the blues.
Their drumming is Nigerian, their main language is Spanish, and their "paranda" musical tradition is Carib: a fascinating mix, leading to some wonderfully arresting music.
Duran's guitar-based arrangements deftly draw out the music's diverse resonances, nudging towards proto-funk, Afro-pop and blues without disrupting the informal barefoot-on-the-beach feel: the voices combining throaty warmth and vigour with a spooky African yearning.
Yet while there's the intimation of a strong, self-contained women's musical culture, Duran's male hand on the tiller prevents it from emerging as powerfully as it might.
Still, this as an affecting album, full of unusual and beautifully realised moods and textures.
The songs deal with all aspects of Garifuna life in Belize, including hurricanes and murders as well as work and childbirth.
Propelled onwards by guitar and drums, their effect is gracefully seductive.
Also welcome on this album is the variety of pace from the fast and frantic "Áfayahádina (I Have Traveled)" to the anthemic and intoxicating opener "Nibari (My Grandchild)" and back again to the catchy, sax-laden "Mérua".

soothing, rhytmic, wonderful
I like this CD so much.. makes me remember my childhood and going 'fedu' with my mom.. and my favorite song is "nibari" reminds me so much of my grandma and what every garifuna grandma would tell her grandaughter.

Outstanding in every way
Besides introducting us to the little known music of the Black-Caribbean Indian Garifuna peoples living along the coast of Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Guatemala, this CD is enhanced with interactive videos of the folk artists in their homes and villages, of celebrations, and of demonstrations of different drum rhythms. [A computer is required for running the videos.] The music itself is strongly West African with more than a Latin tinge and it is sung in Garifuna, although Spanish is the primary language. The sound is unique and full of emotion and rhythm. I certainly wanted to hear more and learn more after purchasing this collection, a joyful education.