Andy Palacio - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Andy Vivian Palacio was a Belize

Belize

Belize is a constitutional monarchy and the northernmost country in Central America. Belize has a diverse society, comprising many cultures and languages. Even though Kriol and Spanish are spoken among the population, Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the official...

an Punta

Punta

Punta is a Garifuna music and dance style performed at celebrations and festive occasions. Contemporary punta, including Belizean punta rock, arose in the last thirty years of the twentieth century in Belize, Honduras and Guatemala. It also has a following in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Southern Mexico...

musician and government official. He was also a leading activist for the Garínagu and their culture.

Biography

Palacio was born and raised in the coastal village of Barranco and worked briefly as a teacher before turning to music. He sang mainly in Garifuna

Garifuna language

Garifuna is an Arawakan language spoken in Honduras, Guatemala, and Belize by the Garifuna people. The language is also spoken to a lesser extent in Nicaragua's Mosquito Coast. Historically it was referred to as Carib or Black Carib and Igñeri by Europeans. Garifuna has a vocabulary split between...

, an Arawakan language with a large number of words borrowed from Carib, French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, and Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

, but also composed English-only songs. He was the first musical artist from Belize to have a music video on international television. He received the award for "Best New Artist" at the Caribbean Music Awards in 1991, and was post-humously awarded the BBC3 Awards for World Music

World music (Awards)

Various awards have been presented in recent years to musical artists for their contributions to the genre of world music. This article provides a partial list of these awards and their recipients.- BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music :...

award in the Americas Category, in 2008.

Contributions to Belizean music and media

In addition to the traditional Garifuna music that he heard live on a daily basis, Palacio absorbed the diverse sounds disseminated by radio from neighboring Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Cuba, Jamaica and the United States. Palacio pursued his musical ambitions in a series of high school bands, covering a diversity of popular music from abroad. Attracted by the ideals of the Nicaraguan revolution, he joined the literacy campaign in that nation's African-Amerindian Caribbean coast region, and developed a deeper appreciation for his own threatened cultural and linguistic traditions. Those insights made their way into his own creativity, influencing him to delve more deeply into the roots of Garifuna music.

Palacio returned from Nicaragua to discover the emergence of new Garifuna pride in their culture and identity, a development dramatically expressed in the sudden popularity of punta rock, a fusion of traditional Garifuna music with electric guitar and the influences of R&B, jazz and rock and roll. The Original Turtle Shell Band, led by Belizean Garifuna musician and painter Delvin "Pen" Cayetano, burst into national consciousness in the early 1980s just as Belize gained independence. The Turtle Shell Band's invitation to perform with their mentor Isabel Flores (a legendary Garifuna percussionist and singer, now deceased) at the 1983 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival encouraged Andy Palacio to pursue a musical career.

In 1987, after Pen Cayetano

Pen Cayetano

Delvin "Pen" Cayetano is a Belizean artist and musician living in Germany 1990-2009. He and his German wife Ingrid returned to Dangriga in July 2009 and they openend the Pen Cayetano Studio Gallery 1...

turned down an invitation to work in England with Cultural Partnerships Limited, a community arts organization, Palacio stepped in. He returned to Belize six months later with professional experience, a broadened perspective, and connections that led to his involvement with the short-lived Sunrise recording project, the first effort to record, document, preserve and distribute Belizean roots music. The following year Palacio's career took off, buoyed by widely circulated cassette recordings released by Sunrise, and a string of invitations to represent Belize musically at the Festival Internacional de Cultura del Caribe (Cancun), Carifesta VI (Tinindad and Tobago), Carifesta VII (St. Kitts-Nevis), the Rainforest World Music Festival (Malaysia), the Antillanse Feesten (Belgium), the World Traditional Performing Arts Festival (Japan) and countless performances in the United States, Canada, Colombia, France, Germany and Great Britain.

Two critically acclaimed recordings on the Stonetree label, Belize's only record company, cemented Palacio's fame at home, while reinforcing his stature as the country's foremost overseas cultural ambassador. Recorded in Havana and Belize, Keimoun (Beat On) (1995) showcased Palacio's vocal and composition talents, enlisting first-rate Cuban and Belizean studio artists. The first CD to be produced in Belize, Keimoun put the country on the world music map, and is listed by The Rough Guide as one of 100 essential recordings from Latin America and the Caribbean. Two years later Palacio returned with Til Da Mawnin, an energetic mix of dance tunes backed by Belize's top instrumentalists and singers.

Appointed Belizean Cultural Ambassador and Deputy Administrator of the National Institute of Culture and History in 2004, Palacio devoted himself to the preservation of Garifuna music and culture. In 2007, Palacio's years of work with the Stonetree's Garifuna All-Stars project came to fruition with the release of the acclaimed Wátina album. Wátina featured a multigenerational crew of Garifuna musicians from Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras (including octegenarian singer Paul Nabor) that delved deeply into traditional Garifuna rhythms and songs. The album was a critical success that garnered worldwide attention for the Garifuna people, culture and language. Thanks to Wátina, Palacio was named a UNESCO Artist for Peace and won the prestigious WOMEX

WOMEX

WOMEX is an international world music support and development project based in Berlin, whose main event is an exposition held annually in different locations throughout Europe. It integrates a trade fair, showcases, conferences, film market, networking sessions, and awards...

Award in 2007.

Palacio later served as a head of the National Institute of Culture and History and was named a cultural ambassador. He released over five original albums beginning with Nabi in 1990. He also traveled widely promoting and performing his music.

Palacio briefly hosted a television program on Channel 5

Great Belize Television

Great Belize Television, or as it is locally known, Channel 5, is a Belize City-based local television station established in December of 1991. Channel 5 airs mostly American and Caribbean programs, as well as a variety of locally produced programs...

named after him and featuring works from Belizeans. He also wrote the theme music for Channel 5's newscast.

On March 14, 2007, Palacio released his last studio album, Watina, which he considered his masterpiece. The album features guest appearances from other prominent Garifuna artists including Paul Nabor

Paul Nabor

Paul Nabor is a paranda musician from Punta Gorda, southern Belize. His music is included on the showcase album Paranda on Stonetree Records. On a 2004 visit to Tegucigalpa, Honduras, he was declared a distinguished guest of the city....

and was produced by Ivan Duran at Stonetree Records.

Critical illness and death

On January 17, 2008, Palacio suddenly fell ill with two apparent "stroke-like seizures." According to a press release from Stonetree Records he died in Belize at 21:00 hours on January 19 of "a massive and extensive stroke to the brain, a heart attack and respiratory failure."

Fellow Belizean musician Oral Fuentes

Oral Fuentes

Oral Fuentes is a Belizean-Canadian reggae musician best known as the founder and front man of the Oral Fuentes Reggae Band. Also primarily influenced by reggae his music also incorporates other elements of Caribbean and Latin rhythm including the musical styles of Soca, Punta rock and Brukdown,...

, a friend was reported as saying in response to his death "I am indeed very sad to hear the news of Andy passing. I've known Andy for years... as a fellow Belizean I feel the pain. Belize has indeed lost a Hero."

External links

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