Nicomedes Santa Cruz was an Afro-Peruvian musician who helped raise public awareness of Afro-Peruvian culture.

Son of Nicomedes Santa Cruz Aparicio and Victoria Gamarra Ramirez, Santa Cruz was the ninth of ten siblings. After his schooling it was decided that he would work as a blacksmith, which he did until 1956, when he left his workshop and traveled throughout Peru and Latin America, composing and reciting his poems. In 1945 he met Don Porfirio Vasquez (father of the singer Pepe Vazquez), who became a decisive influence on Santa Cruz' development as a decimero, a composer using the décima

Décima

A décima refers to a ten-line stanza of poetry, and the song form generally consists of forty-four lines...

 form.
Porfirio Vasquez came to Lima in 1920 and was an early pioneer of the movement to regain the lost cultural identity of Afro-Peruvians.

Santa Cruz assumed the task of reviving Afro-Peruvian

Afro-Peruvian

Afro Peruvians are citizens of Peru mostly descended from African slaves who were brought to the Western hemisphere with the arrival of the conquistadors towards the end of the slave trade.-Early history:...

 folklore through a theater company he organized with his sister Victoria Santa Cruz (1959–1961), through radio broadcasts, and through his collaborations in the daily newspapers Expreso and El Comercio as well as other publications. In 1959, with his group Conjunto Cumanana, he recorded the album Kumanana, followed in 1960 by Ingá and Décimas y poemas Afroperuanos. In 1964 he recorded a four-album set Cumanana. In 1967 he attended the Canción Protesta Encuentro in Cuba, and recorded his poem "Benny'Kid' Paret which was issued on the album "Canción Protesta" available by going to the Folkways website< www.folkways.si.edu >and searching Paredon Records.

He made his theater debut in 1957 at the Teatro Municipal de Chile

Chile

Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

, with the company Pancho Fierro, in a show called Black Rhythms of Peru. He also ventured into journalism, radio and television. During his travels he continued to participate in events promoting Afro-Peruvian folklore, notably his address at the first Black Arts Festival, held in Cañete, in August 1971. He also traveled to Africa in 1974, where he participated in the symposium Négritude et Amérique Latine. That same year he traveled to Cuba

Cuba

The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

 and México

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

, participating in a series of television programs, as well as later trips to Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 (1976), Colombia

Colombia

Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...

 (1978), Cuba, Canción Protesta Encuentro (1967), Cuba (1979), Panama

Panama

Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...

 (1980).

In 1980 he moved to Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

, where he lived until his death, working as a journalist at Radio Exterior de España. In 1987 he began collaborating in preparing a series of LP record albums "Espana en su Folklore", a collection of songbooks from Spain and America. In 1989 he taught a seminar on African culture in Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) and the following year participated in the expedition Adventure 92, touring ports in Mexico and Central America.

He died of lung cancer on February 5, 1992 after surgery at the Clinical Hospital in Madrid.

In 2010 the Peruvian hip-hop group "Comité Pokoflo" released a tribute song named "Tributo a Nicomedes" in their moxtape "El Grito"

Discography

• Gente Morena (1957)
• Nicomedes Santa Cruz y Su Conjunto Kumanana (1959)
• Ingá (1960)
• Décimas y Poemas (1960)
• Cumanana. Poemas y canciones (1964)
• Cumanana. Antología afroperuana (1965,1970)
• Octubre mes morado (1964)
• Canto negro (1968)
• América negra (1972)
• Nicomedes en Argentina (1973)
• Socabón. Introducción al folclor musical y danzario de la costa peruana (1975)
• España en su folclor (1987)

Written Works

• Décimas (1959, 1960, 1966)
• Cumanana (1960)
• Canto a mi Perú (1966)
• Décimas y poemas: antología (1971)
• Ritmos negros del Perú (Buenos Aires,1973)
• Rimactampu; rimas al Rímac (1972)
• La décima en el Perú (Lima 1982)
• Como has cambiado pelona (chincha 1959)
• chala (1963)
• De ser como soy me alegro
• Acocachos Aprendí: La escuelita (1958)