At this year’s WOMADelaide, festival goers will be transported across continents and genres as they navigate the wide-ranging musical offering. Worldliness, cultural exploration and indigenous heritage is central to the festival’s ethos and La Perla, a percussive vocal trio hailing from Bogotá, embodies these principles perfectly. Karen Forero, Giovanna Mogollón and Diana Sanmiguel play their distinct version of gaita, cumbia and bullerengue music (all styles deriving from the northern Caribbean coast of their native Colombia) and mix it with their distinctly urban-contemporary narrative lens.
The group met at an Afro-Colombian drumming group at university which led to a couple of members travelling north to learn from ‘mothers’ of gaita and bullerengue. “These rhythms are not from Bogotá, it’s mestiza [ethnically mixed] music present throughout many different indigenous groups along Colombia’s Caribbean coast,” explains Mogollón. “They call it triethnic music,” continues Sanmiguel. “You have the indigenous part in the gaita [flute], the African part in the tambor [drum] and the Spanish part with the notation and singing.” The result of this mix created a unique sound that spread from Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountain region through small villages in the savana, changing ever-so-slightly as it moved. But like many traditional forms of music and folklore that are passed on and learnt orally in small communities, their essence can also be lost over time.
“It wasn’t so common that people in the city were interested in that kind of music,” admits Sanmiguel. “It’s more traditional in the little towns. But now there’s a big movement of musicians researching and learning in Bogotá and other big cities.” Forero nods, adding, “where we live, we are exposed to so many types of music from around the world: punk, rock, salsa, merengue and they’ve all influenced us in some way. Then there was this phenomenon around 20 years ago where young people felt a call to the traditional music that belongs to Colombia. Now you can find ruedas around the world.”
Ruedas are community meetings where people dance and improvise to the cumbia rhythms, an environment La Perla aims to replicate in a separate workshop at WOMADelaide. “We’ll try to teach the basic rhythms and some different songs so people can integrate singing, dancing, and even playing. It’s very organic and easy to play because the music is really connected with the spirit and the songs are really long and repeat the chorus many times,” says Sanmiguel.
Repetitive parts may come, but the rhythms and substance of their songs are anything but simple. Take the lyrics of ‘Bruja’ [witch] (‘They wanted to bring her down because she did what she wanted, because she went out at night, because of how she dressed… for being a whore, for being a nun, for being ugly…’) and its handling of the unfair treatment of women. “Violence here is really huge,” states Mogollón, “violence against women, violence against countryside people, violence against the jungle. That is the reality every day here in Colombia, in Bogotá, so that is the topic that we talk about in our songs.”
This politically charged pivot to traditional sound is something we’ve seen in the mainstream too, with Bad Bunny’s bestselling album Debí Tirar Mas Fotos and his decision to not tour in the US as an example. “It’s an exotic thing right now, Latin America culture, because it’s so rich,” reflects Mogollón. “Maybe it’s a marketing strategy for some artists to return to their roots but here I think we have a different kind of tradition and it’s alive. Fortunately our young people understand the importance of not letting this music die.”
WOMADelaide, Botanic Park / Tainmuntilla, 6-9 Mar