Posted on 02/21/2015 11:48:58 AM PST by Citizen Zed
GUATEMALA CITY (AP) A group of Guatemalan musicians is on a mission to breathe life into a pre-Columbian language and heritage through a thoroughly modern genre: hip-hop.
Calling themselves Balam Ajpu, which means Jaguar Warrior or Warrior of Light, they rap in the ancient Mayan Tz'utujil language with the goal of making it cool for kids and teaching them their ancestors' stories and ways.
Their debut album, "Tribute to the 20 Nawuales," or spirits, is set to be released to coincide with the March 20 spring equinox. The musicians rap in both Tz'utujil and Spanish, blending a hip-hop beat with marimba and natural sounds like bird songs and running water.
"Since the time of the (Spanish) invasion, the (Mayan) worldview was persecuted, even almost snuffed out, but now it's returning to life, relying on music and sustaining itself in art," said group member Rene Dionisio, who uses the stage name Tz'utu Baktun Kan. "Our commitment as artists is to rescue the ancient art."
Three years in the making and completed in mid-February, the album's songs pay tribute to each of Guatemala's 22 provinces plus Mexico's Chiapas and Yucatan, encompassing the region where the Mayan civilization hit its apex around A.D. 250 to 950.
The lyrics came from a young Mayan priest named Venancio Morales, who serves as the group's spiritual guide. Starting with the project's genesis and as recently as this month, he performed prayer ceremonies where he entered into a trance and dictated in Tz'utujil what the songs should say.
(Excerpt) Read more at julesburgadvocate.com ...
Obama’s next wave of immigrants coming to a town near you!
I’ve always found the whole emphasis on one’s “Mayan” ancestry among latinos (though I have no Mayan ancestry, so I wonder if they’d call me not a true Hispanic?) to be quite silly. I’ve read lots of “Hispanic” or “Mexicotexan” literature, and they sit there and complain about how the eeevil Spaniards came and conquered everything... and I think to myself, “They had help from all the Indian tribes whom your ‘ancestors’ were enslaving and brutally sacrificing to the heathen gods.”
It gets worse too. All these poems they write about Pancho Villa or books where the main character is supposed to be a descendant of Pancho Villa (I had the misfortune of encountering one where the main character was a butch Lesbian fighting a killer named J.W (think George W.) who was called, as a nick name, “Pancho Villa.”). He was just a thief and a killer. In fact, all their heroes are either thieves and killers or else Communists who, if they came to power, would become thieves and killers. Even my ancestors, who were landowners in Mexico, were robbed and victimized by Pancho. Some hero who hangs people from trees just to get at the family gold!
What a big mess the culture has become down there.
Tributes to which “spirits”.
I smell ugly!
Human sacrifice?
throwing kids into volcanos never appealed to me......
evidently these people have overlooked much of the history they seek to Celebrate
How do you say “F the Police” in Mayan?
Ebonics wasn’t enough of a foreign language for (c)rappers to use?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.