TOTO LA MOMPOSINA’s “La Bodega”- the Missing Link?

I’ve always wondered at the musical concept “Afro-Latino,” usually expressed as “Afro-Cuban” with no ensuing explanation, as though the meaning were obvious, even though there is little or no documentation of this. Presumably the existence of a full range of drums and percussions indicates an African origin to most ‘Latino’ music, the hows and whys and wherefors interpolated to fill in the gaps. They may very well be right, of course, but almost no weight is given to Native traditions, which also have strong drumming traditions. Just because few indigenous people are left, at least with their original disease-susceptible DNA, does not mean that they didn’t play an important role in the early mix of cultures, nor that they didn’t survive in a more vigorous hybrid with imported Africans, a fact which IS documented, though the extent of it subject to speculation. Cuba is NOT majority African, and is in fact one of the least African of Caribbean islands, most of which tend toward reggae, or even gospel (yep) in their musical tastes. Go figure.

As Toto herself would say on her new album “La Bodega,” these are “Cosas pa’ pensar” (‘things to think about’). Of course history is purely academic, but identity is not. Much of what we enjoy comes from the meaning and identity it has for us, whether punk or hiphop or salsa or rock or classical. Toto ‘La Momposina’ offers an interesting glimpse into the history of Latino music, hers being an archaic style which has generally been superseded by more modern forms for modern listeners. Thus it offers an interesting glimpse into the past. Toto acknowledges Native contributions up-front, also, and though Colombia was hardly the locus of the ‘high’ Quechua-speaking cultures of the Andes, it was a mix-and-mingle area for those and the locally advanced Chibcha and the Caribbean island cultures and even an Amazonian culture which has yet to be well documented. Colombia’s choppy terrain and diverse regions has allowed much of those cultures to survive in one form or another.

The original musical format is flute and drum as in song #2 ‘Margarita’ and grows in complexity from that starting point. In Toto’s case that means brass, and Toto uses much of that. The album leads off with it on “Manita Uribe” and never strays far. Guitars have no place here, not as a lead instrument anyway. Toto loves traditions and stays close to them. She also loves her country, too, a common theme throughout her work, as in the third song “Sueno Espanol” (‘Spanish Dream’), “Soy Latinamericana… de mi tierra no me voy olvidar,” (‘I’m a Latina; I won’t forget my land’). In “Yo Me Llamo Cumbia” (‘My Name Is Cumbia’) the theme gets extrapolated into a hierarchy of belonging, the local cumbia acting in the role of first person- “soy la cumbia, soy Colombiana… soy Barranquillera… soy de aqui, donde naci’” (‘I’m cumbia, I’m Colombian… I’m from Barranquilla… I’m from here, where I was born’).

She loves her times as much as her place, the old times and traditions, wasting no words about her feelings for those who have usurped them. “Recuerda los Tiempos viejos… cosas van cambiando…no hay tierra para cultivar… no hay tobacco ni para fumar… la riqueza se han llevado” (‘remember the old days… things now changing… no land to cultivate… not even tobacco to smoke… the wealth has all been carried off’) she sings in ‘Cosas pa’ Pensar’. But beyond the time and the place and the right or the wrong there is an air of unreality to it all, or rather the magical reality of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, also native to the area, she singing about “jardines de mis Amores” (‘gardens of my loves’) in ‘Duena de los Jardines’ (‘owner of the gardens’), which sounds like a title right out of his oeuvre.

Like vallenato, another archaic Colombian style, Toto’s songs don’t even sound like they should be coming through microphones and speakers, much less iPods and laptops. You should be listening in the evening’s first cool breeze in a hot sultry jungle town, sitting on the porch and sipping a drink while the band plays and the lights come on one by one around town. This is music that carries its world with it, setting up camp and staying a while, until its time to move on. It WOULD be nice to see what some big-city producers and mixers would do with the raw material, though, but I guess we’ll have to wait for that. That’s “La Bodega” by Toto La Momposina. Check it out.