Anatomy of the Parade
Depending on what your spirit desires is where one finds his soul in the body of this great parade. Each part of the parade gives a different energy and thus draws different kinds of folks lost in the throws of healing, release, want and need.
Where does the rhythm come from?
Santiago de Cuba was once a great port city, the original capital of Cuba and a strategic, economic jewel of the Spanish empire. Because of it’s geographical location, (the closest island port to Spain in the new world), the size and depth of it’s port, and natural defensive architecture, Santiago became the last debarkation point before the big trip across the Atlantic. And too, the first port of call in the Caribbean for a whole host of ships from round the world. A lot of resources and gold passed hands through the city, a center for economic growth with lucrative opportunities and work and thus people from everywhere with hopes and dreams arrived with an intent to make deals, make money, buy land, grow sugar, grow coffee, better themselves or wrests themselves free once again.
Being the capital and main port of call for soldiers, sailors and slaves, freed slaves and merchants, planters, farmers, musicians and all those with a burning hope for something more from the Americas, Africa, Europe, Asia and the Caribbean, a free-flow of ideas began fostered by an exchange of customs and commerce from many cultures in the markets and gambling houses and bordellos and bars and shops which is always the most fertile soil for new rhythm growth – for sound recognizes no race, religion, bondage, nor boundaries and within the connections and collisions of these great cultural ports of the world something wonderful in rhythm and sound always emerges. Some of the rhythms born out of the of the Santiago de Cuba Conga beat are Montuno Son .
Where does the rhythm come from?
What’s the green leaf in people’s hair?
Albaca (basil) – people in the parade use the herb to cleanse the body and the spirit. Often used in Santeria rituals as a cleansing tool, people of the invasion parade use it to protect themselves from evil eyes because there are so many moving in the parade that folks say ‘you’d better protect yourself against any evil spiritual force someone might throw your way,’ even if it’s just to avoid being caught in the path of one of these curses being hurled at someone else – Albaca helps keep the bad kind of funk from taking root on your person. Keeps the spirit clear and free to absorb the power of the drum.
What’s the green leaf in people’s hair?
What is the Invasion Parade?
In the late 19th century there was a little known but very successful large insurgent army in the 3rd and last war of independence from Spain. In 1895, this army consisting of slaves and Cuban creoles took to the battle field and swept all across the island, east to west till they ran the Spanish off, ended slavery, creating a fragile, separate peace. They called the operation, “The invasion”. A particular source of pride for the people of Santiago, for the massive slave army departed from the hills of the great port city with many of the army’s generals and chiefs hailing from the traditionally negro neighborhoods and environs of the bustling city. In honor of the rhythms forged during those tumultuous times and their ancestors who staged the only other known victorious slave uprising in the New World outside of Haiti, this, the biggest parade of the year, is now named “The Invasion”. On this special day, the most famous of the Conga groups, Conga Los Hoyos sets out one morning in July and over the course of 8 hours marches through the city to each of the 5 other Conga neighborhoods to drum battle in sound the other conga groups with 15 thousand to 20 thousand singing, dancing people in tow. A movable feast over 100 years old used to release, recover and remember through the sonic arts no matter whom is in political power.
What is the Invasion Parade?
What are the Visitations?
It’s a friendly and organized way to get engaged, rehearse and fine tune a sound before the carnival. You have one month to get your drums in and out of the shop, organize your drummers, your cornetas and get the neighborhood pumped up and behind you for the carnival. 4 weeks before the carnival the 6 conga groups march through the streets, sometimes over 15 miles to do a drum battle in sound in another neighborhood. This is the first battle in the war for sonic supremacy decided during the Invasion Parade by the people of the parade and ultimately during carnival by way of an expert panel from the fraternity of this spiritual mother rhythm.
What are the Visitations?
The Chants of the Conga
The chorus of the moving chanting crowd is one of the most important components of the Conga parades, providing a discourse between the past and present through sing-song call and response story as folks tap deep into the beat and chant out lout in a public space about anything they wanna say with impunity. A taboo luxury found only on these special days of the parade. The big drums strum the warrior spirits so you feel a joy in fearlessness, lighter and stronger, firmly rooted with your feet hardly touching the ground as you light step along with the parade people moving their feet and rolling their hips, bodies close all round you together as one clapping, laughing, singing to the rhythms everybody knows as the chants call to mind truths you’ve been once wary to say aloud. Release.
Read More
During the 3-8 hour parades, while the people sing traditional conga favorites, new songs always arise out of the ether with each journey through the telling streets. Enchanted out of the beat, these new songs are created in the spur of a rhythm by riffing virtuosos sifting through the under currents of the community, national politics, international politics, domestic issues, the TV soap opera dramas happening during that one moment in time seamlessly woven in-between versions of popular songs flowing with the right rhythms of the conga – in ear shot of the police, these riffing grios dropping knowledge on a breath of events so wide the songs become social commentary playfully challenging the institutionalized stringent social censorship while simultaneously pushing the bounds of the restrictive moral, religious and political mores. During the bigger Conga parades, primarily in the “Invasion” where two thousand to five thousand people come out into the streets to follow the drums, one can hear two basic types of chants:
1) Those following the call of the corneta china – the trumpeter plays the rhythm of classic conga’ssongs known by everyone in the parades with the dancing chorus responding in chant. A kind of orchestra of the street under the direction of the horn, the percussion as the rhythm section to support the calls with the spontaneous singing of the people filled with a heady fever of the right of release. This occurs mainly near the central part of parade near the drums of the band.
2) The second kind of chants are found towards the very back of the conga parade where usually only the faint echoes of the band’s big drums can be heard from much further up in the middle section of the procession. It is here in the back of the parade that songs inspired by improvisation are created and find small groups of followers responding in kind to the call of the riffing singers directing the response. The groups repeat the songs of different improvisers or just one depending on the quality and grace of each new stanza. In the back, these impromptu sonnets are accompanied by instruments such as cowbells, claves, sticks, bottles, cans, spoons, anything, to hammer a sound, in imitation of the rhythms of the conga. Within this part of the parade is where you often hear the choir’s most innovative and ingenious performances, for here, in the back, away from the frenzy of the big sounds of the many drums, is where the most audible calm can be found – a calm most conducive to the expansion of sophisticated and varied songs that folks can hear and sing back into the sky.
The Chants of the Conga
The Chakras of the Conga
The conga is divided into three main parts: the front, the center and the rear where one finds the ingeniously creative new chants. The front of the parade is led by the banner flags of the conga. In the front you have people cooling it drinking with just the waft of the sound of the drums, kids running round, babies with their mothers, older folks, and in the last ten years or so, in the big Invasion Parade, Santeria dancers and drummers honoring their Orisha gods and goddesses. There’s lots of space far up there and you can’t hardly see the drummers and only just about hear them when the wind blows right but though the thunk of conga drummers is thin in the air you can still feel it pierce the skin. Groups of practitioners and players of folk music and Afro-Cuban religions, from the Conga neighborhoods singing and dancing from the beginning to the end of the parade opening doorways and clearing the spiritual path for all always spearhead the procession for the entirety of the parade.
