Aurelio Martínez, Champion of Garifuna Music, Dies at 55

Aurelio Martínez, the Honduran musician who championed his nation’s Garifuna individuals (also referred to as the Garínagu) and introduced their music to wider worldwide consideration, has died. Martinez was one in all 13 individuals killed final night time, Monday, March 17, in a small plane crash off the coast of the Caribbean island of Roatán. He was 55.

Born within the remoted city of Plaplaya in Honduras’ Gracias a Dios district in 1969, Martínez participated in conventional Garifuna rituals from a younger age. Sometimes carried out on acoustic guitar with percussive accompaniment, Garifuna songs mix West African rhythms with latin, reggae, and calypso music. On the age of 14, Martínez moved to the port metropolis La Ceiba, the place he started performing in varied latin jazz ensembles. Ultimately, he fashioned his first group, Lita Ariran, whose 1995 album Songs of the Garifuna made them one of many first Garifuna bands distributed on a world label.

Two years later, Martínez met Andy Palacio, a fellow rising star in Garifuna music from Belize, when the 2 recorded the duet “Lánarime Lamiselu” for Stonetree Information’ compilation Paranda: Africa in Central America. He put out his debut solo album, Garifuna Soul, in 2004, and in 2005 was elected as the primary member of African descent within the Nationwide Congress of Honduras, the place he fought for the rights of the Garifuna group. Nonetheless, following Palacio’s dying in 2008, Martínez returned to music, and would go on to launch three extra studio LPs below the moniker Aurelio: Laru Beya in 2011 and Lándini in 2014, and Darandi in 2017. Final 12 months, Lándini was named as probably the greatest Latin American albums of all time within the Los 600 discos de Latinoamérica, an inventory venture compiled by music journalists from the area.

In 2015, Martínez gave a performace for NPR’s “Tiny Desk Live performance” collection. “The attractive factor about Aurelio is that he didn’t need to do issues only for himself,” Garifuna activist Ubafu Topsey told The Guardian following Martínez’s dying. “He got here from such humble beginnings and he by no means forgot the place he got here from. He spoke and wrote concerning the actuality of our lives and the best way to be decided to beat and to be in line with how our historical past.”