Aurelio Martínez, the Honduran musician who championed his nation’s Garifuna folks (also referred to as the Garínagu) and introduced their music to wider worldwide consideration, has died. Martinez was one among 13 folks killed final evening, Monday, March 17, in a small airplane 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. Usually 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 numerous latin jazz ensembles. Finally, he shaped 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 loss of life in 2008, Martínez returned to music, and would go on to launch three extra studio LPs beneath the moniker Aurelio: Laru Beya in 2011 and Lándini in 2014, and Darandi in 2017. Final yr, Lándini was named as among the best Latin American albums of all time within the Los 600 discos de Latinoamérica, a listing challenge compiled by music journalists from the area.
In 2015, Martínez gave a performace for NPR’s “Tiny Desk Live performance” sequence. “The gorgeous factor about Aurelio is that he didn’t wish to do issues only for himself,” Garifuna activist Ubafu Topsey advised The Guardian following Martínez’s loss of life. “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 how you can be decided to beat and to be in keeping with how our historical past.”