10 songs that give voice to 'Black Lives Matter' in Colombia

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• Anthony Seydu: "And one day we changed the kaláshnikov for a guitar"

The racial conflict in Colombia has not yet made the front page of newspapers, nor is it televised like the George Floyd case, but it has resonated in his music for years.

It occurred with the death of Anderson Arboleda, a 19-year-old black man who died in the Cauca region after receiving a severe blow to the head by a policeman who allegedly detained him for breaching the quarantine.

Although those events occurred on May 22, there was no echo of the news until several days later.

Ignored by large national media, it was the Colombian artist Goyo, singer of the group ChocQuibTown, who made the story of her death viral on social networks.

#RacismIt is when the Police KILL a young Black man in Puerto Tejada, supposedly for breaching the quarantine and this is not passed through large media, is this not enough to outrage a country?

https://t.co/aIq9z1S2aT pic.twitter.com/dEohL7jjOR

- 👑🖤✊🏾 Goyo (@GOYOCQT) June 1, 2020

As in the song of his band Somos los Prietos, Goyo launched his song: "I bring in my voice the message of my people / He who was born does not give up where you have to fight for everything."

But she has not been the only one to raise her voice against the silenced racism in her country.

The latest case of police brutality that ended the life of Javier Ordóñez and that set the streets of Bogotá burning in protests or the unsolved murder of five teenagers in Cali, inspired several Colombian artists to publish a few days ago Who Killed Them? , a single that was born from the urgency to show the disagreement with the recent acts of violence against the Afro community in the Latin American country.

Throughout the history of Colombian music, and especially in recent years, many artists have raised their voices to demand respect for their black Afro-Colombian communities, the essence of the culture of their country.

From salsa to cumbia, through rap, these ten songs by Colombian musicians are proof of the richness of their Afro legacy, their strength and tradition, as well as the difficult path they have traveled through their recognition. 

Hendrix, Alexis Play, Nidia Góngora and Junior Jein:

Who killed them?

On August 11, the bodies of five young Afro-Colombians, between the ages of 14 and 15, were found massacred in a sugarcane plantation in the Llano Verde neighborhood of Cali.

History stirred the memory of a country that not long ago mourned the massacres of an armed conflict.

It arises from the urgency of reporting cases like these in which the victims are mostly black Colombian population.

Blood that is, as the song says, in "other people's hands", stories that are often made invisible.

ChocQuibTown:

We are Los Prietos

Included on the

Colombian band's 2018

album

, this avant-garde mix of R&B with reggaeton, hip-hop with

Jamaican

and

is a hymn to diversity that celebrates the rhythms of the Pacific.

A tribute to his African roots that has recently inspired the series

a new television production from Sony Pictures Television that will address racism in Latin America.

Set on the Pacific coast of Colombia, it will tell the story of a group of Afro youth who face poverty and racism through music.

Lido Pepper:

I want you to save me

Palenque was the first free town in America, founded by maroons who fled from slavery in colonial times.

A unique place in the world, stopped in time;

famous for its culture, its language, its gastronomy and its history.

Hypnotic and tribal, in this song the artist Lido Pimienta (Barranquilla, 1986) gives voice to her people, who are for her a symbol of freedom, defense of the soul and heart of Afro-Colombians.

The song is included in her recent album, Miss Colombia (ANTI- Records, 2020).

Solar System:

Guaguancore

A social manifesto that invites to dance.

is a song with which to vindicate its African heritage and that launches a cry for Afro pride in which Systema Solar prays: “Black race, Prieto here is uhhhhh!

Raise your face! ”.

Anti-racist song that moves to the rhythm of the band's characteristic berbenautika (the mixture of traditional Colombian sounds and verbena).

Lyric of Chaos:

Black Woman

Feminism will be anti-racist or it won't be.

This powerful rap with afro beats is one example.

 is a voice of resistance, guided by the artist La Zea, who questions pre-established privileges.

A song created under the cover of the Líricas del Caos rap school that faces racism, direct and invisible, which multiplies when it is also macho.

Alexis Play, Nidia Góngora and Esteban Copete:

Prietitud

"We represent a real struggle / That goes beyond the speeches of the people who sneak in / We are the music that sounds / And how we dance is carried in our veins", they sing this outburst of racial pride.

or blackness that shines in this combo of electronic aesthetics accompanied by the voice of Nidia Góngora.

Timbiquí heritage:

Negrito

Every gesture, every feature, every indentation of African heritage deserves praise.

From the wide nose to the white smile that shines on a black skinned face.

Direct from Timbiquí,

is a song that delves into the Afro sentiment of Pacific music.

Joe Arroyo:

Rebellion

Living history of Colombia through salsa.

This song is not only one of the most danced and celebrated in the entire country, it has also transcended time as a hymn of the oppressed thanks to a lyrics that speak of slavery, mistreatment, the African diaspora, emancipation and the freedom.

An immortal and anti-racist song.

Kombilesa Me:

Hairstyles

"Hairstyles are a form of expression", that's how this song starts.

Hair, one of the most prominent identity traits of Afro-descendants, is valued in this folk rap that tells us about beads, braids and frizzy, traditional hairstyles from San Basilio de Palenque.

Rap Drops:

From black to black

The first exponent of Colombian rap, Gotas de Rap released in 1995

the album in which this song is included.

An album that unashamedly tackled issues such as war, kidnappings, poverty and racism.

With a politically revolutionary lyric,

forcefully repeats: "I don't want to be a slave", a phrase that has become a slogan for the history of rap in Colombia.

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