Those who follow the work on this website know that I cover a plethora of topics concerning music history and culture. I would like to expand on that by briefly exploring something that has been near and dear to my heart since childhood: video games. Or, more specifically, video game music. I grew up in the 1990s at the crossroads of the 8-bit and 16-bit gaming generations and was fortunate enough to experience different arcades, consoles, and PCs from that era. Video game music has left an indelible impression on me through nostalgic memories, and I am not alone in expressing this sentiment. Such music is now being treated with respect as part of popular culture history. The Library of Congress recently archived the “Super Mario Bros. Theme” as part of the National Recording Registry. The ongoing financial success of new Super Mario Bros. Movie from Universal, Nintendo, and Illumination (despite negative criticism) features a score by Brian Tyler that incorporates musical collages of themes by Koji Kondo and David Wise[1] from various Mario, Luigi, and Donkey Kong games.

​Perceptions about video game music have also shifted in the twenty-first century: from initially being publicly dismissed as “not music,” to achieving a place in academia via the branch of musicological research and performance called Ludomusicology. The literature and resources concerning Ludomusicology have been growing for the past twenty years or so and often combine multiple academic disciplines. As someone who researches African, Latin American, and Caribbean music and cultural customs, I must add that video game music frequently applies genres, rhythms, and instrument from these regions of the world both for inspiration and (depending on its use) maintaining some degree of cultural respect. Based on what I have compiled so far in my research via an open collaborative playlist, I have encountered many instances where video game soundtracks incorporate Hispanic, Latin American, and Caribbean[2] music. These instances often evoke geographical locations, like islands or deserts. They also serve to represent moods or characters: The variety of genres also becomes apparent: flamenco, salsa, bossa nova, cha-cha, mambo, and other Spanish and (Afro-)Latin American musical materials. Some video games also incorporate indigenous music, albeit more out of respect for Native American people. The PC game Inca from 1992 pays homage to indigenous Peruvian culture (in a futuristic way), through synthesized panpipes and guitars, as well as incorporating the Quechua language in the introduction to the game.   


[1] Surprisingly, Wise was not mentioned in the end credits to the film.

[2] When I say “Caribbean,” I include all areas of the region via the Spanish, British, French, and Dutch regions.

As 2023 marks the one-hundred-fiftieth anniversary commemorating the official abolition of enslavement in Puerto Rico on March 22, 1873, it deserves mention that uncovering more details about the Afro-Latin identity and culture still maintains relevance across Latin America and the Caribbean. The Cumbre Afro 2023 conference, which I attended virtually, reaffirmed the urgency for more open dialogs about Afro descendants and culture in ways that avoid cultural exploitation. Many of the presentations and panel discussions that I witnessed would acknowledge racial and gender discrimination through invisibility and provided possible solutions to overcoming sociopolitical and economic problems through the arts, education, historical preservation, and other approaches. This conference additionally demonstrated the growing awareness and impact of African American identity, literature, and social struggles from the past and present. More specifically, moments like the Black Lives Matter movement have encouraged Afro-Latin and Afro-European communities in the United States and abroad to address and resist cultural assimilation and erasure.  

The Cumbre Afro 2023 symposium also discussed issues already covered in my previous works concerning Africanized syncretic religions in Latin America. The information presented not only explored the inclusion of the bomba music and dance as codes for spreading conspiracies and revolts in Puerto Rico. Afro-Puerto Ricans in the nineteenth century and beyond would incorporate the bomba through Africanized defensive martial arts. That aspect further shatters previous romanticized misconceptions about enslavement in Puerto Rico. As the symposium came to a close, I perceived the interest and concern from the audience to continue these conversations in the communities and daily life. 

In continuing the discussion from my previous post, I wanted to draw attention to how music has played a crucial role in helping enslaved Afro-Puerto Ricans in the nineteenth century to resist captivity and oppression. The bomba has been documented as one of the known performative genres extant since Spanish colonization in Puerto Rico. While the English translation of the word “bomba” signifies the word “bomb,” the word is actuallya Spanish mistranslation of the French word bamboula, roughly meaning a kind of drum. I have talked about the murky origins of bomba in Puerto Rico in From Ring Shout to Bomba: mainly, how the musical term is often attributed to the French botanist Andre Pierre Ledru in his trip to the island in the eighteenth century.

Bomba incorporates music and dance through group participation and often consists of a “call and response” approach. A leader sings a line of lyrics, and the rest of the groups sings back by “responding” to it. Instrumentation typically involves barrel drums, a log drum called a cua, maracas and singers. Bomba can be used for both religious and secular purposes and also consists of multiple drumming patterns: the most basic one being the bomba sica. The following tutorial video provides visual and musical notation examples for different bomba rhythms. How does this information relate to Afro-Puerto Ricans resisting enslavement in the nineteenth century? History reveals that enslaved Afro-Puerto Ricans used the bomba in the 1820s to secretly communicate with each other about plans for revolt and escape from the island. More of this topic will be included in my upcoming book.

It has become increasingly imperative over the years to understand the global connections, history, and identities of the African diaspora. I have spent the past decade or so perusing these aspects as they concern the Hispanophone and Lusophone (Spanish-speaking and Portuguese-speaking) areas of the world. While my latest publication From Ring Shout to Bomba served as a comparative study of the Gullah Geechee people and Afro-Latin communities in Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Brazil by examining their histories, language, religion, and musical aspects, I also had the opportunity last year to expand my research on the historiography about the African presence in Puerto Rico.

Those who peruse the latest additions to the photographs in the “Gallery” section of this website will notice that, this past September, I presented at the 2022 Slave Dwelling Project conference at the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Created by Joseph McGill, the Slave Dwelling Project seeks to encourage candid and civil discussions about the effects of African enslavement and Colonialism in the United States and abroad through detailed research and travels to areas where such practices were enforced. While the topic that year focused specifically on the Stono Rebellion in September 1739, one of the most important enslavement insurrections to have occurred in early colonial American history, the conference also allowed for discussions concerning enslavement revolts that occurred beyond the Thirteen Colonies. My involvement in that conference provided a comparative historiographical analysis of enslavement and revolts in Puerto Rico during Spanish colonization.

Research on Puerto Rico has revealed the importance behind comprehending and preserving African enslavement history on the island. That often involves modifying that narrative with concrete data and, in certain instances, artifacts from the nineteenth century or earlier to avoid sugarcoating or romanticizing what occurred on the island.  Sources from Guillermo Baralt, Luis A. Figueroa, and others not only clearly illustrate the Spanish involvement in enslaving African people in that area of the Caribbean. They also indicate instances where the enslaved populations either fought back against oppression or had conspired to do so. Sometimes, they implemented musical means via group participation in the bomba singing, drumming, and dancing by transmitting coded messages about liberation and escape from Puerto Rico.

My goal lies in demonstrating to the public the gaps and challenges behind uncovering information about that part of the African diaspora resisting cultural erasure. In preparation for the one-hundred and fifty years of the official “abolition” of enslavement in Puerto Rico in 1873 on March 22, 2023, my next few posts will focus on issues related to locating and understanding documents about enslavement in Puerto Rico. 

Music can have the power to promote activism and effect positive social change. This is especially true when examining the musical aspects of the 1950s and 60s Civil Rights movements, as well the social changes occurring in the twenty-first century through the Black Lives Matter movement since the 2010s. The Cummer Museum of Arts and Gardens in Jacksonville, Florida presented such an example of applying civil rights through music via a recreation of a “freedom concert” from the mid twentieth century to honor the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. These concerts, advocated by his wife and activist Coretta Scott King, often featured music, poetry and lectures all dedicated to overcoming racial discrimination through nonviolence. The musical concert which I witnessed consisted of varied genres performed by soprano Alison Buchanan and American pianist Kevin Sharpe of the Ritz Chamber Players.
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In addition to featuring spirituals, African folk songs, and songs about liberation from oppression, the concert program also consisted of music by Black composers. More specifically, it featured classical music by Samuel Coleridge Taylor (1875-1912), Margaret Bonds (1913-1972), and Adolphus Hailstork (b. 1941). Their pieces chosen for the program applied modern, virtuosic arrangements of African American songs and spirituals: from the piano arrangement of “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” by Taylor, to the “Theme and Variations” approach to “Wade in the Water” via Troubled Water by Bonds. The program also contained Margaret Bonds’ musical settings of poetry by Langston Hughes and a fragment from the Adolphus Hailstork song cycle Songs of Love and Justice (1992). That specific piece shares some similarities with his Epitaph for a Man Who Dreamed, in that Hailstork uses written texts and speeches from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Of the four songs in Songs of Love and Justice, the performers chose the third song (“Decisions”) for its relevance in the 2020s and overall message of encouragement for a better future… if people are willing to make the right choices in life to establish the path to peace.     

Music by Anthony L. Sanchez​
Text by Ditrie Marie Bowie
Image from Birmingham Museums Trust via Unsplash: unsplash.com/photos/Y_XS34BFX00?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditShareLink

Lyrics reprinted with permission from the author:
 
Verse 1:
The angels gathered ‘round on Christmas night
While shepherds marveled at the starlight
The angels gathered ‘round on Christmas night
To celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.
 
Chorus:
Venite adoremus, Dominum!
Venite adoremus, Dominum!
 
Verse 2:
With Joseph standing guard on that calm night
And Mary sighing in the twilight
With Joseph standing guard on that calm night
To celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.
 
(Chorus)
 
Verse 3:
The kings followed a star which burned so bright
To bring them to the King of peace and light
The kings followed a star which burned so bright
To celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.
 
(Chorus)

Part of my approach to music and audio as a composer involves comprehending the importance of sounds from everyday life. I have made it a habit to record these sounds and experiment with them in different ways. The first approach stems from conducting soundwalks at home and, whenever possible, through my travels. I initially became acquainted with the soundwalk as a concept after virtually attending the biennial CCM Music Theory and Musicology Society Symposium (Cincinnati, OH) from March 4-5, 2022. The concept, coined by Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer (1933-2021) seeks to encourage active listening and participation within natural and manmade  environments. My first attempt at creating a soundwalk occurred in my backyard as an exercise for the symposium. While wandering around the area and writing copious notes concerning what I had heard, I noticed almost immediately that the sounds from my backyard at that time clearly illustrated conflicting moments and served as a social commentary on the dangers of noise pollution. Natural sounds heard from within the space competed with more aggressive external contemporary noises produced by humans outside of the backyard in the suburbs.
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I have since conducted more soundwalks in the past several months across different areas of the United States in places like South Carolina and Pennsylvania. Sometimes, though, it helps me to return to my backyard to try and record more sounds. The beauty of recording audio outside in a raw, unedited format lies in the indeterminate approach. One will not always hear the same sounds twice. I recorded over sixteen minutes of audio from my backyard the day after the symposium on March 6, 2022 and was able to detect multiple invasive noises like cars, airplanes, and other machinery clashing with the natural sounds of birds and wind. I am currently in the process of compiling another soundwalk recorded in the same place earlier today.