The first song I’ll discuss I first heard when I was getting to know my Tia Abuela as an adult, in Costa Rica. I was processing (and arguing with her about) her predilection for all things blonde and blue eyed, and casual aspersions about all things Trigueño, Indio or Negro. I particularly liked discussing this song with her, versus my usual frustratingly ineffective deconstructions of the largely lily white iconography sections of Latin American department stores, and Italian paintings of Jesus as a Northern European and their connection to class constructs in Latin America.
Per Wikipedia, “Píntame Angelitos Negros” is a famous poem by the Venezuelan poet Andrés Eloy Blanco published in 1940/44 that was turned into a bolero (as “Angelitos Negros”) by the Mexican actor and composer Manuel “Maciste” Álvarez Rentería. It was first sung by massively popular (throughout the region) singer/actor Pedro Infante in the movie of the same name (1948). Antonio Machín, the globetrotting Cuban singer who brought “El Manisero” to fame in 1930, sang a version that was very popular in Spain, where he lived beginning in the 1950s.
Among the tens of versions of the song are those sung by Latin American giants such as Toña la Negra, Celia Cruz, Lola Flores, Javier Solís and Chavela Vargas, to name just a few. Eartha Kitt and Roberta Flack both sang versions in the US. Eartha’s version follows here – she by the way was not just a kitschy purring singer (my ‘70s baby POV) but an inspiring artist and activist, particularly beginning in the Vietnam war period (worth a google for how she made Lady Bird Johnson cry at a White House dinner):
Here are my selected translations of the text of the poem, about La Negra Juana lamenting the death of her Negrito:
Píntame Angelitos Negros
Andrés Eloy Blanco
Se me murió mi negrito;
Dios lo tendrá dispuesto;
ya lo tendrá colocao
como angelito del Cielo.
My negrito died
God will have him ready
He’ll already be set up
as an angel in heaven
…
Desengáñese, comadre,
que no hay angelitos negros.
Don’t fool yourself comadre,
there are no black angels.
…
Pintor de santos de alcoba,
pintor sin tierra en el pecho,
que cuando pintas tus santos
no te acuerdas de tu pueblo,
que cuando pintas tus Vírgenes
pintas angelitos bellos,
pero nunca te acordaste
de pintar un ángel negro.
Painter of saints in their alcoves,
Painter without this land in your heart,
when you paint your saints
you forget your people,
when you paint your virgins
you paint pretty angels,
but you never remembered
to paint a black angel.
…
Pintor nacido en mi tierra,
con el pincel extranjero,
pintor que sigues el rumbo
de tantos pintores viejos,
aunque la Virgen sea blanca,
píntame angelitos negros.
Painter born in my land
with a foreign paintbrush,
Painter who follows the line
of so many old painters,
though the Virgin be white,
paint me black angels
…
No hay pintor que pintara
angelitos de mi pueblo.
Yo quiero angelitos blancos
con angelitos morenos.
Ángel de buena familia
no basta para mi cielo.
There is no painter who will paint
angels from my people/town.
I want white angels
with brown angels.
An angel from a good family
is not enough for my heaven.
…
Si sabes pintar tu tierra,
así has de pintar tu cielo,
con su sol que tuesta blancos,
con su sol que suda negros,
If you know how to paint your land,
That’s how you need to paint your heaven,
With its sun that toasts whites
with its sun that makes blacks sweat
…
No hay una iglesia de rumbo,
no hay una iglesia de pueblo,
donde hayan dejado entrar
al cuadro angelitos negros.
Y entonces, ¿adónde van,
angelitos de mi pueblo,
zamuritos de Guaribe,
torditos de Barlovento?
There is no church (generally),
There is no small town church,
Where they have let
black angels be painted.
So, where do they go,
Angels from my people,
Redskins from Guaribe,
Mulatos from Barlovento?
…
Pintor que pintas tu tierra,
si quieres pintar tu cielo,
cuando pintas angelitos
acuérdate de tu pueblo
y al lado del ángel rubio
y junto al ángel trigueño,
aunque la Virgen sea blanca,
píntame angelitos negros.
Painter who paints your land,
if you want to paint your heaven,
remember your people
and next to the blond angel
and with the brown-skinned angel
though the Virgin be white,
paint me black angels.
The next song I’d like to discuss is “Si Dios Fuera Negro” a Bomba-Guaracha by the fascinating Boricua composer and singer Roberto Angleró. Roberto Angleró Pepín (1929 – 2018) was a childhood friend of the titan Boricua Salsa composer Catalino “Tite” Curet Alonso (the singing postman). Like Tite Curet, Angleró was a working class man, trained as a mechanic when his father sent him to live with family in The Bronx in 1942.
Per wikipedia: “While in New York, Angleró was drafted into the United States Air Force. He served four years, saw action in South Korea during the Korean War, and was eventually stationed at Air Force bases in Alabama and Texas. Angleró faced multiple racial discrimination incidents while serving in the Southern United States; a particularly acrimonious one occurred in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where a restaurant owner refused to serve him dinner and later called military police to have him and his Jewish-American Air Force buddy escorted out of the state.”
Angleró returned to PR in the ‘60s and joined Lito Peña’s Orquesta Panamericana as singer and composer, and later wrote successfully for both El Gran Combo (including a personal favorite, “Serrana” in 1968) and Bobby Valentín (he penned “Son Son Chararí” and two huge hits: the anthem “Soy Boricua” and “La boda de ella”).
He later formed his own band, Tierra Negra, with whom he recorded “Si Dios Fuera Negro” in 1979, the melody of which he said came to him in a dream. Again, per Wikipedia: “This song became a smash hit in various Latin American countries (particularly Puerto Rico, Colombia, Panama and Peru), and was later versioned in French and became a hit in Guadeloupe and Martinique.”
Si Dios Fuera Negro
Roberto Angleró
Si Dios fuera negro -mi compay- todo cambiaría
Fuera nuestra raza -mi compay- la que mandaría
Negro el presidente y el gobernador
Negro el abogado y negro el doctor compay
If God was black – my man – everything would change
It would be our race – my man – that ruled
Black the president and the governor
Black the lawyer and black the doctor my man
Negra la azucena
Y negra la tiza
Negra Blanca Nieve
Negra Mona Lisa
Black the lily
and black the chalk
Black Snow White
Black Mona Lisa
Negro fuera el día
Negro fuera el sol
Negra la mañana
Negro el algodón -compay-
The day would be Black
The sun would be black
Black the morning
Black the cotton – my man
Negro fuera el Papa
Y negro el ministro
Los angeles negros
Negro Jesus Cristo -compay-
The pope would be Black
And black the minister
The angels black
Black Jesus Christ – my man
(then the song plays on white and black in colloquialisms, including hitting the black ball into the white 8 ball in pool)
For the next two songs, I’ll narrow my focus to Panama in the late ‘50s early ‘60s. Panama has a particularly interesting set of race dynamics due to a number of complex factors including but not limited to:
- A wildly multicultural and overwhelmingly urban population that included English speaking, Protestant 1st (and bilingual second) generation Afro-Antilleans from Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad, Martinique, Spanish speaking Catholic Afro-Panamanians (Panama had been known as “Colombia’s Black Province” in the Colonial era), Mestizos of all shades, Mulatos, Indigenous Natives of at least 10 different nations, Spaniards, Greeks, Christian and Muslim Arabs, Jews (both Ashkenazi and Mizrachi), Chinese, etc.
- Your typical “Catholic Hispanic” privileging of whiteness, and connection of all things European with progress versus all things Native or Black with the primitive, sensual and brutish. The government in the 1940s flirted with Fascism and its’ attendant violent prejudices, even considering expelling Afro-Antilleans, Chinese and Mizrachi Jews.
- A huge US colony (The Canal Zone) in the middle of the country (and its economic engine, for all intents and purposes) administered by many US southerners who ran the zone as if under Mississippi’s Jim Crow laws, with separate water fountains, churches, etc. – and paid black laborers half what they paid whites for the same work.
- A black population (probably around 20% of the population) that, because they came as contracted laborers from the Antilles, were never slaves in Panama and were not putting up with the same BS that a colonial population would put up with. Marcus Garvey, by the way, visited Panama numerous times and had thousands of followers in Panama.
With that in mind, here is “Arroz Colorao” written by Ezequiel “Pipo” Navarro for la Orquesta de Raul Ortiz. Raul Ortiz’s was an excellent “2nd tier” Orquesta in the ‘50s and ‘60s, and this song, sung by Quique Arosemena, is a Mambo-Conga on Raul’s Grabaciones Olguita label.
Thanks to my man Mario Hutson, director of Centro Audiovisual de la Biblioteca Nacional de Panama, who shared this bit from the book “Textos del Tamborito Panameño” by Dora P De Zarate, identifying the hook as a Tamborito (amazing folkloric call and response song form, generally with female choral vocal) from the “Congo” population on the Portobelo coast:
137
Arroz Colorao
S:— Los blanco no van al cielo
por una solita maña;
les gusta comer panela
sin haber sembrado cana
!Ay! siembren arró colorao…
S:— Siembren arró, mujere,
C:— Siembren arró, colorao…
Colored Rice
The whites aren’t going to heaven
because of a simple habit;
They like to eat cane sugar
without having grown the cane
Ay! Grow colored rice
Grow colored rice, women
Grow colored rice
Finally, here is an exceptionally beautiful and moving song written and sung by Claudio Avila with La Orquesta Alegria de Chachi Macias – “Negro Soy,” on the Artelec label. La Orquesta Alegria was another excellent “2nd tier” Orquesta from the capital’s working class Marañon barrio, a hotbed of musical brilliance.
Claudio was born Claude Abregail, of Jamaican parents, which makes his stunning Spanish language composition and singing talent all the more incredible. La Orquesta Alegria was formed by 17 year-old Panamanian Sax legend Reggie Johnson, last year’s honoree at Panama Jazz Festival, who played with Clarence Martin and Victor Boa among many others in the ‘60s in a long career that later saw him still recording and touring (with Will “Quantic” Holland) in the 2000s.
The song, in form an Afro-Lament (see earlier post) released around 1958, was a hit, and was played on the radio all the time. Per bandmembers, the song was focused on racism experienced when trying to gain employment, and reflected lived experiences on the Canal Zone.
Negro Soy
Claudio Avila
Spoken: Buenos dias señor, vengo a ver si necesitan alguien pa trabajar…
Fuera de aqui negro feo, fuera!
Good day sir, I’ve come to see if you need anyone to work…
Get out of here ugly negro, get out!
Por ser Negro
Todos me condenan,
Que culpa tengo
De que el mundo me desprecie
For being Black,
Everyone condemns me,
How is it my fault
That the world scorns me.
Dios mio
Que esta en el cielo
Dame fuerzas para continuar,
Aqui en la tierra
Ya no soy nadie
Por mi color
My God,
Who is in heaven
Give me strength to carry on
Here on earth
I’m not a person
Because of my color
Ya no me afecta
Eso de ser Negro,
Porque hoy se
Es por la ley de dios
It doesn’t bother me any more
Being Black
Because now I know
It’s God’s will.
Dejame vivir la vida, mira nena, como viven los demas
Coro: No tengo la culpa de haber nacido Negro
La culpa la tiene, la tiene el poderoso
Let me live my life, listen baby, like everyone else lives
Coro: It’s not my fault I was born Black
The fault belongs to, belongs to the powerful one.
Final note: I am working on a very exciting project with my man Hide Morimoto from Discos Okra/Tokyo Sabroso related to Claudio Avila, that we hope to release in the next year. Stay tuned!
I would love to hear any other Latin American songs readers think should be brought into this discussion.
This is excellent information. Thank you for sharing it.