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Ivan Duran wrote a nice article about the comeback of Garifuna Music. It's well worth a read.
"What reggae is to Jamaica and samba is to Brazil, Garifuna music is to my country of Belize, a small Central American nation wedged between Guatemala and Mexico.
This vibrant music was brought to Belize by the Garifuna, or Garinagu, people, descendants of shipwrecked African slaves and Carib and Arawak Indians who were uprooted from their homeland in the Caribbean island of St. Vincent in 1796 and later settled in small communities along the coast of Belize, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua. Not so long ago, this music was in danger of extinction, because its master practitioners were growing old and dying off, and the music was being lost to younger generations of Belizeans.
But in the last 20 or so years it has staged a remarkable comeback, a process in which I like to think that my label, Stonetree Records, has played some part. A major element in reviving Garifuna music has been rebuilding a network of musicians and composers, both old and young, and strengthening the communities that support them, both in Belize and abroad."
