A congo line in Nunemaker Auditorium may be the last thing someone imagines for a Wednesday night, but when the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies held their inaugural event, “Everybody Runnin’ to the Carnaval,” just that happened.
Calypso, a form of Caribbean music that originated in Trinidad, was the music of the night as members from the Costa Rican band Cantoamérica, consisting of Manuel Monestel, Marvin Brenes, Rafael Vargas and students from the Loyola Jazz Program performed April 14 in Nunemaker Auditorium.
“We started planning the event back in October,” Uriel Quesada, director for the Center of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, said. “We wanted to bring the Caribbean to Loyola.”
Chemistry freshman Roberto Prego agreed.
“Calypso music is a prime example of what Latin American culture is,” he said.
The Carnaval involved a nine song set with bright Caribbean songs based off a particular Limónese Calypso clave. All the songs, Monestel said, were songs from Calyposians — artists that performed Calypso music.
The second song Cantoamérica performed with Loyola students Susanne Romero and Carlin Meyers, “One Man Band,” tells the musically colorful story of a poor man who would rather be a dog then a man. The song, according to Monestel, was written in the 1960s around the time the Soviet Union sent a dog to space.
“The man in the song supposedly feels that men have too many problems and being a dog would be much easier,” Monestel said. “You know like how the dogs on the street can just wander around with no worries.”
“The Landlady,” a song about a landlady that chases her tenant around with a knife after he fails to pay his rent, is something that Monestel joked is “a rare occurrence in everyday life.”
“Mama Come Take Me Home” is an upbeat tune sung about a boy who has a “weird cigarette” he gets from a friend, and then wants his mother to take him home. Monestel sang, “As I walk home, the earth below me trembles,” as the band behind him backed up the story.
Quesada invited the band and said that Monestel is an important scholar in Latin American and has written and published various works on Caribbean music and the African Diaspora, a subject matter he spoke of in his presentation.
“Cantoamérica is a very important band, and they have been playing for more than 40 years,” Quesada said. “I wanted this to be an event where students from Loyola were a part of what’s going on.”
Raven Crane can be reached at [email protected]
