ANDY PALACIO BIOGRAPHY
Andy Palacio is one of the most respected and admired musicians within the international music community. His
untimely death in 2008 sent shockwaves throughout the world but his music remains immortalized. His
album Watina was declared the Greatest World Music Album of All Time by Amazon.com in 2010. Andy also worked
tirelessly as a music and cultural archivist with a deep commitment to preserving his unique Garifuna culture. The
Garifuna Collective was his ambitious undertaking and the culmination of that passion, advocating for the maintenance
of the Garifuna language and traditions.
Born and raised in the coastal village of Barranco, Palacio grew up listening to traditional Garifuna music as well as
imported sounds coming over the radio from neighboring Honduras, Guatemala, the Caribbean and the United States.
"Music was always a part of daily life," said Palacio, "It was the soundtrack that we lived to." Along with some of his peers,
he joined local bands even while in high school and began developing his own voice, performing covers of popular
Caribbean and Top 40 songs.
However, it was while working with a literacy project on Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast in 1980 and discovering that the
Garifuna language and culture was steadily dying in that country, that a strong cultural awareness took hold and his
approach to music became more defined. "I saw what had happened to my people in Nicaragua. The cultural erosion I
saw there deeply affected my outlook," he said, "and I definitely had to react to that reality." His reaction took the form of
diving deeper into the language and rhythms of the Garifuna, a unique cultural blend of West African and Indigenous
Carib and Arawak Indian language and heritage. "It was a conscious strategy. I felt that music was an excellent medium to
preserve the culture. I saw it as a way of maintaining cultural pride and self esteem, especially in young people."
Palacio became a leading figure in a growing renaissance of young Garifuna intellectuals who were writing poetry and
songs in their native language. He saw the emergence of an upbeat, popular dance form based on Garifuna rhythms that
became known as punta rock and enthusiastically took part in developing the form. Andy began performing his own
songs and gained stature as a musician and energetic Garifuna artist. In 1987, he was able to hone his skills after being
invited to work in England with Cultural Partnerships Limited, a community arts organization. Returning home to Belize
with new skills and a four track recording system, he helped found Sunrise, an organization dedicated to preserving,
documenting and distributing Belizean music. While his academic background and self-scholarship allowed for his ongoing documentation of Garifuna culture through lyrics and music, it was his exuberance as a performer that earned him
world-wide recognition.
At first, Palacio became a local star of Punta rock, an upbeat Garifuna dance music infused with synthetic beats and
keyboards. The Punta rock movement of the ‘90s was in keeping with trends established by successful world music artists
such as zouk pioneers Kassav’ who blended the latest studio technology with their traditional music. But that was not to
be Palacio’s ultimate musical course.
In 1995, Palacio released the album Keimoun: Beat On on the Belizian label Stonetree Records. It was the beginning of a
deep and fruitful collaboration with Stonetree founder and producer Ivan Duran. Recorded in Cuba and
Belize,Keimoun broke new ground and introduced Palacio and Garifuna music to a wider audience. Two years later,
Palacio and Duran joined forces again to produce Til Da Mawnin, an upbeat collection of danceable songs sung in
Garifuna, Spanish and Creole.
Andy Palacio gained enormous popularity both in Belize and abroad, having played before audiences in the Caribbean,
the Americas and Europe and Asia. These include performances at the Festival Internacional de Cultura del Caribe in
Cancun, Carifesta VI in Trinidad and Tobago, Carifesta VII in St. Kitts-Nevis, the Rainforest World Music Festival in Malaysia,
Antillanse Feesten in Belgium, the World Traditional Performing Arts Festival in Japan and several others in the United
States, Canada, Colombia, France, Germany and the U.K.
Starting in the early 2000s, Duran and Palacio set out to create an all-star, multi-generational ensemble of some of the
best Garifuna musicians from Guatemala, Honduras and Belize. The Garifuna Collective united elder statesmen such as
legendary Garifuna composer Paul Nabor, with up-and-coming voices of the new generation such as Aurelio Martinez
from Honduras. Rather then focusing on danceable styles like punta rock, the Collective began exploring the more soulful
side of Garifuna music, such as the Latin-influenced paranda, and the sacred dügü, punta and gunjei rhythms.
Wátina, the debut album of Andy Palacio & the Garifuna Collective, was released in the US and Canada on February 27th,
2007 and the rest of the world on March 27th on Cumbancha. The initial recording sessions for this exceptional album
took place over a 4-month period in an improvised studio inside a thatch-roofed cabin by the sea in the small village of
Hopkins, Belize. It was an informal environment, where the musicians spent many hours playing together late into the
night, honing the arrangements of the songs that would eventually end up on this album. While the traditions provided
the inspiration, the musicians also added contemporary elements that helped give the songs relevance to their modern
context. After the sessions, Ivan Duran worked tirelessly back at his studio to craft what is one of the greatest productions
of Garifuna music to date.
"The idea of the collective has been a long time in the making," said Palacio. "The chemistry of working with different
Garifuna artists, not only within Belize but also from Guatemala and Honduras, was quite appealing and very satisfying to
the soul." In December 2004, he was appointed Cultural Ambassador and Deputy Administrator of the National Institute
of Culture and History. In 2007, Andy Palacio & the Garifuna Collective embarked on an ambitious worldwide touring
schedule in an effort to bring the beauty and power of Garifuna music to a wide audience. In October 2007, Andy Palacio
and Ivan Duran received the prestigious WOMEX Award, a respected acknowledgment from the world music industry . In
his acceptance speech for the award, which was given in Seville, Spain, Palacio commented, "I see this award not so much
as a personal endorsement but in fact as an extraordinary and sincere validation of a concept in which artists such as
myself take up the challenge to make music with a higher purpose that goes beyond simple entertainment. I accept this
award on behalf of my fellow artists from all over the world with the hope that it will serve to reinforce those sentiments
that fuel cultures of resistance and pride in one’s own."
In November 2007, Palacio hosted a group of 15 journalists from across the globe on a tour of Belize's Garifuna music
scene. The tour featured reporters from Le Monde (France), The Independent (UK), Caribbean Travel & Life (US),National
Geographic (US) and others. Palacio invited the journalists to his home village of Barranco, where Palacio was awarded
the UNESCO Artist for Peace. The journey also included visits to the home of Garifuna music legend Paul Nabor, the
Garifuna Settlement Day celebrations in Dangriga and Garifuna Collective concerts in Dangriga and Hopkins. The
memorable journey led to numerous international articles on Garifuna music and culture.
On January 17, 2008, Andy Palacio passed away unexpectedly, shocking his fans and supporters around the world.
Reported as a massive stroke followed by a heart attack and respiratory failure, Andy's death caught everyone by surprise
and came at the peak of his popularity. Recognized as a hero to the Garifuna and a peerless musican by the world music
community, his memory persists in the hearts and souls of his fans and supporters.
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