GUarapachangueo

This recording captures Pedrito and Román’s musical chemistry right after their arrival from Havana, thus documenting their unique interpretation of their generation’s sound, the Rumba guarapachanguera, a grass-roots music movement that emerged in the late 1970s and that introduced a different Rumba rhythm, the interplay of beats and rests, or what the rumberos call “silences.” The guarapachanguero style juxtaposes traditional instruments with the invention of new ones, for example the “raspadura” drums. Raspaduras are pyramidal wood box instruments which size determines their tonality. Marielito Manuel Martínez Olivera "El Llanero" baptized the guarapachanguero by naming it before his departure from Cuba in 1980. The rhythm, however, was actually invented by his neighbors and cousins, the López brothers, better known as "Los Chinitos," a Rumba family from La Korea suburb in Havana. Los Chinitos, Francisco Mora “Pancho Quito,” Jacinto Schull “El Chori,” and the ensemble of Yoruba Andabo were this musical movement’s precursors and Pedrito and Román’s direct influence.

The invention of the guarapachanguero’s new rhythm and drums is a key indication of Rumba’s improvisational nature, an acoustic elaboration that showcases Rumba’s experimentation based on a profound sense of polyrhythmic knowledge based on the clave (performed with two wood sticks or two different spoons) timing, and the necessary conversation among drummers, singers and dancers. Thus improvisation or inventar (to invent) is a great example of the rumbero idiosyncrasy: anything rumberos think becomes a Rumba lyric, anything the rumbero touches becomes an acoustic surface, and when the police arrives there are no drums on sight but wood trunks, suitcases and spoons.