Biama, by Lebeha Drummers

Lebeha Drummers: BIAMA (official trailer)

Biama

by Lebeha Drummers

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Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
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Includes unlimited streaming of Biama via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Free pdf booklet included

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Full Digital Discography

Get all 3 Lebeha Drummers releases available on Bandcamp and save 20%.

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Biama, RAW, and Lebeha Drumming. , and , .

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1.	Cabasa Wiega (We are hungry) 02:25	info	buy track
2.	Garifuna Nuguya (I am Garifuna) 03:40	info	buy track
3.	Punta 02:57		buy track
4.	Yugadan (Hopkins) 02:49	info	buy track
5.	Gadurutina (I have enemies) 02:33 video		buy track
6.	Wanaragua 04:25		buy track
7.	Maya Hatina (They can’t bake cassava) 03:35		buy track
8.	Saragatina Luba Laruga (I woke up before sunrise) 02:29	info	buy track
9.	Combination Dance 03:43	info	buy track
10.	Malate Isien (Empty love) 03:09		buy track
11.	Uma (Road) 02:12		buy track
12.	Tuwagu Nigidara (My guitar) 02:50	info	buy track
13.	Numadagunu (My friends) 03:48	info	buy track

about

Were it not for a timely shipwreck in 1635 off the coast of St. Vincent in the Lesser Antilles, this story might have turned out differently. The West and Central African people on board – destined for slavery in the Caribbean – instead came ashore and established themselves freely among the indigenous Carib and Arawak people. The Garinagu people have been resisting assimilation and European colonization ever since. Now, almost 400 years later, their strong community spirit, language (Garifuna was unwritten until recently), food, clothing, and culture are as strong as ever; a living history now found on the shores of Belize, Honduras, and Nicaragua as well as Guatemala and the US. Binding this all together: music and dance.

On the North End of Hopkins Village, Belize, if you follow the sound of drums, you will find the Lebeha Drumming Center, opened in 2003 by Jabbar Lambey and Dorothy Pettersen to preserve Garifuna culture. This is where youngsters raced to after school every day to learn their own traditional songs and dances. In 2005 the kids released their first album, Lebeha Drumming, recorded under a palapa. Audiences around the world marveled at their infectious enthusiasm and soulful playing. Now, two decades on, some of those same kids (including Warren Martinez and Clayton Williams) have grown into masterful professional talents. It was high time they made their first studio album. With the support of international fans, and despite the pandemic, they recorded Biama (Two in Garifuna) at Stonetree Studios near the Guatemalan border and it was mastered in California.

The 13-song album of vocals and drums (and some calabash shakers and turtle shells) includes new songs and old, set to traditional rhythms such as punta, paranda, chumba, wanaragua, and hüngühüngü. While other Garifuna musicians have added amplification, guitars, and keyboards (as found in the more commercial up-tempo Punta Rock), the Lebeha Drummers always play unplugged, in the time-honored, traditional manner.

Biama is not an artifact of an endangered culture but rather a celebration of the daily vibrancy of the living street music of Hopkins. Today, Belizeans countrywide sing along to their favorite Garifuna songs in a language they neither speak nor understand. The title of one of the original songs – now a major cultural anthem – by Clayton Williams, sums up the sense of defiance and pride: Garifuna Nuguya (I Am Garifuna). It has been a long journey, with deep and distant roots, but the spirit of the ancestors is alive and well.

credits

released April 15, 2023

The Lebeha Drummers hail from Hopkins, a small seaside village on Belize’s southern coast. Founded by Garifuna drummer Jabbar Lambey and his partner Dorothy Pettersen in 2003, Lebeha was established as a cultural center for local youth as a space where they could drum, dance, and socialize. Known as the Lebeha Boys, the original group of young drummers was mentored by Lambey. In 2005, they recorded their first CD, Lebeha Drumming, and in 2011, Raw, a digital-only release. Biama, their first studio album, means Two in Garifuna, to indicate their second CD. For two decades they have been honing their craft and developing a style of Garifuna drumming immediately recognizable as their own through their idiosyncratic approach to Garifuna rhythm and melody. Two of the original Lebeha musicians, Warren Martinez and Clayton Williams, have emerged as great professional talents from this unassuming origin.

Credits:
Executive producer, Dorothy Pettersen
Produced by Jabbar Lambey, Warren Martinez, and Clayton Williams
Recorded at Stonetree Studios, Benque Viejo del Carmen, Belize, January 24-25, 2022;
Al Obando, recording engineer
Mixed and Mastered by Dave Blackburn at Beat ’n Track Recording, Fallbrook, Calif. beatntrackrecording.com
Designed by Philip Blackburn
Special thanks to all the Patrons for their support of this project.
Special thanks to Jabbar, Dorothy, Chris, Karen, Meredith, Bucky, Lauren, and Philip.
Photo Credits: Emerson Baptist, Philip Blackburn, Gary “Bucky” Buchman, Meredith Buchman & Asani Kweli.

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about

Lebeha Drummers Hopkins, belize

The Lebeha Drumming Center in the Garifuna village of Hopkins, Belize, on the Caribbean coast, keeps the culture alive for generations of students since their founding in 2002 by Dorothy Petterson and Jabbar Lambey. Some of the first generation musicians have gone on to international professional careers. ... more