Jende Ri Palenge: New Music and DVD Project from Bomba Estereo’s Simon Mejia
27 February, 2012An exciting new project has been released today by Soul Jazz Records. Jende Ri Palenge is the culmination of Santiago Posada and Simon Mejía’s three month stay in the Colombian town of San Basilio de Palenque, a town famous as being the location of the first free slave community in the Amazon. The result is a 3 disc/5LP + DVD box set featuring original music recorded during their stay, as well as remixes and a documentary.
San Basilio de Palenque – or just Palenque for short – is a central location for Afro-Colombian culture, as shown by last year’s Palenque! Palenque! compilation which featured music recorded in the region between 1975 and 1991, and by the success of groups such as Sexteto Tabalá and Las Alegres Ambulancias. The village is currently proclaimed by UNESCO as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.
Santiago Posada and Simon Mejía (of Bomba Estereo fame) are two Colombian film-makers who decided to travel to Palenque and build a studio for recording original music from the region. They chose to focus on three artists, Panamá, León and Sikito, who put together various line-ups to play music typical of the region. These recordings make up one of the CDs in the box set. Another CD features remixes of this material by electronic, house and dubstep artists such as Osunlade, Matias Aguayo and Kromestar.
There is also an extremely limited (1000 worldwide) incredible 5LP (comes with free DVD) box set available.
The CD version is available from Amazon. All other versions are available from Soul Jazz
Read more about the project here and watch the trailer below:
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