Peruvian recording artists in a variety of modern musical genres —from rock, pop and blues to hip-hop and trap— are making a cultural statement by composing songs with lyrics in Quechua, the most
These creative endeavors are partly aimed at encouraging the
use of a language that is often avoided in the Andean nation due to fear of discrimination.
Amid the wide range of music in Peru, most of it sung in either Spanish or English, a select number of artists have been fusing traditional Andean genres with the musical styles favored by the younger generations.
The rock and blues band Uchpa ("ashes" in Quechua) has been a pioneer in this effort, with Andean folklore and "runasimi" (as Quechua also is known) having been the defining feature of their music over a career spanning more than 25 years.
The group is led by vocalist Fredy Ortiz plus songwriter and guitarist Marcos Maizel.
"Our music has an Andean soul. It's not just rock sung in Quechua. If a peasant farmer listens to us, he feels that soul," Ortiz, who worked as a police officer during the Peruvian government's 1980-2000 conflict with the Shining Path terrorist group before devoting himself to music, said in remarks to EFE.
"Wherever there's violence, both sides lose, and out of that destruction, all that remains are ashes, which in Quechua is Uchpa, a short and phonetically attractive word. Quechua is very expressive," said the long-haired Ortiz, who made his remarks while preparing to perform late last month at La Noche, a cultural center and live music venue located in Lima's bohemian Barranco district.
The singer recalled that Uchpa started out "more or less playing around," when he would spend most of what he earned as a police officer on cassette tapes of albums by John Mayall, Johnny Winter, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, AC/DC and the Rolling Stones.
Once the group members started taking their music more seriously, they began fusing Huayno (a popular Andean musical genre) with rock in songs like "Ananao" and "Corazon Contento," which became a national hit.
In performing those songs live, Ortiz wears the elaborate hat associated with the scissors dance, one of the most colorful and emblematic folk dances of the Peruvian highlands.
"It's Peru's craziest," he said of that competitive dance in which performers hold a pair of polished iron rods in their hands that resemble scissor blades.
"I had dreamed of making rock music with scissor dancers and waqra phukus (trumpets made from cattle horns), and we're doing it."
After Uchpa finished their performance in Lima, several young people approached the musicians and proudly said that their parents hail from Andean regions like Cusco, Huancavelica or Ortiz's native Apurimac.
"There are lots of young people who no longer speak Quechua, but there are others who are able to do so but don't for fear they'll be marginalized. With our good, contemporary music, we're encouraging all of them to disseminate our
native language, which is rapidly being lost," Ortiz said.
Uchpa's success has inspired a new generation of Peruvian recording artists, including Renata Flores, Ruby Palomino, and Liberato Kani.
"When I heard Uchpa's version of 'The House of the Rising Sun' in Quechua, it was really impressive. That was the first song I covered," Renata Flores, a young female vocalist who became famous in Peru at age 14 with her Quechua adaptations of tracks by Alicia Keys and Michael Jackson, told EFE.
"It was a really unexpected 'boom.' I never imagined that so many people would receive the message of showing renewed appreciation for Quechua, especially through music, which for me is a language that we all speak," she recalled.
Now 18, Flores is preparing her first album, which also will feature her own original songs such as "Tijeras," in which she ventures into trap, a style of hip-hop.
"It has a very powerful message, and the melodies and fusion we did are also really strong. It's my favorite. The lyrics refer to women and about not remaining silent, and about the corruption that exists now in these times. It says 'Uyariy nisqayki, manchakuychu rimayta' (listen everyone, don't stay silent)," Flores said.
The young singer from the Ayacucho region said "singing in Quechua, beyond revaluing it, is a responsibility, a way to learn the language, love, and respect it."
"That's what I try to convey to everyone. Quechua is a very important language, with a whole culture and history behind it," she added.
The sonorous qualities and onomatopoeic expressiveness of Quechua are even more evident in the rapping skills of Liberato Kani, the stage name of Ricardo Flores, a young hip-hop artist who was born in Lima but raised in the Apurimac region.
"The main message of my songs is that Quechua sounds good, as do other
native languages," he told EFE.
"Quechua links us to our history and culture. There's no reason to hide it away and not speak it. That spirit of feeling good about our identity has been lost, especially in the cities, but that's changing with the projects that young people are carrying out," Kani said.
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