Dear Tropicalistas world wide we are very honoured to introduce you another band coming to joy the Tropical Diaspora® Records family. Direct from the Afro Diaspora in São Paulo / Brazil. A incredible characteristic in the Grupo Höröyá that impressed us was the fact that African immigrants most from west Africa in São Paulo were playing in the Band together with Brazilian musicians. The African immigration in Brazil is a phenomena from the time Brazil had a social democratic government in last few years. Those governments were preoccupied to maintain or rebuild relations with African nations, actually the continent that gave birth to the Brazilian culture as we know it today.
Höröyá spot light the culture from a region today divided by borders created by European criminals know as colonizers. This huge region have the Atlantic Ocean as western and southern borders. In north the Sahara Desert, with the Niger Bend generally considered the northernmost part of the region. The eastern border is less precise. West Africa is generally considered to include the countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo. Some consider Cape Verde, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Mauritania, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Western Sahara to be part of the region as well.
Afrobeat?
This is exactly what the Höröya Group’s music is not, their music brings some important African roots, it is a summary of some musicalities and it has a musical construction that does not follow the Western standard, not based on harmonic sequences or on melodic themes for instance. Höröyá´s music is more focused on percussion bringing with it an essence of the African yards, the dance groups found in the Mandeng culture, a culture that has in Famoudou Konate one of its greatest representatives.
Fomoudou Konate is the godfather of the Group and participates in performances in Brazil. Fomoudou is a master of the Djembe instrument and one of its greatest diffusers an important personality in the Mandeng culture in Guinea as well.
“The rhythm I make is very difficult to learn abroad but here in Brazil not because Brazil is like Africa” Fomoudou Konate
The band is from São Paulo and formed by Brazilian and West African musicians, connecting different cultures and establishing a dialogue between Brazil and the African continent. André Ricardo, multi instrumentalist, is the creator of the group and the conception of the musicality. Behind Höröya’s musical force is a powerful mix of percussion instruments from different cultures, such as sabar, atabaque, djembe, cuica and dunduns. They share space with instruments of African Griots, including balafon and ngoni, along with guitars, bass, trumpet and saxophones.
Höröyá’s music creates a permanent contact between different traditions, while keeping their essence. Through music, Höröyá reinterprets in a new format the origins and influences of the African and Afro-Brazilian cultures.
Höröyá in the Mandeng language means “freedom” or “autonomy”.
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