goddesses) has been subtly integrated into contemporary music.
Though music honoring African water deities may seem to be an obscure category, I quickly uncovered over 100 recordings by artists such as Celia Cruz, Angelique Kidjo, Dianne Reeves and Maria Bethania. In modern music, the theme runs through son, meringue, salsa, samba boleros, jazz, hip-hop and Afropop. Because of this, traditional and ceremonial tracks have been interwoven with more popular forms in order to illustrate contemporary relevance.
This project was originally intended to be released for the opening of Sacred Waters: Arts for Mami Wata and other Afro-Atlantic Water Spirits at UCLA's
Fowler Museum in April of 2008. To research this project, I traveled to Brazil, Cuba and Haiti where I experienced many amazing and moving rituals unlike anything else I had ever seen or heard. Every ritual I attended began and ended with ceremonial music that was transcendent. Although the CD was never released, I gained vivid insights into the way that music and the metaphysical experience are intertwined. As a result, I suspect that many of the popular singers on the CD I put together must have experienced ritual music in their own lifetimes, which later filtered into their own work.
