I wanna talk about the prehispanic and mesoamerican representation of music in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
The music was my main motivation to go see the film (alongside with the introducing of Tenoch, one of my favorite people inthe world).
The day of the Mexican premiere, my facebook feed was full of photos of musicians (whom I follow for their prehispanic instrumental and amazing work thru the years in the band TRIBU and colabs with musicians Arturo Meza, Jorge Reyes and Rastrillos) attending the premiere and revealing that they participated in the making of the music for the film!
The news clearly moved me to inexplicable levels because those musicians: Ramiro Ramirez Duarte and Alejandro Mendez Rojas, have spent decades working and promoting research, practice and recognition of prehispanic instruments and how mesoamerican music might have sounded.
In addition, these musicians (one with degree in ethnomusicology and anthropological research and the other as a member of the Otomi indigenous community in the north of the territory where I was born and live), have been and are part of projects and musical groups that have given original music and prehispanic instruments the place they deserve in the broad definition of Mexican music.
In an interview with La Silla Rota Guanajuato They explain that "Prehispanic music no longer exists, from that past only the instruments remain, their melodies".
Alejandro Méndez Rojas commented that is unknown how the music of that time was; everything was destroyed in the 16th century because the Spanish prohibited prehispanic musicians and everything that had to do with ancient culture, they stopped making the instruments, there were no longer any manufacturers.
Did you get chills when the Talokani first came out and hypnotized the ship's crew with their voices? This is what you hear:
Did you feel the love and pain through Namor's origin story? This was what accompanied that feeling:
The pieces Namor, Lost in the depths, Yucatán, Namor's Throne, Imperius Rex and Sink the ship also have remarkable elements from prehispanic instruments and voices.
Hearing the distinctive sounds of snails, flutes, rattles, drums, and canes at epic and emotional moments in the film made my heart race and pride prickle my skin.
About "Árboles bajo el mar", Alejandro Mendez Rojas explain in their social media:
"In this piece I composed all the sounds made with prehispanic instruments. I used a Tepehuano bow, tortoise shells percussed by Huave deer antlers, Mayan double-diaphragm whistle, Mayan trumpets, Tezcatlipoca flute, Mayan tunkul among other instruments made by me.
Thank you for allowing me to promote Mesoamerican musical instruments through their sounds in this film and thanks to all the people who collaborated on this piece."
With their work and passion for the music, they become heroes too:
“One way to ensure that instruments are not lost is to build them again, to execute them, to carry out work so that they last, so that they remain alive.
I think that the instruments of prehispanic Mexico deserve that boost, that promotion to enter a world where there is musical diffusion, the instruments deserve that stage to be better know, we have worked with them for many years, have cost us diffusion"
Because it is another form of representation, it is another way of saying "we are here", but on a large scale, it is an opportunity to continue preserving our culture, our roots and to allow it not to go out.
"Mexico has a wonderful ancestral legacy, worthy of being recovered and put into circulation again, the instruments will come to life in every human being who listens to them"
Gracias señores Ramiro y Alejandro por ser tan chingones y seguir trabajando por darle a nuestra herencia y a nuestras raíces la dignidad que merecen. Felicidades por este trabajo tan hermoso y emotivo. Y muchas gracias por ser parte de mi formación y herencia musical. Me siento orgullosa y feliz por todo eso 🫀
Please, listen all the music from the original soundtrack and give them a lot of love. Thank you Ryan Coogler and Ludwig Goransson for let it be this wonderful dignity manifesto that is Wakanda Forever.
