Cuba and New Orleans, shared musical roots

MIAMI, United States. – For decades, musicians from Cuba and New Orleans They have shared a special connection, based on their African roots and a shared passion for music. Recently, a group of young musicians from New Orleans traveled to Cuba to participate in a cultural exchange with Cuban musicians, organized by the organization Horns to Havana.

According to told NPR New Orleans trumpeter and bandleader Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews, musicians from both places share an affinity for rhythms stemming from African roots. “It’s like being at home musically,” he noted.

For her part, Lilian Lombera Herrera, cultural producer of Horns to Havana, assured that the ties between the musicians from Cuba and New Orleans go back to their shared African roots.

“All of that is part of our very ancestors,” he said. “Some of the Latin nuances to the flavor of the second lines and the music come from the Caribbean. There was a large migration from Haiti that went through Cuba and continued to New Orleans,” he added.

Popular Cuban musician Erik Alejandro Iglesias Rodríguez, Cimafunk, who has collaborated with New Orleans artists such as Tank and the Bangas, The Soul Rebels and Trombone Shorty, told NPR that music is the way artists can connect and overcome cultural and language barriers. “Music is a universal language,” he recalled.

For his part, John Rhodes, a drummer from New Orleans, was surprised in Havana at the ease with which the sounds of the two styles of music complemented each other. “It doesn’t matter where we come from, it doesn’t matter what language we speak, it doesn’t matter what our race is…music is a universal language,” he concluded.