Susana Baca en el New York Times

La actual Ministra de Cultura del Perú, Susana Baca, entrevistada por el New York Times. la nota es de James C. McKinley Jr.

By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr. Published: August 19, 2011

Success was a long time coming for Susana Baca, the Afro-Peruvian folk singer who was recently named minister of culture for the new populist government of President Ollanta Humala of Peru. She is the first black member of the Peruvian cabinet and the first musician to hold the position.

Ms. Baca was 51 and working in relative obscurity when David Byrne discovered her in the mid-1990s and put her stirring rendition of “Maria Lando” on his compilation “Soul of Black Peru.”

Since then she has recorded six albums on Mr. Byrne’s label, Luaka Bop, and her reputation as an ambassador of Afro-Peruvian music to the rest of the world has grown. She won a Latin Grammy in 2002 for best folk album when a European label reissued “Lamento Negro,” the forgotten record she had made at the Egrem studio in Cuba in 1986.

Critics have lauded the plangent quality of her voice and the way she plays with folk forms, combining rhythms of different genres and tinkering with traditional lyrics, sometimes even setting poetry to folk tunes.

Her new album, “Afrodiaspora” (Luaka Bop), departs from her ballad-heavy sets rooted mostly in Peruvian rhythms. She takes an up-tempo tour of African-influenced music across the Americas, singing not only Peruvian festejos and landós, but also a Colombian cumbia, a Cuban son, a Puerto Rican bomba, a Brazilian coco, a funk tune about New Orleans, a Mexican son jarocho.

Now 67, Ms. Baca has never been a member of the political or social elite of Peru, where racial and class divisions run deep, though for decades she was an outspoken advocate for Peruvian blacks. Rebuffed as a musician, she founded the Instituto Negrocontinuo in Lima to preserve black folklore and music.

The request from President Humala, a former general turned left-leaning populist, to lead the culture ministry came out of the blue as she was preparing to go on a tour of the United States and Europe to promote “Afrodiaspora.” She will appear on Sunday evening at City Winery in the South Village. She spoke on the telephone recently about the new album and her appointment. Following are edited excerpts.

Q. Tell us how you ended up being named minister of culture. Did you know before the election that it was a possibility?

A. It was a big shock. The ministers of culture have always been archaeologists and anthropologists, sociologists, but never an artist. I thought about my mother, and how I would have liked that she were alive to know that her daughter, from a humble background, who has struggled a lot in life, came to have such an important post in this country.

Q. You have never moved in the circles of governmental power in your country. When you were a girl, was it even possible for a black woman to dream of becoming a minister?

A. Not just when I was a girl. It was only a short time ago that we managed to become respected, to have status. Among common people there is this mentality, and this we have seen in the social networks during the second round of the election of President Humala. There were terrible, racist things said on the networks. Racism against Indians. Strong racism. It was regrettable and sad that in this country there still are people who despise blacks and Indians and natives of the Amazon.

Q. Tell us about this new album. It seems like a tour of the music of African people in the Americas. You draw on traditions from Cuba, Peru, Mexico, Brazil, Puerto Rico, even New Orleans. Why did you choose these songs?

A. I wanted to show the Africanness of America. Our Africanness. To celebrate this Africanness. That is what has happened on this album. In choosing the songs, it is marvelous to see that when we interpret music of Puerto Rico, and a bomba dance seems to be so much ours, because the rhythm, well, it’s not the same, but it’s similar. What excites me so much, for example, is how one can manage to make a funk song end in a Peruvian festejo, and you don’t lose authenticity.

Q. Is there a particular track on this album that is special for you?

A. The one from New Orleans. It was important to do this work because I lived in New Orleans and got to know the musicians there, but I couldn’t get anything started because of Katrina. When I do this song, I remember all that I lived through, and I think it is a homage to the music of that beautiful place that is New Orleans.

Q. You were forced to leave by Katrina. How long were you there?

A. I went up for about a month. I arrived for the celebration of Louis Armstrong’s birthday, and there was a lot of music, a lot of food. It seemed to me I was in paradise. All of a sudden the hurricane came, and everything was transformed.

Q. On this album there are two covers of songs by the Mexican singer Amparo Ochoa and the Cuban songstress Celia Cruz. How did they influence you and your music?

A. Celia Cruz I have known since I opened my eyes. My mother adored her. I saw her on television singing with La Sonora Matancera, in the era when she sang with them. And she was singing Yoruba songs. It fascinated me.

Q. And Amparo Ochoa?

A. I met her in Cuba in the 1970s. She arrived and went directly from the plane to the stage and started to sing and sing and sing. Later we passed several days together there, her singing a Peruvian festejo and me learning “La Maldición de Malinche.” We shared a lot.

Q. How will you be able to balance your duties as a minister and your music career?

A. It’s going to be very difficult. Although I have a first-rate team working here, I think that the job’s going to eat into my work as a musician. But I’m not about to give up music.