The End of an Era, or ?

(Yerbabuena, Photo Credit: Julian Gerena-Quinones)

I was seeing posts everywhere that the Thursday night Yerbabuena spot at Camaradas was coming to an end. Any of you who are in the NY City area know that the YB's have held court on Thursday nights at one of El Barrio's favorite watering holes for a couple of years now and so much to the point where the Yerbabuena and Camaradas name have become synonymous. When I heard the Thursday nights were coming to an end, I was scramblin' to find info as to whether they would be calling it quits at Camaradas completely or just moving to another night, fortunately the latter proved to hold true.

(Yerbabuena, Photo Credit: Julian Gerena-Quinones)

Few groups bring the kind of energy that the YB's do, but after lookin' at their roster, comprised of young Nuyorican's and city dwellers alike, it really doesn't seem so surprising. It is just a matter of expressing the way they talk, walk, live, eat and breathe, just in the form of bomba and plena. Tradition and Modernity, Old and New, coming together in a form so cohesive that you can no longer separate the two. No more labels people, it just is what it is.

So that said, let me just pose a question? Yo Tato, when are we going to get another recording from the YB Camp?

Oh, and if you want to catch the Yerbabuena crew do what they do best, you will need to troop it out to Camaradas on their new night on every last Saturday of the month where you can see Tato, Flaco, Melissa, Julissa, Aubrey on vocals, Guillo on bass, Hector on cuatro, Bebo and Nick on barriles, and the crew of dancers whom without we could not call it bomba y plena.

Camaradas
2241 First Avenue
El Barrio, NYC 10029
212-348-2703



(Yerbabuena in action, Bebo and Nick on barriles, Video Credit: maldonadojustin)

More Youtubin' "GFYEN"

(GFYEN Rehearsal, Video Credit: rasmann6)



(GFYEN Rehearsal, Video Credit: rasmann6)

Cajon

I was doing some youtubin' and came across a video, which while unfortunately has pretty bad sound quality you get to see the ever elusive Jose "Apache" Rivera in action at a Cajon ceremony (on caja). Nicky Laboy is on cajon as well (mula). I am not familiar with the other players, maybe someone can kindly drop that information. Abi Holiday goes from the cachimbo to get on guataca a couple of minutes into the song and takes the lead singing as gallo.

(We previously had a clip of the video embedded on the page, but opted to remove said clip out of respect to those in attendance at the ceremony).

If you still want to see the clip you can catch it here

El Corazon Africano De Cuba......

I just loved this photo of this elder with her Elekes and panuelo de Oshun, con una tremenda sunga en su mano