The arrangement at the gig at King Cassava's Bar in Hopkins Village in Belize is that Andy Palacio and his band will play for free, provided the drinks in the ramshackle room at the back also cost nothing. The rum punches are superb, and the band has gelled in the last year to become hair-raisingly good. The rain chucks down but everyone carries on dancing anyway. 'I've never seen that in my life for a Belize band,' says Ivan Duran, grinning.
Ivan had good reason to be cheerful because he is the producer of Palacio's breakthrough album Watina. Recorded in a beach house near Hopkins, the record was released to rave reviews last year and continues to make serious waves internationally.
While the King Kassava gig was basically a party for friends and family (and hangers on, like me), the show in Dangriga the night before in front of hundreds of adoring fans who knew all the words to the songs felt like one of those great pop moments when something greater is being invoked than mere music.
While Andy Palacio is still sometimes recognizable as the teacher and bureaucrat he used to be, there were shades of a Bob Marley or Fela Kuti gig. Palacio has become a bona fide man of the people; the new white suit and Dolce and Gabbana shades don't hurt one bit.
The Garifuna culture, involving a mix of African and indigenous Indian elements, that Palacio has been championing for the last 20 years and of which he now sings is still threatened. Escaped slaves from a sinking ship ended up in St Vincent in the Caribbean, it is thought, where they mixed with the local Arawak Indians over a period of generations. They ended up in Belize in the early 1800s having been evicted by the British and can be found elsewhere in Central America.
Palacio surrounds himself with those of a more mystical bent than himself, like the veteran singer Paul Nador, who lives ascetically in a self-styled temple, full of religious icons, where he communes with the spirits and claims to heal people's illness through his music. The women singers like Sophie Blanco who sang backing vocals on Watina also started as temple singers; they are being pushed to the forefront in Ivan Duran's next project as producer, to be released in March.
There is a spine-tingling eeriness and a sense of suffering and pride in their soulful singing; the singers may have less confidence and polish than Palacio now has, but the album will prove another atmospheric winner.
