March 1999

Various Artists
The Yoruba/Dahomean Collection: Orishas Across the Ocean
Rykodisc

By Josef Woodard

Another new release in the series, The Yoruba/Dahomean Collection: Orishas Across the Ocean (Rykodisc 10405; 65:36), ventures out of Africa to examine the expansive influence of the Yoruban religion in binding musical-spiritual heritage in outposts of slavery. These recordings of musical appeals to the deities known as orishas were made between the ‘30s and ‘50s, come from Haiti, Trinidad, Cuba, and Brazil, and show the paths of cultural influence, born in the adversity of slavery, but coalescing into a powerful musical source material.