Susana Baca

Artist’s Website

SUSANA BACA belongs to a new generation of Peruvian singers, delving into the shadows of the past to recover shimmering melodies and seductive rhythms. Her seemingly effortless interpretative skills belie years of work assembling the songs, the stories and the steps of music and dances once consigned to history.

Baca was born and raised in Chorrillos, a seaside barrio outside of Lima. It was there that she was steeped in the cultural legacy of Africans brought to Peru by the Spanish slave trade. After years of writing books and making recordings based on her fieldwork in towns like Chorrillos, Trujillo and El Carmen, Baca first gained world recognition in 1995 when David Byrne included her rendition of “Maria Lando,” a compassionate ballad of third world worker oppression, on his compilation, The Soul of Black Peru.

Her latest release, Espiritu Vivo, is a collection of both new and old recorded before a small audience in an intimate Manhattan sounds studio during the days following the September 11th tragedy. With guests performances including John Medeski (of Medeski Martin & Wood) and Marc Ribot, the album conveys sincerity and deep-seated empathy that is based on the memory of Baca’s roots in Chorrillos, as well as the terror of that infamous week in September, that pushes the music of suffering and triumph to new levels of meaning.

In addition to her music, Baca founded and continues to work with the Instituto Negro Continuo, which preserves the music and culture of back Peru for future generations. Today the Instituto is helping several young artists record and publish new material. Come join Susana Baca for her e-town debut, the “undisputed diva of Afro-Peruvian music.” Wall Street Journal