Susana Baca - "Sorongo" from the 2021 album Palabras Urgentes on Real World Records.

Singer, musicologist, writer, three-time Latin Grammy winner, and a former Minister of Culture in her native Peru, Susana Baca has been a treasure to the Peruvian people for five decades now. A champion of the revival of Afro-Peruvian music, Baca’s latest album “Palabras Urgentes,” is an enthralling 10 song set that pays homage to the heritage and tradition of those that once fought for a better world and features production by Snarky Puppy’s Michael League. 

The record’s lead single and our Song of the Day, “Sorongo,” is Baca’s take on a song by salsa composer Tite Curet Alonso. Alonso was a prolific writer, originally from Puerto Rico, who penned more than 2,000 songs in a thirty year career and “Sorongo” was first released by his friend Rafael Cortijo Y Su Bonche in the late 1960s. More recently the song was recorded by Calle 13 (who also collaborated with Susana Baca on the Latin Grammy-winning song “Latinoamerica.”)

“Within ‘Sorongo’, one can find intuition, strength, feeling and enunciation,” says Baca of the song. “I spent many nights trying to find the right way of singing ‘Sorongo’… in the end it is only with the presence of the musicians that accompanied me that it found vitality. I am sure that Sorongo’ is faith found at the crossroad between feelings and rhythm.”

Michael League added:

“Sorongo is a very interesting track because of its history with Calle 13 and because it’s a powerhouse track on a record that doesn’t really have powerhouse tracks. This is like a freight train and stands apart from the rest of the record in that way but Susana was really, really adamant about feeling Africa in Sorongo, so we made a lot of really interesting decisions during the recording process about textures and sounds and structure to make you feel the connection between the sugar fields in Peru and the African roots of the people who were enslaved and working them.”

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