YAKKI FAMIRIE

Yakki Famirie was formed more than 12 years ago and are known as one of the best Kaseko bands. The Kaseko music style has African and Caribbean roots and is still pretty unknown outside Surinam and The Netherlands. Interactting rhythmic patterns on the big drum, solo and choir singing(interplay of question and response) and riffs from the wind section (sax, trumpet and trombone) combined with the wind instruments makes the Kaseko music very attractive dance music.
While kaseko music often used to be heard on the radio and at parties in the Netherlands, it seems to have been forgotten in recent years. It never really made an international breakthrough, even though all the elements of Caribbean dance music are well represented in it. Strangely enough, relatively little has been written about this unique music from Surinam either. Although the US musicologist Herkovits did write on the strong African influences in Surinamese music, so far 'Surinaamse muziek in Nederland en Suriname' (Surinamese Music in the Netherlands and Surinam) edited by Marcel Weltak is one of the few books on the history of Surinamese music. The Surinamese-Dutch musicologist Ronald Snijders states in his postgraduate thesis that the word kaseko is probably derived from Surinam's eastern neighbour French Guyana. It is believed to be a corruption of the expression 'casser le corps' (break the body) which was used in the slavery period to denote a fast 'devil' dance from rural areas in which dancers shook their bodies. Kaseko is the dance and entertainment music of the Surinamese Creoles, the descendants of the African slaves. It is created from a fusion of western march music, chorales, jazz, calypso and other popular music from the countries surrounding Surinam with Afro-Surinamese folk traditions. Interacting rhythmic patterns on the big drum (skratji) and rolls on the separate snare drum, solo and choir singing and riffs from the wind section (consisting of saxophone, trumpet and sometimes trombone) play a central role. The music-making improvises on the basis of an originally African interplay of question and response. This is a musical practice which also characterizes the traditional Creole folk music, the winti and kawina, from which kaseko largely derives its texts, melodies and rhythms. Winti is an Afro-Surinamese religion with a supreme being who has withdrawn from the world and a pantheon of lesser gods. Belief in an immortal soul and the ancestor worship connected with it play a central part in the religion of the Creole population. The music linked to the religious practices is a Surinamese variant of the West African tradition, handed down from the period of slavery, of ritual drum music and dancing before the wintis, the demigods who move as fast as the wind. Each of the wintis has special rhythms and songs by which he or she can be summoned. Their presence manifests itself in the trance dance in which a winti temporarily takes possession of someone's personality. This can happen during a healing ritual, but also at a celebration. Another form of Creole folk music related to winti music is kawina, which arose at the end of the last century after the abolition of slavery in 1863. At the beginning of this century kawina developed into a major form of popular music for people from the city and the coastal areas of Surinam. Its texts are about all sorts of subjects from everyday life, but mainly about the relations between men and women and about public scandals. They are primarily entertaining songs to dance to, with long instrumental interludes of improvisation by the percussion ensemble. Aside from the texts, the main difference to winti music is in the instruments and times used and the greater freedom to improvise which the drummers and lead singer enjoy. What winti and kawina have in common is the call of a lead singer, alternating with a chorus which responds with a harmonized refrain, and the interacting rhythmical patterns. These elements also form the building blocks of popular kaseko music. Kaseko's immediate forerunner is the music which used to be played at open-air festivities using instruments from the military and police bands and the brass bands. An individual Surinamese playing style developed during the 1930s, based on the African winti and kawina rhythms. This street music was known as Bigi Pokoe, big drum music. It was a sort of Dixieland in which part of the band of five to ten players laid down the beat while the other part supplied playful improvisation. The rhythms of the skratji, a big drum with a cymbal on top, and the low tones of the bastuba provided the power behind the dance. The main genres of the undiluted instrumental kaseko in its old-fashioned acoustic instrumentation (of trombone, trumpet, saxophone, bastuba, banjo, big drum and separate snare drum) are devotional basso profondo chorales, bigi-pokoe and winti-pokoe. After the Second World War the original sound of kaseko music was strongly influenced by jazz, calypso and popular music styles from Brazil, Venezuela and the Caribbean. However its Surinamese character remained fundamental. In the course of time, the influence of rock music resulted in amplified instruments replacing the acoustic originals; the banjo was replaced by the electric guitar and the tuba or double bass by the bass guitar, and a drum set was also added. The music was further developed by urban Creoles and became a typically Afro-Surinamese form of rock music under the name of kaseko. Various stylistic directions have arisen within kaseko over the years. The music is performed in quite different ways by Javanese, Hindustanis and Maroons from the interior of Surinam. With the growth of emigration from Surinam to the Netherlands in the sixties, there has also been a great increase in the influence of the huge range of western music forms. Yakki Famirie is one of the few remaining Maroon kaseko groups to demonstrate its ability to impose its own form on the experiments and innovations of recent years. The source of the group's music is aleke kaseko, a fusion of the aleke music of the Aucaners of Marowijne in eastern Surinam and kaseko from the coastal strip. With this new album, they take kaseko a step further in the direction of the new world music. The involvement of producer Manolito Simonet guarantees a solid Cuban sound, while the great variety of Caribbean music types and the addition of the Surinamese-Dutch jazz singer Denise Jannah and percussionist Gerardo Rosales from Venezuela are further evidence of a new international musical orientation. by Rein Spoorman