Katrice Kemble Photos
Las Cafeteras.
“Me gusta la lima, me gusta limón, pero no me gusta tanta corrupción.” Las Cafeteras taught these lyrics to their song “If I Was President” to an enthusiastic crowd on Friday night, assuring us that if we had passed sixth-grade Spanish, we could figure out this simple message.
“If you don’t know what that means,” they said, “it means ‘I love Connecticut’ in Spanish.”
Las Cafeteras are a Chicano band from East Los Angeles that combines folk music, such as traditional son jarocho and zapateado dancing, with spoken-word and hip-hop influences. They performed after The Mandingo Ambassadors, a Guinean Afro-jazz ensemble led by New Haven’s own Mamady Kouyaté, for the first concert in the 2019 Hamden Free Summer Concert Series.
It was a beautiful night for an open-air concert — cloudy and cool as if it might rain, but without the rain. People spread out over the Hamden town green in chairs or on blankets, relaxing and enjoying a perfect evening outdoors. Perhaps this perfect vibe is why no one seemed too disgruntled when the sound cut out for 10 minutes at the beginning of The Mandingo Ambassadors’ set. For the second half of their first song and the first half of their second song, the music was carried solely through on-stage amplifiers. Only those of us closest to the band could hear the music. They carried on, playing with as much vigor as they would have if nothing was wrong, and soon enough, the speakers kicked back in. The crowd cheered supportively, excited that the music was once again audible all over the town green.
Griot-guitarist Mamady Kouyaté founded The Mandingo Ambassadors nearly 15 years ago, after bringing the Guinean dance-band tradition with him to the northeastern United States and continuing to play Guinean Afro-jazz with both West African and Western musicians. Despite being the band’s founder and leader, Kouyaté stood behind a row of brass players and singers for the majority of the performance. He only came downstage for one guitar feature, which was received with fervent applause, and a final thank-you message to the audience and concert organizers.
The Mandingo Ambassadors played with energy and precision to a markedly laid-back crowd. For the majority of the set, audience members sat back, relaxed, and enjoyed the music from the comfort of their seats with only the occasional lone dancer as an exception. For the last song, however, the musicians requested that we stand up and dance with them. All they had to do was ask, it seemed, and that occasional lone dancer multiplied into a sizeable dancing crowd.
Las Cafeteras took the stage just before 9:00 p.m., after being introduced as the “best-looking band in East LA” (on the good authority of the band members themselves). Immediately, they endeavored to raise the energy level on the town green. They insisted that we all stand up and move our hips to their feel-good Afro-Mexican music. They even stopped in the middle of the first song to point out that too many people were sitting and to reiterate their demands — we all had to get up and dance. Not just some of us. All of us.
In addition to fusing musical styles and cultural influences, Las Cafeteras seamlessly blended humor into the delivery of a serious socially conscious agenda, as they did when introducing “If I Was President.” Obviously, this song was not the love-song for the state of Connecticut they jokingly suggested it was, but rather a strong statement against political corruption. Throughout their hour-and-a-half-long set, Las Cafeteras simultaneously entertained us and encouraged us to rise together against intolerance, ingratitude, and division.
Many of their songs were fast, high-energy dance songs ideal for showcasing Denise Carlos’s and Hector Paul Flores’s percussive zapateado skills. At one point, Denise asked the audience to applaud for a small beetle who was on the stage, as she was struggling not to crush him under her quick-moving feet. Unfortunately, after a particularly fast number, she informed us that “[her] little beetle friend didn’t survive that last song!”
These high-energy numbers were balanced with some slower, more intimate songs like “Luna Lovers,” an acoustic waltz that was inspired by the moon. According to the musicians, “the moon does not discriminate … the moon will shine her light on everybody. She’s not like us.” A bilingual adaptation of Woodie Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” furthered Las Cafeteras’ main message: “We don’t believe in borders.”
