Yucatecan Maya music group wins National Composition Contest

Indigenous musical groups from Oaxaca, Yucatán and Michoacán were the winners of the Second National Composition Contest “Traditions and Musical Fusions” organized by the General Directorate of Indigenous and Urban Popular Cultures of the Federal Culture Secretariat (Dirección General de Culturas Populares Indígenas y Urbanas de la Secretaría de Cultura Federal), within the framework of the International Day of Indigenous peoples.

The authors belong to the Mixe peoples of Oaxaca, Maya from Yucatan and Purépecha from Michoacán. The first place was obtained by the Kujipy Ensemble of the Mixe community of Santa María Tlahuitoltepec, in Oaxaca. In second place, the Yucatecan group Juumil Moots. And the third place went to the purépecha band Ireri from Erongarícuaro, Michoacán (winner of the first place last year).

Juumil Moots of Yucatan won the second place with the song “Kuxa’anon“, which refers to the dispossession of native communities of his home and the destruction of nature in Yucatan with the entrance of the so-called “green economy”, in appearance friendly, but that to say of the group’s lead vocalist, Yazmín Novelo, it is destroying the Maya ecosystem.

The members of Juumil Moots are Nicolás Alonso Alonso López (bass), Vladimir Novelo Montejo (second guitar), Luis Enrique Cupul (percussion and launchpad), Diego Torres Piña (lead guitar), Carlos Canto (Drums and musical direction) and Yazmín Novelo (vocals).

The song is a call not to give up. “You came to my house and I opened the door thinking that you were coming as a brother and then I realized that you were not. You tried to turn off my light, but you could only cover it, “says the song in Maya language.

“Music has historically been an instrument of protest and civil resistance,” Yazmín Novelo stated.

According to information from the General Directorate of Indigenous and Urban Popular Cultures, the winning compositions allude to experiences on migration, ecological devastation and the dispossession of indigenous communities from their homeland.

“This competition is committed to the strengthening of poetic creation in the indigenous language and sound experimentation in traditional and contemporary genres. In at least one hundred countries about 7 thousand native languages ​​are spoken. Mexico preserves 68 of them, with 364 linguistic variants, becoming a multicultural nation, originally sustained in its indigenous peoples. This contest is proof of this and celebrates with a concert at the National Museum of Popular Cultures, where the winners will go on stage to publicize their musical projects, “says a statement from the institution.

Originally from the Oaxacan town of Santa María Tlahuitoltepec, a community of great musical tradition, the Ensemble Kujipy has opted for the path of musical experimentation in genres such as jazz, blues and rap with “slam” (oral poetry), interpreted in the Mixe language. . “Jääkam”, or in Spanish “Far out”, is the title of the winning composition.

The prizes included 50 thousand pesos for the first place, 30 thousand for the second and 20 thousand for the third. The winning pieces will also be part of a commemorative album, which will feature songs from other groups of this edition.

Juumil Moots will also participate in the 2018 edition of the Cervantino International Festival in Guanajuato, on October 25, 2018, at 10 pm in the “Los Pasitos” forum.

TYT Newsroom with information from lajornadamaya.mx