Nanigo

Historical Background:




The Nanigo is a religious rhythm that originiated in Nigeria among the Yoruba people who were worshipping their orishas. The African slave trade brought the rhythm to Cuba. Wearing masks and fully body costumes, the nanigo dancers led the comparsa procession to the city-center where they danced and drummed for government officials. Colonial authorities began to regulate music and dance performance in Cuba as early as 1790s, and suppression continued on through the 1880s, when the state began to concentrate on eliminating the nanigo brotherhoods, which because of their secrecy, were seen as crucibles of revolution. Though the nanigo dancers dressed to represent a sacred character from their ancestral religion, to Christians the dancers looked like devils, and so the nanigos were dubbed diablitos, or little devils.
On January 6, 1875, a New York Times correspondent in Cuba described the spectacle of the Kings’ Day procession with similar disdain:
" Bands of negroes gaily, fantastically, and sometimes savagely dressed and carrying flags and banners, parade the streets, singing and dancing to the accompaniment of their African tomtoms, drums, and other instruments erroneously called music… Very correctly do the authorities… call them “diablitos” or little devils, for when a stranger finds himself the centre of one of these singing, howling, dancing, bepainted, and barbarously attired groups, and is dinned by noise from their African instruments, he is apt to think pandemonium has broken loose."


Liberation from Spain generated the opportunity to cultivate a distinctly Cuban identity and a national consensus of cubanidad. But once the Spanish left the country to Cuban politicians, the government remained intolerant to cosas de negros, or “things blacks do.” As Ned Sublette says, “The cosas de negros were not considered culture, but crime.” The liberated government actually became even more repressive of African traditions. On April 4, 1900, Estrada Mora, mayor of Havana, issued a city-ordinance that forbade Afrocuban expressions of culture: the law prohibited the use of drums of African origin in any kind of gathering, whether public or private, and also made the comparsa procession illegal. Mayor Mora justified his measure by insisting “[comparsas] pugnan con la seriedad y cultura de los habitants de este pais”— literally “these rhythms attack the stature and society of this country.” Then in 1913, the Cuban president Mario Garvia declared war on African culture: the nanigo halls were raided and sacred drums were burned in what was labeled an “anti-superstition campaign.”

Video Lesson
Learn how to play the Nanigo from master drummer Hafiz Shabazz.