This week for #OnRepeat, I’d like to talk about Roberto Angleró and the song, “Si Dios Fuera Negro.” While researching and listening to different types of Afro-Latin music this past week, I came across this song and was intrigued by the message conveyed in the lyrics. The title, “Si Dios Fuera Negro,” means “If God Were Black” and is a song written by Angleró, giving a light-hearted, yet thought-provoking view on race relations.
This song is also interesting because it is a bomba sicá written in the salsa style. Bomba is an umbrella term used to label a family of Afro-Puerto Rican folkloric music styles; similar to the way Rumba is used in Cuban music or Samba is used in Brazilian music. The three main styles of bomba are sicá, holandés, yubá. The sicá and the holandés are both in duple meter (meaning, subdivided into groupings of two pulses) and the yubá is in triple meter (subdivided into three pulses). The sicá, which is the style used in Roberto Angleró’s song, is the most well-known and is used in other types of Latin music, like salsa.
Below are the opening lines for the song, “Si Dios Fuera Negro”:
Si dios fuera negro, mi compay, cómo cambiaría.
fuera nuestra raza, mi compay, la que mandaría.
If God was black, my friend, everything would change.
it would be our people, my friend, who would be calling the shots.
The lines are simple, yet significant, conveying the sentiment of alienation, displacement and encounters with racism that people of African descent (Afro-Puerto Rican, Afro-Brazilian, Afro-Peruvian) have historically dealt with. The lines after tell of a black presidents, governors, lawyers and doctors, as if to challenge stereotypes and negative stigma institutionally perpetuated in society against people of African descent. This song conveys a serious message of race relations and positive sentiments of success that can even be applicable in present-day.
I hope that this song inspires you to look into other types of music from countries of the African diaspora and find elements of these songs that are reflective of the culture that they are from. If you guys have any new musicians or artists to check out, let us know in the comments below!