Colombia’s Petronio Alvarez Festival: setting things right with the culture

In the days leading up to the annual Petronio Alvarez Festival, the five-day event’s imprint on the city of Cali, Colombia, appears in unexpected places.

Standing in line to change money at Western Union, a man in the queue has arrived from Washington, DC. He’s here for “the Petronio”, as it’s come to be known. In a restaurant in the colonial neighbourhood of San Antonio, there are striking photos on the wall of the country’s Pacific coast people, whose music is the centre of the festival, all as part of an exhibition timed for the event. Walking along the downtown boulevard bordering the river that bears the city’s name, there’s music: the unmistakable sound, like melodic raindrops, of the marimba. It’s Hugo Candelario and 26 marimba and bombo maestros, the oldest being 87. They’re due to open the festival and are rehearsing on the sidewalk of the hotel where they’re staying.

The Pacific coast of Colombia (and parts of the Ecuador coast) is the only place across the Middle Passage where you’ll find Black people playing the marimba, a xylophone-like instrument with roots in Sub-Saharan Africa. It drives currulao, one of two dominant genres from the Pacific coast, together with the wind- and brass-heavy chirimía.

The two form the heart of the Petronio, launched in Cali in 1997 to “pay homage” to the region’s culture, according to Isabel Patiño, daughter of German Patiño, a historian and the festival’s founder. We meet at a coffee shop in the days before the 28th version of the event in August 2024, in search of the meaning behind the festival’s remarkable transformation since its first iteration, when a few thousand, mostly local, spectators gathered in an amphitheatre near where I lived at the time. Organisers say the most recent edition drew an estimated half-million attendees from around the world over five days – including, as it would turn out, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

Grupo Saboreo perform on the opening night

There were also an untold number of African Americans drawn to what the city government in charge of running the Petronio is now calling “the largest African diaspora cultural event in Latin America”. In a little more than a quarter-century, the Petronio has grown beyond being a showcase for Afro-Colombian musical groups from the Pacific coast competing for cash prizes and special guest concerts from the same region. It now also includes about one hundred stands, nearly evenly split between vendors of seafood and viche, an ancestral ‘moonshine’ made from fermented and distilled sugar cane. Both are authentic to the region.

I wrote a story about the first Petronio for El Tiempo – one of Colombia’s two national dailies – in 1997. Our family left the country several years later, escaping internecine violence with a four-year-old in tow and a second child on the way. Our trip to Cali this summer is only my second time back and my first chance to witness a completely changed festival.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Isabel Patiño drew my attention to the festival’s roots, with concern over the impact of change. She tells me that its very name points to its purpose. Petronio Álvarez was a songwriter and musician from Buenaventura, the largest port city on the Pacific coast; his song, ‘Mi Buenaventura’, is an anthem for the region. Nonetheless, Álvarez, who died in 1966, “didn’t receive recognition, due to racism” while still alive, she says. The festival, as her father conceived it, was about “setting things right with the culture”.

Although German Patiño travelled extensively on the Pacific coast, Isabel attributed the decision to establish the festival in Cali, several hours inland, in part to its status as the city with the second-highest Black population in Latin America, after Bahía, Brazil. Many of its Black residents immigrated to the city from the coast in recent decades, driven by drug war and other violence.

Before he died in 2015, German was concerned about the festival’s growth, which meant more was at stake for the musicians competing for first prize, and for vendors, Isabel says. This, in turn, could lead to more rosca, or favouritism, as panels of judges choose who competes and wins, and who gets to sell food and drink. He also worried that the municipal budget would be stretched by the event having to accommodate more infrastructure, especially for the food and viche vendors – leading to less financial support for the music, Isabel said. The festival is free to the public and doesn’t charge vendors to participate.

The founder’s daughter wasn’t the only one reflecting on Petronio’s nearly three decades and its impact on the music in the days before the 2024 version. I caught up with marimba player Hugo Candelario, an old friend and founder of Grupo Bahía, between rehearsals with his ensemble of maestros ahead of their opening performance. Originally from Guapi, near the coast, he came to Cali as a young man, as hundreds of thousands more also did – and wound up being the subject of my 1997 story, written days before the first festival. Candelario went on to win first place in his group’s category at the inaugural event.

Nidia Góngora lays flowers at the foot of an altar dedicated to her mother, Olivia Bonilla Angulo, who died in early 2024

Decades later, he no longer competes but had spent the summer organising the 26-person ensemble intended to pay homage to its members, some of the region’s oldest-living marimba players. It’s something like the Afro-Colombian version of Cuba’s Buena Vista Social Club.

The ages of the maestros are on Candelario’s mind when we speak. “The danger is that the magic and ancestral wisdom goes to the grave with them”, he says. The marimbero notes that many of the musicians he considers living legends are existing in precarious conditions, lacking adequate healthcare. He says that neither the festival nor any other government entity has done anything to improve their situation.

The festival launches with the ensemble’s once-in-a-lifetime performance before a rapt crowd. The multiple drums – the bombo and cununo – and the marimbas, together with a handful of female cantaoras (the chorus), seem to lift the crowd up into the air.

The first night also includes a performance by Grupo Saboreo, who released in 2008 what may have been the first song by a Petronio winner to enter international markets, ‘La Vamo a Tumbar’, a party song literally about raising the roof. From the northern reaches of the coast, the group features the brass, winds and electric bass of chirimía, and they bring long lines of festival-goers to dance in unison, waving kerchiefs in the air.

Several days later, Candelario meets with a delegation of representatives from the New Orleans Jazz Festival, who have brought along musicians from the US city. The veteran bandleader speaks about conserving currulao and other musical traditions from Colombia’s Pacific region. The group nods along as Candelario asserts the need to gather documentary-style footage of the coast’s maestros explaining their tuning techniques, arrangements and so on. It is something the New Orleans visitors immediately understand, as their city’s famous jazz festival, run by a private foundation, has dedicated resources and attention to maintaining musical traditions, including running a free music school.

Candelario also points out that the Pacific coast lacks such a school. “Young musicians prepare themselves for winning [the festival], but they’re lacking in knowledge about […] the essence of the music”, Candelario tells me in our conversation. He explains to the visitors from New Orleans that this same essence could well be lost without a plan.

The festival’s ongoing impact on the region’s unique music and the musicians who make it is also on the mind of Yuri Buenaventura, the salsa singer born in the port city with which he shares a name. Buenaventura first reached success outside Colombia, selling more than a million copies of his 1995 album Herencia Africana while living in Paris, including a salsa version of the Jacques Brel song, ‘Ne Me Quitte Pas’.

He is now living in Cali and working on projects, including recording musicians from the Pacific coast, through a foundation he started. He worries that the festival might become “a caricature of itself” if musicians from the region aren’t taught about the music industry and how to protect their art and support themselves economically – he wants to ensure they understand songwriting royalties, marketing and recording. “What are we doing with this heritage?” he asks.

Several people I speak with in Cali this summer mention the knock-on effects of Colombia entering its third year of Francia Márquez’ vice presidency – the first Black woman to hold the position. She’s also from the Pacific region. Candelario tells me that Márquez being in office “is an opportunity for greater visibility [of Afro-Colombian culture], above all … [and] she offers a point of reference for Black pride”.

In a small room off a larger rehearsal space, Sinecio Riascos, leader of the chirimía group Mi Raza, says his 2023 song ‘Soy Negro’ (I Am Black) was inspired by Márquez. “Black pride is easier to express now, without as much fear,” he says. “Márquez is taking on the job of breaking down the stigma around Black culture”, he adds.

In this context, the Petronio Álvarez Festival takes on added importance. “You’re unlikely to find a festival that celebrates the culture of the African diaspora like this: music, dance, food and drink. I don’t know of another event like it in the world”, says John Tovar, who works for Global Black, an international advocacy organisation.

Originally from Barbacoas, in the Pacific region, Tovar now lives in Houston, US. While in Cali, he spends his nights dancing at the festival’s concerts while attending meetings during the days on subjects such as setting up programmes for Colombian students to attend historically Black colleges, or HBCUs, in the US, and human rights issues facing Black communities in other parts of Latin America.

“The festival has consolidated itself not just as a cultural space, but as a space to exchange ideas… [and] every year, people meet during the Petronio – the African diaspora in a regional and hemispheric context”, he says.

All this activity – cultural, political – occurs regardless of who is organising the festival, that being the current mayor of Cali (working alongside their administration), most of whom are usually not Black or from the Pacific, Tovar adds. “Due to historic patterns of segregation, the people behind the festival aren’t Afro”, he says. “Why not?”

Singer Nidia Góngora speaks with me about the festival in the back of her seafood restaurant, Viche Positivo, down a side street off one of Cali’s traditional fruit and vegetable markets. “Whoever’s in the mayor’s office decides how the festival is done – or even if it is done”, she says. “But it’s the people from the Pacific that make the festival.”

From the Pacific town of Timbiquí, Góngora has toured for years in Europe and the US, and is known for her groundbreaking collaborations with the English producer Quantic, as well as more traditional recordings with her group, Canalón de Timbiquí – the group earned a Latin Grammy nomination in 2019 for the album, De Mar y Río.

Góngora gives a special performance on Saturday night at the festival with a group of mostly older women in homage to her mother, Olivia Bonilla Angulo, who died in early 2024. She is singing before the largest crowd of the five-day festival, with about 45,000 in attendance, according to organisers. Tens of thousands also visit the food and drink stands, eating shrimp, fish, crabs and snails, and drinking viche.

Góngora shares the guest concert space this night with Herencia de Timbiquí. The two are among the few musicians with backgrounds in the Pacific coast’s traditional music to “make it” globally, each with millions of streams on Spotify. The collaborations Góngora has done with Quantic and others are responsible for most of her success. She describes how “foreigners fell in love with music from the Pacific”, and she found the right musicians to work with to “join two sounds, without one taking attention away from the other”.

“This makes the music reach a lot more people… and should open up spaces [and] alternatives for commercialising our music”, she says. Fusing traditional and contemporary sounds also helps reach young people, Góngora believes. She puts 10% of what she earns from international tours into a foundation she started, which supports a music school in Cali. “Young people in Cali want to reconnect with their culture, and fusion can create a great opportunity”, she says.

The Timbiquí native says she doesn’t think the festival or national government are the best sources of support for such projects – and that musicians from the region with means “should join together and be strategic” in ensuring the future of music from the Pacific coast.

Inma Grass, co-founder of Spanish music company Altafonte – acquired by Sony Music in early 2024 – is at Petronio for the first time. The Spaniard’s roster at Altafonte includes Herencia de Timbiquí, who have added electric bass and brass to marimba and percussion, reaching wide audiences with their dance-inducing ballads. The group also sing about contemporary problems facing Colombia, including the environmental and social impacts of planting coca and marijuana.

Speaking on the last day, Grass says she has witnessed “an avalanche of music” at the festival. “Many musicians are recovering their roots… and mixing them with genres that young people listen to”, she asserts. “This can save roots music. You can’t be a purist; I’ve learned to be open”.

Apart from marimba, chirimía and violin categories, the festival includes an “open” competition; that’s where you’ll find groups attempting such experiments. After midnight on Monday morning, Chureo Callejero — a group of young musicians from Tumaco blending marimba, rap, electric bass and snare drums — are crowned as this year’s winners in the category.

The last song they perform – ‘Mi Pueblo’ or ‘My Homeland’ – begins with a litany of the daily challenges faced by Black and Indigenous people on the Pacific coast, as the region has long been abandoned by the state. “The lights went out / The water’s gone / Oh my God, health insurance went up”, the song begins. “It rained, and the internet’s down!” it continues. Then, the chorus: “I want to die in my homeland / Let me live in my homeland!”

The group can’t be found on Spotify or other streaming services. They posted a video on YouTube in March of 2024, a film of them playing next to the ocean. It has slightly more than 3,000 views. Underneath the video, a listener has congratulated them on winning the Petronio and wishes them future success, acclaiming their music as “worthy of export” – underlying the tension between homeland roots and foreign status, a tension that will be important to resolve if the festival is to last another 28 years.