MUSIC-AMERICAS: Concern Over AIDS Spawns Cultural Collaborations

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

NEW YORK, Aug 12 1997 (IPS) - Even as the spectre of AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) spreads across the world, projects designed to alert people to the dangers of the pandemic take on an international face.

That has certainly been the fate of the ‘Red Hot’ project, started in 1990 to use music to bring AIDS awareness to rock audiences worldwide.

Many of the first Red Hot albums combined cautionary messages, and fund-raising drives for AIDS research, with musical tributes designed to draw in a wide span of listeners: the original ‘Red Hot and Blue’ featured stars like U2 and Neneh Cherry singing old Cole Porter tunes, while subsequent albums offered collaborations between jazz musicians and rappers, or updated versions of Marvin Gaye songs.

Two things connected all the albums: the proceeds always went to AIDS projects, and the album notes – and often a few songs as well – spoke bluntly about the need to observe ‘safe sex’ practices and to avoid using unclean needles to inject drugs. True to the spirit of the rock generation, the albums aim to educate without preaching.

The two latest offerings from the Red Hot organisation, however, show a shift in direction similar to the movement of the disease over the past 15 years from North America to the developing world.

‘Silencio es egual con Muerte: Red Hot and Latin’ (on HOLA Recordings) pairs up North American rock stars with their Latin American counterparts to tackle a variety of musical genres, from cumbias to reggae, and from rap to heavy metal. ‘Red Hot and Rio’ (on Antilles) is more of a tribute to the late Brazilian composer Antonio Carlos Jobim, and offers new songs from Brazil’s top stars as well as rock remakes of Jobim’s standards.

TheLatin album, which consciously borrows from the slogan of the U.S. AIDS prevention group ACT UP, ‘Silence Equals Death’, bluntly states that the two new projects are “a deliberate attempt to deal with AIDS in Latin America.”

“The World Health Organisation estimates almost twice as many cases of HIV (the Human Immunodeficiency Virus linked to AIDS) in South America than in the North,” the album’s notes say. “AIDS is now truly a global problem, a pandemic greater than any other in human history.”

A few of the more notable, well-meaning international pop stars contribute their voices to the record’s bilingual warnings. Mexican-American rockers Los Lobos combine with dance artist Money Mark on a mellow, grooving cautionary tune, ‘Pepe and Irene’.

Panamanian salsa star Ruben Blades contributes a soothing ballad, ‘No Te Miento’, while Mexican punk rock group and former Talking Heads singer David Byrne – two acts which share a friendly, alienated spirit – join forces on ‘Yolanda Niguas’.

Perhaps most surprising, Buju Banton, condemned by U.S. gay groups for homophobic comments and for his 1992 hit ‘Boom Bye Bye’ – which called for killing homosexuals – chips in with one of his sweetest songs, ‘Wanna Be Loved’, on which he is accompanied by the brass-driven group Los Pericos.

‘Silencio es egual con Muerte’ also offers some of the most prominent Latin acts around: from Mexican metal band Cuca to Argentina’s punk-influenced Los Fabulosos Cadillacs to Venezuelan rap-ska group King Chango. Along the way, however, most songs lose any focus with the AIDS project and celebrate more traditional youth topics.

The Cadillacs join up with U.S. ska group Fishbone to revamp the terrible Burt Bacharach song ‘What’s New Pussycat?’, while a series of bilingual rappers led by Sen Dog and Mellow Man Ace strike macho poses on ‘Quien es ese Negro’ (which they, in English, translate euphemistically as ‘Who’s that brother’).

The album features some kind of music for everyone – and, as such, offers plenty of songs that each listener can do without. Highlights include King Chango’s funk version of Geggy Tah’s friendly ‘Whoever You Are’ and the Japanese rock group Cibo Matto’s cheerful remake of Jobim’s hit ‘Aguas de Marco’; but a wealth of bland rock and heavy metal songs drag the music down at the end.

A better effort is ‘Red Hot and Rio’, released earlier this year, which coheres around the theme of a tribute to Jobim, one of the creators of the popular ‘bossa nova’ sound. Byrne appears here, as well, dueting with Marisa Monte on yet another version of ‘Aguas de Marco’ in which the two singers alternate verses in Portuguese and English.

Jobim himself appears in a live recording of his song ‘How Insensitive’, on which he shares vocals with Sting. Astrud Gilberto, perhaps the leading international icon of the bossa nova craze, also makes a return here, dueting with an overly breathy George Michael on ‘Desafinidad’.

The odder combinations are the best ones on this album, particularly Everything but the Girl’s dance-club version of Jobim’s ‘Corcovado’ and disco vocalist Crystal Waters’s bouncy effort on his signature song, ‘The Boy from Ipanema’ (a girl in the original, but times have changed).

Most of Brazil’s most popular musicians, including Gilberto Gil, Milton Nascimento, Caetano Veloso and recently-deceased rapper Chico Science also appear with strong new songs – most of them with a wistful touch that shares the album’s serious tone.

The Red Hot projects so far have raised more than six million dollars to AIDS projects worldwide. As the new albums show, they also contribute to an equally worthy effort: celebrating defiantly in the face of a disease that too often has compelled its victims to suffer in a deathly silence.