The guest on Wednesday night's Uncut this week was Ivan Duran. You may not know his name but he is the sound maker behind Stonetree records and is responsible for making such unforgettable records as Watina by Andy Palcio, Paranda featuring Paul Nabor, "Weh Mi Lovah Deh" by Mr Peters, Fedu By Poots Titiman Flores…and the list goes on.
You get the idea, he is one of the most important creative forces in Belize's popular music - and the albums he crafted have earned a place in international music. He says his formula is to be different, and be totally Belizean - which he says he doesn't see a whole lot of these days - and that's the problem:
Ivan Duran, Music Producer
"To me the number one problem with Belizean music today, we're simply not original. We are copycats left and right. We are either using tracks produced abroad or we are trying to make tracks that sounds like the one produced abroad. There is no electronic Belizean sound, period. There is nothing in there that makes you identify this song as anything special other than it kind of sounds good or as good as something else you hear in the Caribbean or in the US or in Africa, in the case of Afro-beat and to me being as good or even good is not enough."
Apart from having informed and opinionated views on music recording production, Duran is also one of the most experienced at international touring. He's been touring with Andy Palacio, Aurelio Martinez and the Garifuna Collective to music festivals all over the world for decades.
So what did he think of Belize's first food and music festival - a few weeks ago? The big budget event got mixed reviews - but the ones who got bad reviews were the Belizean artists trying to hold their own as opening acts for major international artists. They got bashed on social media - and got no love from the crowd at the performance. Duran says they were set up to fail:
Ivan Duran, Music Producer
"In terms of the any festival in the world, there is the technical aspect which ofcourse is very important and in this case, I think there were a lot of failures. I hear the sound was terrible, lights were terrible. That is one aspect which is kind of easy to fix, if you like, because you have to get professionals to do the job and done and there is not a lot of science to it. But on the production part which means preparing the more artistic part, the line-up. Just to give you an example and I have a few close friends that are festival directors - these same festivals that we go to every year to perform and that's a fulltime job for the whole year for a one weekend festival or 3-4 days max and they spent a whole year planning those 4 days. Not only that one person, but an entire staff from the get-go. If you are going to announce a festival 3 or 4 months from now, I know immediately I can predict what type of show you going to have. It requires a lot more preparation and it requires a lot of skills that are in different areas and to me this is no difference. Why I am not surprised at all for one, two, I think this just is a continuation of what we've been doing all along. We're setting up our Belizan artist to fail. We're putting them in a position that there is no way to win. There is absolutely no way to win and I go back to the same thing, oh, but we are as good as them or nearly as good as them. No, that just not enough, it's totally ill-conceived to think that you gonna put Belizean, let's say soca artist right before a Machel Montano or if you gonna put a reggae or a dancehall artist right before Koffee. It makes absolutely no sense. Ofcourse the Belizan artist will look weak and ill-prepared, because you are comparing them to someone who has 20 years more experience than you. 2) they probably been on the road a lot more than you, so they are better rehearse or better musicians etc."
The Garifuna Collective returned today from a very successful European festival mini-tour.
