Susana Baca, a multiple Grammy Award winner, is one of Peru’s most celebrated political elites. After her appointment as Culture Minister in the Ollanta Humala administration, an Ipsos Apoyo poll in 2011 named her one of the most popular politicians, with a 62 percent approval rating. She is Peru’s first public official of African descent.
According to Black History Heroes, she is best known for her contributions and giving life to music created by enslaved Africans who worked on Peruvian plantations.
Many people attribute her strong advocacy for human rights and equality to her early encounters with discrimination as a child.
She described how teachers denied her a spot on the school’s dance team because of the color of her skin. When she took office, she made no secret of her desire to combat discrimination against people of African descent in Peru.
Enslaved Africans have been subjected to inhumane treatment on Latin American plantations since the mid-1500s.
The Spanish Crown was the driving force behind the establishment of sugar plantations in the San Luis de Canete river valley region.
Slavery was practiced in Peru until 1854, when it was outlawed.
Enslaved people and their descendants once made up at least 40% of the population of Peru’s Liman region. However, the population has shrunk over time, and it now accounts for about 10% of the total. This is due in part to rural-urban migration in search of better employment opportunities.
Baca has been drawing on the rich musical roots of the Afro-Peruvian people since her early adolescence to highlight the inequalities and discrimination her people face on a daily basis. She is credited with bringing Afro-Peruvian music into the mainstream, despite the long-held belief that such music was inferior.
According to SFGate, she traveled extensively across Peru in search of her identity, and the fruits are the themes she sings about.
The Peruvian music legend stated that she and her husband founded the Instituto Negro Continuo to save the Afro-Peruvian culture from extinction. She stated that until African-American music became a household tune, many people perceived it as lower-class music.
According to Black Past, framing of Afro-Peruvian culture in such light is what created the disaffection and near death of the slave music. Known around the world for her barefoot performances, Baca said she grew up in a disadvantaged side of society where her father was a chauffeur and her mother a cook from the upper class in Peru.
Baca stated that her mother put her on the spot to demonstrate her musical talent during family gatherings. She remembered her father playing the guitar and singing a lot of African-American music. She stated that in the 1970s, Peruvian composer and singer Chabuca Granda had a significant influence on the genre of music she performs.