By Sarah Penello
for The Witches of Fire Island by Sadie St. Claire
featured art is by Tarisa do Amaral
Everyone was starving.
From The Witches of Fire Island by Sadie St. Claire
Someone offered 36 impossible burgers on the altar of the ravenous household.
Radius said, “Let’s grill ‘em all, girl!”
They stepped out on the back deck with a bag of charcoal and Holly’s Cumbia playlist.
“It helps me cook!”
We can’t talk about Cumbia- a style of Latin American folk music with African, American Indigenous and European roots- without acknowledging the devastating effects of Colonialism on enslaved and subjugated peoples. But even generations of slavery, diaspora, displacement and violence cannot stop people from being amazing and creating beautiful art.
Thought it was violence that brought these cultural groups together, what followed was transcendent cultural exchange and the birth of entirely new art forms, like Cumbia.
This is the Cumbia Playlist of Holly, one of the Witches of Fire Island.
(It’s not strictly 100% Cumbia, but it is strictly 100% amazing.)
About the Author:
Sarah Penello is a senior editor of Creatrix Mag. She holds a Bachelors of Science in Anthropology from Florida State University, specializing in subsistence and ethnobotany of the Americas. She also makes playlists.
