Centuries ago, rhythm left this continent in the worst way imaginable. It went west, in chains, and it survived. In Cuba it became son and rumba. In Colombia it became cumbia.
In the barrios of New York, it picked up brass and a piano and someone called it salsa. It changed everything it touched, and it never stopped moving.
What’s remarkable isn’t that it survived. It’s that it’s recognizable. Put a conga pattern from Havana next to one from Central Africa and the family resemblance is unmistakable.
The rhythm went out and it came back changed, but it came back to a natural home across the Continent. From 31 July to 2 August, it comes back to Malindi.
The Ritmo Conexión Weekender is three days of Afro-Latin music and dance at Mwembe Resort, built by Malindi Afro Latin in partnership with Afro Latin Tamasha.
A live band on a stage constructed out over the pool. Salsa on the sand in the afternoon, barefoot, with the sea a few hundred meters away.
A dhow sailing into the sunset on Friday evening. A Swahili breakfast on Sunday with taarab playing while people eat. A pool party that runs until the light goes.
It is not a festival. It’s small on purpose. You will recognize faces by Saturday.
“I have always enjoyed the Afro Latin dance scene in Nairobi and longed to have the same here in Malindi. Every time I traveled to Nairobi and went dancing, I would come back to Malindi thinking. How can I get the joy of dance here? It would be a dream to have an Afro Latin scene where we have the ocean, and a town that has always taken in what arrives and made it its own. And so I stopped waiting for someone else to bring it and went looking for others to build this dance joy together.”Jean Githinji, Malindi Afro Latin.
Malindi has always been a place where things arrive. Traders, sailors, languages, food, all have found a mixing pot across the Swahili Coast over centuries.
In fact, it could be said that the coast has spent a thousand years absorbing what came in on the monsoon and making it local.
Swahili itself is what happens when worlds meet and decide to stay. So, a weekend built on music that crossed an ocean and came back isn’t an odd fit for this town. It’s almost what is to be expected.
The Afro Latin music thing that we are creating is representative of what happens when enough people who love the same music are in one place at the same time, and nobody has to explain themselves. We want to create more room for magical moments with the dance that left the continent and came back.
“Afro Latin Tamasha has always been about the floor, not the venue. So, taking our vibe to Malindi isn’t a change of address, it’s the same thing we’ve always done, which is connect our dancers from the stage to the dance floor but this time with the chill Malindi vibe to round it up. We wanted to bring something different to our people at our socials. We’re finally saying yes to something unique and different,” Larumba Munene, Afro Latin Tamasha
Ritmo Conexión play two live sets on Saturday night, with Osiro Musica & the Band opening and three DJs, D’Cure, Jam Mixmaster Dan the DJ, and DJ Bratty, carrying the floor across all three days.
Kikwetu Africa are on the floor the whole weekend, and if you’ve never danced salsa in your life, they’re the reason that won’t matter.
There’s a beach salsa session on Saturday afternoon at Beach Front Floaters. There’s a dunes trip at Mambrui. There’s a dhow at sunset. Larumba Munene has the mic.
Come for the whole weekend and stay at Mwembe. Come for one night if that’s what works. Come on Sunday and dance in the pool until sunset. There’s a version of this that fits you.
The rhythm has been traveling for four hundred years. It’s stopping in Malindi for three days at the end of July. That seems worth showing up for.
