La Negra Tomasa — Caifanes (1988)

Why this song

Most songs have one owner. This one has had about ten, and none of them wrote it.

"La Negra Tomasa" was written in Cuba in 1937 by Guillermo Rodríguez Fiffe. Since then it has been recorded as Cuban trova, as New York salsa, and — in 1988 — as Mexican rock. Same tune, same words, four different countries.

So this page is about a simple question. When somebody else takes your song, what survives, what disappears, and what turns up that was never there?

Historical context

Cuba, 1937. Rodríguez Fiffe writes a song with two names: "La negra Tomasa" and "Bilongo". Bilongo is a word of African origin that means a spell in the Caribbean, and that is what the lyrics say — Tomasa has put one on him. The group that made it a hit was Trío Azul, three voices and guitars, formed in Havana in 1936 by Rosendo Ruiz.

From there the song travelled. Ismael Rivera with Rafael Cortijo in Puerto Rico. Tito Rodríguez, Eddie Palmieri and the Fania All Stars in New York salsa. Cuco Valoy in the Dominican Republic. Compay Segundo and the Buena Vista Social Club back in Cuba. Richard Bona in Cameroon.

Foto: Shadowgate, CC BY 2.0, vía Wikimedia Commons

Mexico, 1988. One fact explains everything that follows: since 1971, Mexican rock had been kept off the radio, out of the concert halls and off record label contracts. The ban started loosening after the 1985 earthquake, but no band had scored a big hit, so labels still would not sign Mexican groups.

Caifanes were four people: Saúl Hernández on voice and guitar, Sabo Romo on bass, Diego Herrera on keyboards and saxophone, Alfonso André on drums. In December 1988 they recorded a maxi-single in Mexico City with three different versions of this Cuban song.

It was their first mass hit. After it, labels started signing Mexican rock again, and in the summer of 1989 Caifanes filled the Auditorio Nacional two nights running — the first Mexican rock band to manage it.

Musical characteristics

Start with what they did not do. Caifanes did not play the song as Cuban music. They put a cumbia rhythm underneath — cumbia is Colombian, and it is everywhere in Mexico — and on top of it they put guitar riffs and bass lines out of post-punk, the dark rock they actually played. Not Cuban, not quite rock: a third thing.

The bass is where you hear it. Tap four beats on the table: one, two, three, four. In rock the bass lands on beat one, together with the kick drum. In Cuban son it does not: the bass comes in early, before the one arrives, leaving that first beat almost empty. That figure has a name — tumbao. Listen to both versions below and decide which of the two the bass is doing.

The percussion works the same way. In Cuban music the boss is not the kick drum: it is two wooden sticks hitting each other, the clave, five strokes spread over two bars. Everything else fits around that pattern.

The Caifanes version has a rock kit, and for the percussion they had to bring in a guest player, Armando Espinoza. The Cuban part came into the record as a visitor.

What survives untouched are the chords. Four of them, going up: A, B♭, C, Dm. They climb and land on D minor, the tonic.

Now take those same four the other way round, coming down — Dm, C, B♭, A: that is the Andalusian cadence, the chord turn you have heard all your life in flamenco. A Cuban song, played by Mexicans, over a move that has been heard in Spain for centuries.

The form hides nothing: intro, two verses, chorus, another verse, solo, chorus, bridge, verse and final chorus. The bridge is the only section that happens once; everything else comes back.

Hard facts: D minor, 4/4, 174 BPM, 3:26.

Trivia and curiosities

• Caifanes agreed to sign with RCA Ariola on one condition: that the label sign Maldita Vecindad too. In 1988 that was not a favour between friends — it was the only way to get a second Mexican rock band onto the roster.

• The hit was so big that many people assumed Caifanes were a cumbia band. They had not heard the rest of the record, which is dark and heavy from start to finish. One song can hide a whole album.

• They recorded three versions of the same track for a single maxi-single. The radio one runs 3:26; the one that ended up on the CD runs 7:55. A song's length is not a property of the song — it is a format decision.

• The song has two titles, "La negra Tomasa" and "Bilongo", and depending on who records it you get one, the other, or both. Travel far enough and a song loses its single name.

Classroom activities

• Play: the four chords on a loop — A, B♭, C, Dm — on ukulele and electric guitar. B♭ is the hard one, because it needs a barre. The bass can play just the four roots: A, B♭, C, D. The drums hold the pulse and nothing else.

• Count: the chart says 174 BPM. Set the metronome to 174 and tap the pulse with your foot. Then halve it and tap again. Which one comes naturally when you dance to it?

• Analyse: a closed question. Watch the Compay Segundo video and the Caifanes video and write two instrument lists. Which instruments are in both? Which are in only one? That comparison is the answer to "what is lost and what appears".

• Create: take a song you all know and change only the rhythm underneath, leaving the melody and the chords alone. That is exactly the Caifanes procedure, and two minutes of rehearsal is enough to hear it.

Key vocabulary

• Cover version — versión
• Tumbao — tumbao: la figura del bajo del son cubano, que se adelanta y deja vacío el primer tiempo
• Clave — la clave: los dos palos y su patrón de cinco golpes en dos compases
• Andalusian cadence — cadencia andaluza
• Bridge — puente (la sección que suena una sola vez)

Resources

In the theory and history book — this song fits ¿Cuándo empieza una melodía a decir de dónde eres?, because it shows a rhythm can change country without the melody noticing; and ¿Cómo se guarda algo que solo existe mientras suena?, because without recordings this song would never have travelled from Havana to Mexico City.

Music video (radio version) — this is the version the chart we play along to follows.

The long version (7:54), on the band's official channel — the same song from the same maxi-single, stretched out. Good for comparison.

The same song, Cuban — Compay Segundo. Count the instruments and compare them with the Caifanes ones.

Guitar tutorial — Richi Cardichi. Fifteen minutes, section by section, chords and strumming.

Bass tutorial — MikeloverGTR. It has the tab and the notes marked on the fretboard, which is what you need to get the tumbao.

Drums — Richi Cardichi. Not a talked-through lesson: a cover with the kit on camera, and you can see clearly which hand does what.

• Tab — the button opens it in Songsterr, with separate guitar, bass and drum tracks.