Historia General del Pueblo Dominicano Tomo VI

754 Popular Music and Identity since the Nineteenth Century culture rescues the [urban] people, that we are the ones that are being rescued, that whoever gets involved with [this Afro-Dominican mu- sic]... getting rescued, because they are finding out about themsel- ves and about their culture... It is a matter of ...[being] humble. We shouldn’t think that we are rescuers, we are just learners. 123 As in the days of Convite, field research was central to the work of the newwave of Dominican musicians. One of Bony Raposo’s associates affirmed that Bony siempre mantuvo el contacto con el campo. Durante sus años de residencia en Estados Unidos viajaba frecuentemente y agotaba temporadas de investigación y convivencia con las comunidades de los campos dominicanos. Para Bony la música del campo representa- ba la médula de su trabajo artístico en el exterior y sobre todo de su crecimiento humano y espiritual. 124 Bandleader José Duluc distinguished himself as a leader of this movement for his in-depth knowledge of gagá and other rural musics, gained through years of field research which involved living in various rural areas for extended periods of time. Luis Días was also on the forefront of the movement to fuse traditional rural music with urban currents until his death in 2009. Much of the attention of the «Afro-Dominican movement», as some called it, focused on the gagá repertoire; Roldán Mármol, in particular, made inroads in popularizing gagá, which is intimately related to its progenitor, Haitian rara. Roldán also invited several prominant Haitian musicians to perform in the Dominican Republic. Although it began among «underground» bohemians, this trend also included segments of the working class as well as bourgeois rock aficionados. Merengue bandleaders such as Amarfis and Tulile, influenced by Kinito Méndez’s use of palos drumming, incorporated gagá into their own style of eminently danceable gagá-merengue. At the same time, rock bands paved new paths not only in fusing palos and gagá with rock and reggae, but also in influencing changing attitudes about Afro-Dominican culture not only among intellectuals and artists, but among upper-middle class youth in general. Ethnomusicologist Angelina Tallaj demonstrates that this «Afro- Dominican movement» in music has re-negotiated racial identity in the Dominican Republic. 125