Garifuna Collective release Ayo, a tribute to Andy Palacio

They are back in the Jewel….the Garifuna Collective is back from a tour in North America where they were featured in thirty-eight festivals and made appearances in twenty-five cities. The group recently released its latest album named Ayo in the U.S. and now they are in Belize to make a local debut. The album is a tribute to the late Andy Palacio. News five caught up with the Collective this morning and the members explained where their travels will take them next.

Al Ovando, Bassist and Road Manager, Garifuna Collective

“The whole idea with the album and the group is that we keep it as a collective feel. So we the album was arranged and produced in that light. There is like no one main singer in the group…it is everybody singing together most of the time and in one song we would have three or four main vocal or parts for the song. The whole idea, the whole theme for the album and the whole group keep that theme all the time with this album being the tribute album to Andy Palacio.”

Desiree Diego

Desiree Diego, Lead Vocalist, Garifuna Collective

“We performed for like over twenty thousand people in Canada and we performed for a whole lot of Belizeans in the United States and the reception was so good. People looked forward to us even in Canada. Even though we were on this tour also with this Canadian called Danny Machel, the people were not excited about Danny as they were about us. So it was excellent.”

Al Ovando

Al Ovando

“Well the next step is to try to push it in Belize. The album has been officially release in Canada and the U.S. and today, we are doing in Belize and so we will be following it up with some shows and concerts and having it available in stores to the public and we look forward to continue and we leave for Europe right after twenty-first of September to do some gigs to promote for next year; major summer tour in Europe. And then we come back and we do some Mexico stuff before the nineteenth of November. The album is released this year so we won’t know anything until next year, but all the emails coming in is like really high-ranked for the album and for Belize and the music from Belize. Andy Palacio set that level already that we have to keep and just keeping that bar so far has made us stay in it. so we are looking for couple awards for next year…even if we are just nominated, we are being asked to be a part of many things already.”

On the Europe Tour, the group will visit and perform at three major locations: London, Paris and Berlin.