Duran Duran are an English pop rock band formed in Birmingham in 1978 by singer Stephen Duffy, keyboardist Nick Rhodes and guitarist/bassist John Taylor. After several early changes, the band's line-up settled in May 1980 as Rhodes, Taylor, singer Simon Le Bon, guitarist Andy Taylor and drummer Roger Taylor.
Dangriga, formerly known as Stann Creek Town, is a town in southern Belize, located on the Caribbean coast at the mouth of the North Stann Creek River. It is the capital of Belize's Stann Creek District. Dangriga is served by the Dangriga Airport. Commonly known as the "culture capital of Belize" due to its influence on punta music and other forms of Garifuna culture, Dangriga is the largest settlement in southern Belize.
Nigel John Taylor is a British musician who is best known as the bass guitarist for new wave band Duran Duran, of which he was a founding member. Duran Duran was one of the most popular bands in the world during the 1980s due in part to their music videos which played in heavy rotation in the early days of MTV. Taylor played with Duran Duran from its founding in 1978 until 1997, when he left to pursue a solo recording and film career. He recorded a dozen solo releases through his private record label B5 Records over the next four years, had a lead role in the movie Sugar Town, and made appearances in a half dozen other film projects. He rejoined Duran Duran for a reunion of the original five members in 2001 and has remained with the group since.
Nick Rhodes is an English keyboardist and producer, best known as a founding member and the keyboardist of the band Duran Duran.
The music of Belize has a mix of Creole, Mestizo, Garìfuna, Mayan and European influences.
The Garifuna people are a people of mixed free African and Amerindian ancestry that originated in the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent and speak Garifuna, an Arawakan language, and Vincentian Creole.
The Happy Land fire was an act of arson that killed 87 people on March 25, 1990, in the Bronx in New York City, United States. The 87 victims were trapped in the unlicensed Happy Land social club, located at 1959 Southern Boulevard in the West Farms section of the Bronx. Most of the victims were young Hondurans celebrating Carnival, many of them part of the Garifuna American community. Cuban refugee Julio González, whose former girlfriend was employed at the club, was arrested soon afterward and ultimately convicted of arson and murder.
The wealth of cultural expression in Honduras owes its origins primarily to being a part of Latin America but also to the multi-ethnic nature of the country. The population comprises 90% Mestizo, 7% Amerindian, 2% Black, and 1% Caucasian. This influences all facets of the culture: customs, practices, ways of dressing, religion, rituals, codes of behavior and belief systems.
Duran Duran is a video compilation, by the band of the same name, that is sometimes unofficially referred to in print as the Duran Duran video album or Duran Duran: The First 11 Videos. The pioneering video album won a 1984 Grammy Award for Best Long Form Music Video and was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America.
Seven and the Ragged Tiger is the third studio album by the English pop rock band Duran Duran, released on 21 November 1983 through EMI and Capitol Records. Co-produced by Alex Sadkin, Ian Little and the band, recording sessions took place in France, the Caribbean and Australia between April and October 1983 following Duran Duran's decision to record outside the UK as tax exiles. Unlike their previous two studio albums, the sessions were marred by a lack of productivity and tensions rose between the band members over its direction.
Andy Vivian Palacio was a Belizean punta musician and government official. He was also a leading activist for the Garifuna people and their culture.
Garifuna (Karif) is a minority language widely spoken in villages of Garifuna people in the western part of the northern coast of Central America.
Aurelio Martínez, professionally known as Aurelio, is a Honduran musician and politician. He is a singer, percussionist, and guitarist known for his Garifuna music and is considered a Cultural Ambassador of the Garifuna people. According to the Guardian, he became the leading Garifuna performer after the death of musician Andy Palacio.
Thomas Vincent Ramos, commonly known as T. V. Ramos, was a Belizean civil rights activist who promoted the interests of the Garifuna people, and is now considered a national hero.
Umalali is a collaborative project put together by Belizean musician and producer, Ivan Duran. Umalali is defined by the stories that comprise The Garifuna Women's Project.
Wátina is the final album by Belizean musician, Andy Palacio, released in 2007 on the Cumbancha label. A member of the Garifuna people, Palacio utilizes grooves and melodies that are deeply rooted in Garifuna traditions. Backed by a multigenerational group of Garifuna players, Andy Palacio put together an album that gained massive success and spread Garifuna culture around the world. Wátina is considered an important piece of cultural preservation for a people group who find themselves sometimes in fear their that their culture is at risk of extinction. The album is seen as "a monumental tribute to the Garifuna of yesterday and tomorrow." The album reached #1 on the World Music Charts Europe in June 2007. Due to Wátina's success, Andy Palacio was named a UNESCO Artist for Peace and shared the 2007 WOMEX Award with Ivan Duran.
Garifuna in Peril is a low-budget independent fiction docufiction feature film directed, written, and produced by Alí Allié and Rubén Reyes. The film depicts historical and contemporary issues within the Garinagu Afro-Honduran indigenous community and features a cast of actors from Honduras and Belize.
Teofilo Colon Jr. is a Garifuna-American photographer, filmmaker, writer and journalist. Colon has created an online archive of information about the Garifuna culture, an Afro-Caribbean population made up of formerly African, Island Caribs, Arawak people exiled by the British from Saint Vincent Island to Roatán, an island off the coast of Honduras, who eventually emigrated to the Caribbean coasts of the Central American countries of Honduras, Belize, Guatemala, Nicaragua - with its biggest concentration outside that area in New York City, found most intensively in the Bronx.
Nelcia Robinson-Hazell is a Black Carib poet, community organizer and activist. She has spearheaded the development of policy initiatives throughout the Caribbean on issues regarding gender and indigenous identity. Serving as the president of the National Council of Women of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, she began in the 1980s to change the organization toward political action. Recognizing a need to establish research on the needs of women, she was involved in the creation of both local and regional organizations to analyze and develop information about the socio-economic and political inequalities women faced. She created similar initiatives for indigenous peoples, beginning first in Saint Vincent and then expanding them regionally. Robinson has been involved in international directives including the World Summit for Social Development and the 1995 World Conference on Women, as well as follow-up conferences discussing such issues as poverty, economic empowerment and violence against women. She has served as a civil society representative on the Regional Judicial and Legal Services Commissions and as chair of the Commonwealth Women's Network.
Sofía Blanco is a Garifuna singer from Guatemala, widely recognized for her talent and efforts to promote the cultural traditions of her people. She has been a featured singer on several albums of Garifuna music, and has toured internationally with the Belizean group Garifuna Collective and Garifuna Women's performance band Umalali, one of the groups selected for performances at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.