4 May 2010
By Jonathan Jackson, Photography Flor Marenco
Growing up in the small community of Tasbapauni on Nicaragua’s Atlantic coast, musician Philip Montalbán gives credit to his grandmother, an actress, for introducing him to the arts at an early age, and her brother, a songwriter and composer who wrote many popular Maypole songs, for developing his interest in music when he was a child. By the age of 10, he had saved up enough money to buy his first guitar and began writing lyrics and playing music dealing with the things that surrounded him.
As he grew as a man and a musician those things that surrounded him and inspired him grew as well. In the second half of the 80’s he moved to Managua where he met musicians such as Carlos Mejia Godoy and Salvador Cardenal and eventually began his professional career as lead singer for the band, Soul Vibrations, before continuing on as a solo artist in the 90’s and releasing four albums, the most recent, 2008’s “Africa.”
On this breezy afternoon, in front of his home in Managua’s Linda Vista neighborhood, Montalbán shares some of his philosophy on spirituality, injustice and the role music plays in everything:
Spirituality/Searching
I was searching and I guess everybody’s searching to find really what is our mission, what’s the thing we’re supposed to do on earth, the thing we do best? Some people are teachers, some are doctors, some people can be house builders. The goal is of supporting society or maintaining society. I met my spiritual teacher, Swami Devanand, in the 70’s and he guides me and tells me I should share inspirational writing. That’s what put me on the spiritual path because spirituality is not religion, spirituality is a way of life, it’s how you treat yourself, how you treat others, what you are doing with your energy and what you do with your life. God is in everybody. God is in you, God is in me, in the tree. God is all over. People have to see that and when they see it they will realize they are part of this whole cosmos energy. We have to find a way to make the best use of our time and our journey. We want to see the best for humanity and the best for the planet, which is not easy. For me, I do that through my music.
Inferiority/Superiority
Black people do wrong things, white people do wrong things, everybody can do wrong things. My feeling is we need to go on a new path and the people understand if you’re wrong, you’re wrong, if you’re right you’re right and it has nothing to do with the painting on your skin. That’s why Selasi said, and have you heard Bob Marley sing this song ‘until the philosophy that all one race inferior and another superior is totally, finally discredited and abandoned.’ Because maybe you have more money or are living a more comfortable life, maybe you can travel you have big bank account but that doesn’t make you superior because eventually you eat like everybody. You can’t eat more, you might have the money but you can’t eat 10 pounds of food. You are still in the same form of humanity. You may be lucky, and that’s good, but if you can use that to help its better, however some people use it to try and oppress people and use a slavery mentality. People get attached to just wanting to do things for themselves and that leads to revolutions and eventually you have change.
Music/Change
To change mankind as a whole is not an easy thing, but if we as a society permit injustice we really have a problem. We need a grassroots movement in our society so that people can protest in a peaceful way, because we don’t need a revolution everyday. Everybody carries a piece of the responsibility. When one man suffer, wherever he suffer, we all suffer. If we see injustice it hurts us. But to really have a perfect society, the only way that can happen, Bob Marley used to say, is in Rastafari. What he means is when everybody is in the ‘I,’ when everybody is dealing from within and everybody is connected spiritually. That’s the only way. There’s no other way. Money can’t do it, politics can’t do it, nor military. So yeah man, music is going to go on trying to be a force, a living force. Right now we can sing love songs we can sing social songs whatever, but it’s a force, it’s a sound and we’re doing it to touch someone.
GRANDE….UN GRAN ARTISTA….