The Honoree
It is not unusual for Susana Baca concert goers to witness the singer-songwriter, schoolteacher, folklorist, ethnomusicologist, and three-time Latin Grammy Award winner perform shoeless. The trail blazer and keeper of the culture has also been a key figure in the revival of Afro-Peruvian music.Over the decades, Baca traversed Peru, recording in rural areas to gather material from elderly singers with many of the songs having roots in enslaved communities. She and Richard Pereira, her husband, founded the Center for Black Continuum, an organization dedicated to promoting Black music and dance. In July 2011, when Baca became Minister of Culture, she became the second Afro-Peruvian cabinet minister in the history of independent Peru.
Peru
According to the 2017 Peruvian Census, 828,841 or 3.6% Peruvians identified as "Black", the term used for people of unmixed African descent, while together with the Mulatos and Zambos they would be a total of 9% of the Peruvian population (2,850,000). The departments with the largest percentage of Black people are Tumbes (11.5%), Piura (8.9), and Lambayeque (8.4%).
