Kuenta i Tambú

TAMBUTRONIC

Sooner or later, every Caribbean rhythm will probably get digitally pumped up for the global club circuit. Tambú, from the Dutch island of Curaçao, gets its turn on “Tambutronic” (Jiga Musica) by Kuenta i Tambú, which is performing Sunday night at Globalfest at Webster Hall. Tambú — a hip-shimmying dance and genre named after its central drum — is music of ritual (like Brazilian camdomblé and Cuban Santería), protest and partying created by African slaves and their descendants. It survived a 350-year ban in Curaçao, and is still heavily regulated there. Its beat comes from hand drum and iron percussion — often a hoe blade, used like both a bell and a scraper — and its lyrics, as in other Afro-Caribbean styles, have often held political statements, coded or not. Kuenta i Tambú, based in Amsterdam and founded by a percussionist from Curaçao, goes more for sass and impact than preservation. Programmed beats join or replace hand percussion, synthesizers swoop, and tambú’s intricacies are often traded for a soca-like beat mixed with four-on-the-floor, as women chant taunts like “Show me where your light switch is,” “I know I’m better than you,” or “Don’t move like jackhammer.” Those internationalized tracks are fun on their own terms — similar to Diplo’s productions — and they’re bait, perhaps, for the snippets of traditional and fused tambú that punctuate the album.