Thursday, August 2, at Higher Ground Showcase Lounge, South Burlington, 7:30 p.m. $10/12.

By Dan Bolles

Jacob Edgar leads a charmed life. For the last eight years, the Vermont-native ethnomusicologist was the head of music research and product development for Putumayo World Music, an independent record label known for exposing the planet’s best and brightest world-music artists on a global stage. His travels took him far and wide and, over the years, Edgar frequently encountered performers he felt deserved wider recognition. So he formed his own label, Cumbancha, as a response.

Headquartered at the famed Charles Eller Studios in Charlotte, the upstart label has partnered with Putumayo for distribution and has the ability to deliver its releases to more than 60 countries throughout the world. And Edgar can continue to travel the world seeking new talent for both labels. Not a bad gig.

Beginning this Thursday, the two labels team up again -- this time with Seven Days and at the Higher Ground Showcase Lounge -- to present The Putumayo and Cumbancha World Music Series featuring Belizean songwriter Andy Palacio and the Garifuna Collective.

The Garifuna people are a unique hybrid of West African and Carib cultures spread throughout the Caribbean coast of Central America. Like many indigenous peoples in the developing world, their traditions and language are feeing extinction in the face of modernization. Andy Palacio has a mind to reverse that trend through music by exploring the deeper soul and rhythms of his ancestors. His latest album, Watina, has garnered worldwide acclaim and helped to renew interest in the dying Garifuna culture. Like Garifuna culture and language itself, Palacio's music is a stunning blend of African and Caribbean influences yet has a tilting feel and authenticity all its own. Watina is currently number one on the World Music Chart in Europe.

Seven Days recently spoke to Palacio over the phone from his home in Belize.

SEVEN DAYS: You got your start playing Punta music and were very successful in Belize prior to focusing on Garifuna roots music. Has that helped raise the profile of what you're doing now?

ANDY PALACIO: Absolutely. I had actually made attempts earlier to expose the diversity of Garifuna music in other media. In 1999 we did The Paranda Project. It was an attempt to document an art form that was in a way endangered because the main practitioners were alt from an older generation.

SD: How has Watina helped to re-invigorate younger generations' interest in Garifuna culture?

AP: If you look at it as an ethnic minority, the similarities between us and other ethnic minorities come into sharp focus. It takes a toll on one's self-esteem, especially for this younger generation. We have to come up with something that is able to boost that sense of pride and have a positive effect on the culture. Watina has had the effect of reconnecting that generation with their roots.

SD: You brought in Garifuna artists from all over the Caribbean and Latin America to record Watina. It seems this approach is an apt reflection of the origins of the culture itself.

AP: Garifuna has been characterized as a nation across borders, and that’s just the experience we live. My Garifuna brothers and sisters come from Honduras and Guatemala and all over the Caribbean and Latin America. Our culture supersedes our colonial or political differences. So that had to be reflected in this collaboration. That was very important.

SD: The word "watina" is Garifuna for “I call out." Is this a call to the world or more specifically to the Garifuna people?

AP: On one level it is a reflection of the difficulty of ordinary man trying to get from point A to point B. Wanting a ride, so to speak. Or sympathy from everybody passing by. On another level it’s about the Garifuna people shouting out to the world, saying, "We are here" and we have a culture to share. Don't pass us by.

SD: Your early influences were fairly conventional North American and reggae music. How did your interest veer towards what you're doing now?

AP: It was at the point where I recognized the threat to our culture. In the early '80s, my commitment changed to prevent the disconnect of the Garifuna people from their culture and focus more on what was ours than what was imported from abroad.

SD: What would you like American audiences to take away from your performances?

AP: I think it would have to be the discovery of a component of the Americas that is totally new. It’s easy to assume that all people of African descent in the Americas have been enslaved. Or that all people of African descent speak the language of one of the colonizing countries. But to find that, somewhere within all of that, that we exist with our unique characteristics should be interesting to people.