From ritual music to electronica: the transformation of traditional Santeria into electronic neo-Santeria

Santeria ritual and music are components of the Cuban Santeria religion which descends from West African Yoruba traditions. Practitioners of Santeria believe the music to be a practical technology for altering consciousness for the purposes of healing (Navarro, 2013 p.46). The emergence of neo-Santeria music represents a hybridisation of traditional Santeria elements with electronica and includes innovative visual communication approaches and performance methods. This study investigates the transformation of Santeria into contemporary forms of neo-Santeria using music analysis, auto-ethnographic fieldwork, and practice-led creative research. It explores how innovations in neo-Santeria develop from ritual principles that reflect cultural objectives for altering consciousness. The outcome is a neo-Santeria framework developed from the research insights and consisting of music, performance, cultural philosophies, visual symbols, and transformation narratives. This framework is applied to the creative works including two music EPs featuring ten musical compositions, two album cover artworks, a music video, and visual records of live performance. This research makes a significant contribution by formulating and introducing the term neo-Santeria to denote an emerging musical style evolving from traditional Santeria practices. Insights from the research illustrate the multi-sensory nature of the neo-Santeria framework, that includes aural, visual, kinaesthetic, conceptual, and psychological dimensions, and its development into global contexts and contemporary forms. The study suggests that neo-Santeria disseminates the Santeria performance system through symbolic representations rather than pursuing ontological transformation.