Artist Bio:
Don Rafael Cepeda Atiles was a prolific composer, musician, orchestra director and folklorist. He was a revered patriarch who cultivated and promoted Puerto Rican folk music and especially the bomba and plena.
Cepeda was born in San Juan to parents who migrated from Mayaguez on the West Coast of the island. In 1932 he married and established residency in nearby Santurce. His wife, Dona Caridad Brenes was a gifted dancer of bomba and plena as well as an accomplished designer of the costumes, accessories and folk-art used in folkloric presentations. Together they formed the most dynamic pair of dancers and performers of bomba and plena in Puerto Rico. The couple had 12 children and they managed to instill their passion for Afro-Caribbean music traditions in all of them, thus founding a musical dynasty of musicians and folklorists who continue their legacy to this day. All their children became flame-keepers of Puerto Rico's folk traditions, especially the bomba and plena, with a mission to instill the importance of folk traditions in future generations. In order to maintain the patriarch's legacy, the Escuela de Bomba y Plena de Puerto Rico was founded by Rafael Cepeda's son Modesto in 1978.
A self-taught musician and a gifted singer, Cepeda stood out for his exceptional ability to turn phrases and improvise on the lyrical content of the bomba and plena repertoire as well as for his tremendous rhythmic sensibility. His delivery was peppered with anecdotes of his vast life experiences and delivered with precision and humility. A master percussionist, he perfected the art of playing the barriles of bomba, the maracas, the güiro and the sticks and the panderos of plena. He usually played the güiro or the seguidor when he sang, but was a masterful requinto player as well. Cepeda was also known for his craftsmanship. He constructed his own barriles and panderos, an art that he passed on to his children.
In order to feed his children, Cepeda maintained a number of occupations: baseball player, boxer, maintenance worker at the racecourse, carpenter. But in 1940, Cepeda formed his first bomba and plena ensembles, Grupo ABC, with a group of friends and began to appear with them on the radio program Tribuna del Arte. In 1953 he organized the Grupo Folklorico Trapiche and in 1954 he formed Los Caballeros del Bomba. In 1956 the group took part in Francisco Arrivi's theatrical work Vegigantes, which presented spectacles based on native themes in San Juan hotels. The group also appeared in several films, including Carnivals of the Caribbean (1961), Felicia (1963) and Mientras Puerto Rico Duerme (While Puerto Rico Sleeps, 1966). Later, other relatives joined with the ensemble to form the famous Ballet Folklórico de la Familia Cepeda.
In the '70s Cepeda recorded a couple of CDs: Don Rafael Cepeda, Patriarca de la Bomba and Así es la Plena. Hundreds of his compositions were recorded by other artists, in Puerto Rico and elsewhere, including the famous "El Bonbon de Elena", "A la Verdugué", "A Bailar Bambulé", "Mofongo Pelaó," the aguinaldo "Flores de Amistad" and many more. Cepeda received numerous awards and recognitions, among them the U.S. National Endowment of the Arts for his dedication to the traditions of his people and a certificate of recognition from the U.S. president (1983); the documentary Don Rafael Cepeda; Patriarca de la Bomba y la Plena, produced by the institute of Puerto Rican Culture in 1996; and an homage celebrating his contributions to the development of folkloric music (XXV Fiestas de la Música Puertorriqueña, 1991).
Shortly before his death in 1996, the legislature of Puerto Rico paid tribute to Cepeda by assigning him a life pension in recognition for his invaluable cultural legacy and one of the streets in Santurce was named after him. —Nili Belkind
