Caitro Soto

Caitro Soto playing the cajón.

Caitro Soto (Carlos "Caitro" Soto de la Colina) was a well-known percussionist particularly well known for his mastery of the cajón.  He was one of the founders of Peru Negro, one of the most important organizations dedicated to the preservation of Afro-Peruvian music, dance and culture.


Born in 1934 in the largely Afro-Peruvian town of San Luis (Cañete province), he died in 2004 at the age of 70 in Lima, Peru´s capitol.  Cañete province is sometimes known as the "cradle of Afro-Peuvian arts" and between the time of the Spanish conquest and the 20th century, it was full of plantations dedicated to growing sugar cane, cotton and other products.  Most of the labor to work these plantations, up until the mid-19th century, came from Africans who had been enslaved and brought to the area, and later, their descendants.  Slavery wasn´t abolished in Peru until 1854.

Caitro Soto is best known for his unique version of the traditional Afro-Peruvian song, Toro Mata.  He based his version on the song as taught to him by his grandmother and great-grandmother, and other family members.


I wanted to post a link here to a video with his biography, but it doesn't work and seems to have disappeared.  Instead, here he is performing Toro Mata.



Toro Mata, which is also performed by our group on our documentary, A Zest for Life, isn´t the only song that Caitro Soto rescued.  He collected songs from his ancestors and the elderly inhabitants of his native town, San Luis de Cañete, songs that recounted and illustrated the life of Afro-Peruvians during the time of slavery and the first few decades afterwards.  These were country folk who did back-breaking work in the fields and their hardships are reflected in the songs they created.

For collectors of trivia, Caitro Soto had a role in the movie, The Motorcycle Diaries, about Che Guevara´s youth.  He played one of the people in the leper colony.

OUR NEXT BLOG will be about Afro-Peruvian zapateo footwork, including some performed by Caitro Soto.