Who Are the Negros Lubolos?

Another fundamental change that took place in the development of Candombe was the appearance of white comparsas.

In the 1870s another presumably Afro-Uruguayan comparsa arose, the Negros Lubolos. Their characteristics were similar to those of other Afro-Uruguayan comparsas, except that they included no black members at all and only young white men from the middle- and upper-classes. Their goal was to make the customs of the African nations known. Therefore, they dressed themselves in costumes that they believed to be similar to those worn in the past, learned Candombe music and, their most prominent feature, painted their faces black (55). The appearance of these so-called blackface groups went concomitant with the civilization of the carnival, but this was not a phenomenon solely restricted to Montevideo. Rather it can be seen that blackface groups appeared in several American countries with the most prominent being the blackface minstrelsy in the United States. There is no reliable explanation why the negros lubolos came to be the way they parade today or what reasons there were that made parading as a negro lubolo so popular (56). Looking for an explanation, George Reid Andrews turns to Eric Lott's analysis on nineteenth century minstrelsy in the United States in his book Blackness in a White Nation (2010). He finds that Lott makes several points about minstrelsy that can be applied to the negros lubolos:

“First, minstrelsy was “a principal site of struggle in and over the culture of black people…. It was based on a profound white investment in black culture” characterized by “the dialectical flickering of racial insult and racial envy, moments of domination and moments of liberation.” Second, that dialectical flickering had a powerful sexual dimension based on “white men's fascination with and attraction to black men and their culture” and, at the same time, their fear of black men. Finally, through minstrelsy white men used black characters as “ventriloquists' puppets” to voice a series of anxieties and preoccupations concerning the place of whiteness, of masculinity, and of social class in American life.” (Andrews 56 f.)

Something similar could be seen in Montevideo where white inhabitants had listened to and looked at the Candombe performances for decades now and found them attractive yet absurd. The blackface comparsa helped “enabling the continued production and maintenance of racial difference.” (Lott in Andrews 57). From the quote above we can discover the fascination that the white middle- and upper-class populations had with African-based culture. But to deal with it, the negros lubolos ridiculed the entire appearance by dressing for example in illustrious costumes. We could say that the entire act made Afro-Uruguayan comparsas and their celebrations inferior.

Several other sources hint to the African origin of Lubolo offering different explanations, unfortunately with no reliable background. It can be said that there is and has been a region in Africa called Lubolo situated in the west of what is today the Democratic Republic of Congo.