Venezuelan and Appalachian Fusion
Durham and Raleigh, NC
Though coming from divergently different origins, Larry Bellorín and Joe Troop seemed destined to make music together. Larry Bellorín hails from Monagas, Venezuela and is a legend of Llanera, the traditional music of the Venezuelan plains. Joe Troop is from North Carolina and is a Grammy-nominated bluegrass and old-time musician. Larry was forced into exile and is an asylum seeker in North Carolina. Joe, after a decade in South America, got stranded back in his old stomping grounds in North Carolina during the pandemic. Larry works construction to make ends meet. Joe's acclaimed "Latingrass" band Che Apalache was forced into hiatus, and he shifted into action working with asylum-seeking migrants.
Currently based in the Triangle of North Carolina, both men are versatile multi-instrumentalists and singer-songwriters on a mission to show that music has no borders. As a duo they perform a fusion of Venezuelan and Appalachian folk music on harp, banjo, cuatro, fiddle, guitar, maracas and whatever else they decide to throw in the van.
As Dr. Sophia Enriquez writes for Music Maker Foundation:
Since late 2021, Bellorín and Troop have been collaborating on a project that explores Venezuelan-Appalachian music, a new paradigm that’s challenging our ideas of roots music in the South. But this duo’s work isn’t just musical—as the pair gains momentum across Appalachia and the South among both Latino and non-Latino listeners, their music raises important questions about our relationships to one another, Latino migration to the South, and the shifting musical footprint of the United States. Amidst widespread anti-immigrant rhetoric in the region and unjust migration policies nationwide, Troop and Bellorín show how joy and creativity through music-making persist and offer a healing path forward.