![]() The stage name was based on her mother's name which was derived from Ima Shumaq, Quechua for "how beautiful!" although in interviews she claimed it meant "beautiful flower" or "beautiful girl". She adopted the stage name of Imma Sumack (also spelled Ymma Sumack and Ima Sumack) in South America before she went to the U.S. A story claiming that she was actually born Amy Camus (Yma Sumac backwards) in Brooklyn or Canada was fabricated while she was performing in New York City in the early 1950s. Stories published in the 1950s claimed that she was an Incan princess directly descended from Atahualpa. Some sources claim that she was not born in Ichocán, but in a nearby village or possibly in Lima, and that her family owned a ranch in Ichocán where she spent most of her early life. Other dates mentioned in her various biographies range from 1921 to 1929. Yma Súmac was born in Ichocán, Cajamarca, Peru. When still a child in rural Peru, she attracted notice for her extraordinary voice, and joined the Compañía Peruana de Arte in the early 1940s. Some sources claim that she was not born in Ichocán Read Full Bio Yma Sumac (Septem– November 1, 2008) was the stage name of a Peruvian singer named Zoila Augusta Emperatriz Chavarri del Castillo. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.Yma Sumac (Septem– November 1, 2008) was the stage name of a Peruvian singer named Zoila Augusta Emperatriz Chavarri del Castillo. SIMON: And her legend continues 100 years after her birth. Like, she was never the kind of performer who later in life kind of had a sense of humor about herself. MIRANDA: There was something, like, very fabulous and larger than life about her, and she never let that go. Carolina Miranda says her music endured with a fan base who cherished her campiness. She even had a 40-city tour of the Soviet Union. SIMON: Yma Sumac did perform in plenty of other places across the U.S. ![]() And for a long time, she did not go to Peru. They saw her almost as corrupting the culture. MIRANDA: Peruvians for a long time, you know, had an arm's-length relationship with her. ![]() SIMON: Yma Sumac also appeared in movies - with Charlton Heston in the 1954 adventure movie "Secret Of The Incas." While she may have been a star in the U.S., that was not the case in her native Peru - at least not at first. SUMAC: (Singing in non-English language). (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TAITA INTY (VIRGIN OF THE SUN GOD)") It was a stew of international sounds - Asian gongs, pan flutes, drums, these kind of dramatic and florid vocal stylings. MIRANDA: If you think of what the soundtrack to some jungle epic or a tiki bar would be, that was exotica. She wore gold jewelry, big bracelets, an elaborate headpiece and a large necklace. On the cover of her first album, Yma Sumac was posed before a smoking volcano, flanked by images of pre-Columbian sculptures. And here's an example of how Capitol Records gave the singer the Hollywood treatment. ![]() SIMON: That's Carolina Miranda, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times and a lifelong fan of Yma Sumac. And so Capitol Records took all of these stories from Andean Indigenous history, and basically Hollywooded (ph) them and her right up. And then, as many ambitious entertainers do, she decided to move to Hollywood.ĬAROLINA MIRANDA: Nobody really had much use for Andean folk music in 19 - late 1940s Los Angeles. She became a folk singer, drawing on what were believed to be Incan traditions. She claimed to be a descendant of the last Incan emperor. SIMON: Yma Sumac was born in the Andes, and several towns claimed to be her birthplace.
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