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Anglophone caribbean music
British Caribbean Other Anglophone islands
Anguilla Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica
Bermuda and Montserrat Bahamas and Antigua and Barbuda
Turks and Caicos Barbados and the US Virgin Islands
Caymans Grenada and St. Kitts and Nevis
UK Virgin Islands St. Vincent and the Grenadines
Timeline and Samples
Pop genres Calypso - Chutney - Dancehall - Dub - Junkanoo - Ragga - Rapso - Reggae - Ripsaw - Rocksteady - Scratch - Ska - Soca - Spouge - Steelpan
Other islands
Aruba and the Dutch Antilles - Cuba - Dominica - Dominican Republic - Haiti - Martinique and Guadeloupe - Puerto Rico - Saint Lucia

The music of the Bahamas is associated primarily with junkanoo, a celebration which occurs on Boxing Day (December 26) and again on New Year's Day (January 1). Parades and other celebrations mark the ceremony. Groups like The Baha Men, Ronnie Butler and Kirkland Bodie have gained massive popularity in Japan, the United States and elsewhere.

Contents

[edit] Calypso

Calypso is a style of Afro-Caribbean music which originated in Trinidad and Tobago. This form of music has spread through many parts of the Caribbean, including the Bahamas.

[edit] Soca

Soca is a form of dance music which originated from calypso music. It originally combined the melodic lilting sound of calypso with insistent percussion (which is often electronic in recent music) and local chutney music. Soca music has evolved in the last 20 years primarily by musicians from various Anglophone Caribbean countries including Trinidad, Guyana, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Barbados, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Antigua and Barbuda, United States Virgin Islands, The Bahamas, Dominica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Jamaica and Belize.

[edit] Junkanoo

Junkanoo celebration in Nassau

The word junkanoo is said to be derived from a Ghanaian leader, John Connu, or from the Qujo supreme deity (Canno) and ancestral spirits (jannanin). The junkanoo was formerly practiced in North Carolina and remnants still exist in Belize, Jamaica and, most commonly, Bermuda. Most well known is it, though, from Nassau, Freeport and the Family Islands. Since the 1950s the influence of American culture has increased, mainly through TV and radio broadcasts from Florida stations, and other Caribbean styles have made inroads: calypso, reggae and soca, from Jamaica, Cuba, Trinidad, and other islands. Tourism has also had an impact, bringing in Japanese, European and North Americans with their attendant forms of cultural expression. In this milieu more traditional Bahamas performers such as Joseph Spence, have still enjoyed successful careers playing junkanoo, Christian hymns and the ant'ems of the local sponge fisherman, which include "Sloop John B", later made famous by The Beach Boys.

Junkanoo's origins are obscure and much-debated. Researchers like E. Clement Bethel have studied the issue extensively, and likely conclusions include that African slaves were allowed celebrations only around Christmas-time, and chose to celebrate John Connu, a headman from 18th century Africa. Another theory is that the term derives from scrap metal or other objects (junk) used to create the distinctive goombay drum. Similar celebrations once existed cross the Caribbean and in North Carolina, but are now virtually extinct except in the Bahamas and Belize.

Junkanoo celebration in Nassau in 2003

In 1973, the year the Bahamas achieved independence from the United Kingdom, black professionals of the middle and upper classes began to dominate junkanoo celebrations. Costuming and competitions became more complex and commonplace, and soon became a tourist draw.

Aside from being a type of drum, goombay is also a percussion music made famous by Alphonso 'Blind Blake' Higgs, who played to tourists arriving at Nassau International Airport for several years. Rake-and-scrape music is a unique type of instrumental music made by bending a saw and scraping with a small object, most typically a screwdriver; it is used to accompany dances derived from European forms like polka and waltz. Rake-and-scrape's popularity has been declining in recent years, but performers like Lassie Do and the Boys continue to keep the tradition alive. Christian rhyming spirituals and the ant'ems of sponge fisherman are now mostly dead traditions, decimated by the arrival of pop music, a 1930s sponge blight and other causes.

E. Clement Bethel's master's thesis on traditional Bahamian music was adapted for the stage by his daughter, Nicolette Bethel and Philip A. Burrows. Music of The Bahamas was first performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1991, and was revived in 2002 for fresh Bahamian audiences. A recording of that show is available for sale from Ringplay Productions.

[edit] Rake and scrape

Rake and scrape music comes from the musical traditions of the Turks and Caicos Islands, and is characterized by the use of a saw as the primary instrument. It was brought by immigrants from those islands from the 1920s to about the 1940s, who settled on Cat Island, and elsewhere. Many of these Turks and Caicos Islanders became some of the most famous musicians in the Bahamas. Many eventually moved back to their homelands, bringing with them junkanoo. Turks and Caicos are now the second home for junkanoo.

[edit] Samples

  • Download recording - "Drive the Nail A'Right, Boys" Bahamanian conch song from the Library of Congress' Florida Folklife from the WPA Collections; performed by Naomi Nelson on January 15, 1940 in Riviera, Florida

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  • Kaliss, Jeff. "Junkanoo and Sloop John B.". 2000. In Broughton, Simon and Ellingham, Mark with McConnachie, James and Duane, Orla (Ed.), World Music, Vol. 2: Latin & North America, Caribbean, India, Asia and Pacific, pp 317-324. Rough Guides Ltd, Penguin Books. ISBN 1-85828-636-0



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