Music of the Caribbean
Caribbean Music Genres
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Reggae:
When most people hear the term reggae music, they think of Jamaica. However, the term reggae denotes a particular music style. Reggae was developed out of the popular Jamaican music genres, Ska (1950s) and Rocksteady (mid 1960s).
- Ska combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. It is characterized by a walking bass line accented with rhythms on the offbeat. In the early 1960s, ska was the dominant music genre of Jamaica and was popular with British mods. Prince Buster is theorized to have created ska by essentially flipping the R&B shuffle beat and stressing the offbeats with the help of the guitar.
- Rocksteady comes from a dance style that was mentioned in the Alton Ellis song “Rock Steady”. A successor to Jamaican ska, and a precursor to reggae, rocksteady was performed by Jamaican vocal harmony groups such as The Gaylads, The Kingstonians, and The Maytals Dances performed to rocksteady were less energetic than the earlier ska dance moves. Rocksteady differs from ska musically as the tempo is slower and more relaxed. The bass is heavier and more prominent in the mix and in addition, the bass lines abandon the earlier “walking” style of the ska period in favor of more broken, syncopated figures. The ska-style back beat and the emphasis on the offbeat carried over into rocksteady.
- Reggae is based on a rhythm style characterized by regular chops on the off beat, known as the skank. The Rastafari movement influenced many prominent reggae musicians from the inception. Reggae song lyrics deal with subjects like love and relationships as well as social issues like poverty and injustice. Reggae is either played in 4/4 time or swing time, because the symmetrical rhythmic pattern does not lend itself to other time signatures such as 3/4 time. Harmonically, the music is often very simple, and sometimes a whole song will have no more than one or two chords. These simple repetitive chord structures add to reggae’s sometimes hypnotic effects.
- Roots Reggae is a spiritual type of music whose lyrics are predominantly in praise of Jah (God). Recurrent lyrical themes include poverty and resistance to government oppression. Many of Bob Marley’s and Peter Tosh’s songs can be called roots reggae. The creative pinnacle of roots reggae was in the late 1970s. In recent years a new genre called Gospel reggae has emerged with artists like Christafari, further expressing the highly spiritual culture of the Jamaican people.
- Dancehall was developed around 1980. The style is characterized by a deejay singing and rapping or toasting over raw and fast rhythms. Ragga (also known as raggamuffin) and reggae fusion, are subgenres of dancehall where the instrumentation primarily consists of electronic music and sampling.
Calypso:
Calypso music originated in Trinidad but it’s roots lay in the West African kaiso music. Calypso was originally used as a means of communication between slaves, as well as a form of entertainment. Calypso music lyrics were originally mostly political satire, describing the events of the day.
Politicians, journalists, and public figures often debated the content of each song, and many islanders considered these songs the most reliable news source. Calypsonians pushed the boundaries of free speech as their lyrics spread news of any topic relevant to island life, including speaking out against political corruption. Eventually British rule enforced censorship and police began to scan these songs for damaging content. Even with this censorship, calypsos continued to push boundaries.
Lovey’s String Band, made the first calypso recording in 1912 with a song titled, “Golden Age of Calypso”.
Chutney:
- Chutney is an up-tempo, rhythmic song, accompanied by the dholak, the harmonium and the dhantal. Originally, chutney music was religious in nature. Recently chutney music has become popular among the Indian community in Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Suriname, and the West Indian diaspora communities in Canada, The United States, The Netherlands. Some of these contain calypso and soca rhythms, which include Indian, Western and African instruments.
Soca:
- Soca combines the melodic uplilting sound of calypso, with insistent percussion and local chutney music, soca is a form of dance music originating on the Islands of Trinidad and Tobago. In the mid-1970’s Lord Shorty combined the African-Caribbean calypso music with rhythmic elements of Indo-Trinidadian Chutney music to create soca, which would grow to replace calypso as the dominant genre at carnival.
Reggaeton:
- Reggaeton originated in Panama, blending the West-Indian reggae and dancehall music with those of Latin America, such as bomba, plena, salsa, merengue, latin pop, cumbia and bachata as well as that of hip hop, contemporary R&B, and electronica. However, reggaeton is also combined with rapping or singing in Spanish. The influence of this genre has spread to the wider Latino communities in the United States, as well as the Latin American audience.
El general – Te Ves Buena
Merengue:
- Merengue originated in the Dominican Republic, it was long considered a musical style of the poor farmers. This style of music was created by Ñico Lora, a Dominican of Spanish descent, in the 1920s. Rafael Trujillo a Dominican Dictator, promoted and established merengue as the countries national music and dance style. The musical style and dance is the typical four beat structure but what sets the merengue apart is the instruments: the tambora, a double-headed drum, saxophone and accordion. Angel Viloria and his band are responsible for popularizing merengue in the US in the 1950’s.
Salsa:
- Salsa a predominately Cuban-Caribbean genre was developed in the 1960s and ’70s by Cuban and Puerto Rican immigrants to the New York City area. It derived from Cuban mambo and the son orchestras of the early 20th century, as well as Latin jazz. The terms Latin jazz and salsa are often used interchangeably. Salsa is essentially Cuban in stylistic origin although Puerto Rican and other Latin styles mixed with pop, jazz, rock and R&B. The most important instrumentation in salsa is the percussion, which is played by a wide variety of instruments, including claves, cowbells, timbales and conga. Besides percussion, other core instruments are the trumpets, trombones, and the bass guitar.In April 1963, Ray Barretto’s hit “El Watusi”, became the first Latin song to enter the Billboard charts.
Bachata:
- Bachata is sad, romantic guitar folk music originating in Latin countries like the Dominican Republic. Local bachata musicians play at small countryside bars throughout the Dominican Republic. During much of its history Bachata music was denigrated by Dominican society and associated with rural backwardness and delinquency. The Dominican group Aventura made Bachata popular worldwide in 2002 with it’s hit song “Obsession”.
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