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The music of Barbados includes distinctive national styles of folk and popular music, including elements of Western classical and religious music. The culture of Barbados is a syncretic mix of African and British elements, and the island's music reflects this mix through song types and styles, instrumentation, dances, and aesthetic principles.
Barbadian folk traditions include the Landship movement, which is a satirical, informal organization based on the Royal Navy, tea meetings, tuk bands and numerous traditional songs and dances. In modern Barbados, popular styles include calypso, spouge, contemporary folk and world music. Barbados is, along with Guadeloupe, Martinique, Trinidad, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands, one of the few centres for Caribbean jazz.
Characteristics and musical identity
Bajan culture is syncretic, and the island's musical culture is perceived as a mixture of African and British musics, with certain unique elements that may derive from indigenous sources. Tension between African and British culture has long been a major element of Barbadian history, and has included the banning of certain African-derived practices and black Barbadian parodies of British traditions. Simple entertainment is the basis for most Barbadians' participation in music and dance activities, though religious and other functional musics also occur. Barbadian folk culture declined in importance in the 20th century, but then rekindled in the 1970s, when many Barbadians became interested in their national culture and history. This change was heralded by the arrival of spouge, a popular national genre that reflects Barbadian heritage and African origins; spouge helped kindle a resurgence in national pride, and became viewed as Barbados' answer to the popular Caribbean genres reggae and calypso from Jamaica and Trinidad, respectively.
The religious music of the Barbadian Christian churches plays an important role in Barbadian musical identity, especially in urban areas. Many distinctive Barbadian musical and other cultural traditions derive from parodies of Anglican church hymns and British military drills. The British military performed exhibition drills to both provide security for the island's population, as well as intimidate enslaved people. Modern Barbadian tea meetings, tuk bands, the Landship tradition and many folk songs come from enlaved community members parodying the practices of white authorities. British-Barbadians used music for cultural and intellectual enrichment and to feel a sense of kinship and connection with the British Isles through the maintenance of British musical forms. Plantation houses featured music as entertainment at balls, dances and other gatherings. For Afro-Barbadians, drum, vocal and dance music was an integral part of everyday life, and songs and performance practices were created for normal, everyday events, as well as special celebrations including Whitsuntide, Christmas, Easter, Landship and Crop Over. These songs remain a part of Barbadian culture and form a rich folk repertoire.
Contemporary Barbadian folk songs, especially through the pioneering albums of author and singer-songwriter Anthony Kellman, show a bold fusion of indigenous rhythms such as tuk and calypso with African, Latin, jazz, pop, and East Indian influences. Kellman's songs such as "Mountain" (from 2000 album Wings of A Stranger); "King Jaja" and "My Dog, Your Dog" (from 2005 album Limestone); and "If You See My Girl" and "Tuk, Tabla, and Fedounoum" (from 2009 album Blood Mates), exemplify his eclectic style. More than any of his contemporaries, Kellman, through his songs, poems and novels, demonstrates what it means to be Barbadian through a hybrid mix of African and European cultural elements.
Dance
Barbadian folk dances include a wide variety of styles, performed at Landship, holidays and other occasions. Dancers and other performers at the crop over festivals, for example, are popular and an iconic part of Barbadian culture, known for dancing in the costumes of sugarcane-cutters. The Landship movement features song and dance meant to imitate the passage of a Royal Navy ship through rough seas; Landship and other occasions also feature African-derived improvised and complexly-rhythmic dances, and British hornpipes, jigs, maypole dances and Marches.
Pentecostal music has become a part of Barbadian religious and musical traditions since the 1920s. Music plays a role in Pentecostal ceremonies, and is provided by emotional and improvised performances accompanied tambourines. In addition to the Anglican and Pentecostal traditions, Rastafarian music has spread to the island in more recent years, along with African-American musical forms, especially gospel, and the Spiritual Baptist religion, which derives from the Trinidadian Shango cult that spread to Barbados in the 1960s.
The Barbadian Landship movement is an informal entertainment organization which mocks, through mimicry and satire, the Royal Navy. Landship began in 1837, founded by an individual known variously as Moses Ward and Moses Wood, in Britton's Hall in Seamen's Village. The structure of the Landship organization mirrors the structure of the Royal Navy, with a "ship" which is connected to a "dock" (a wooden house similar to a chattel house), and leaders known as Lord High Admiral, Captain, Boatswain and other navy ranks. Each unit is named like a typical navy ship and may include actual names of British ships or places. Landship performances symbolize and reflect the passage of ships through rough seas. Parades, jigs, hornpipes, maypole dances and other music and dance types are a part of the Landship Society's celebrations. The Council of the Barbados Landship Association regulates the movement.
Barbadian Christmas music is mostly based on church and concert hall performances, where typical North American Christmas carols are performed, such as "White Christmas" and "Silver Bells", alongside works by English composers including William Byrd, Henry Walford Davies and Thomas Tallis. In more recent years, calypso, reggae and other new elements have become a part of local Christmas traditions. As recently as the 1960s, Barbados was home to a distinctive practice, in which scrubbers travelled from house to house singing hymns and receiving rewards from households. The drums are light-weight so they can be carried easily, and are made by both rural villagers and drummers using cured sheepskin and goatskin. Tuk bands are based on the British military's regimental bands, which played for many years for special occasions, such as visiting royalty and coronations. The tuk sound has evolved over the years, as has the instrumentation, with the bow-fiddle used before being most commonly replaced by the pennywhistle flute.
Tea meetings are celebrations held in society lodges or school halls, and feature both solo and group performance, theatrical rhetoric and oratory, and other activities. After declining following World War I, tea meetings have recently been revived and have regained their widespread popularity. They are held at nighttime, beginning at 9:00 pm and continuing until midnight, when there is a two-hour break for food and drink before the tea meeting is resumed.
Calypso
Prior to the 1930s, Barbadian calypso was called banja, and was performed by labourers in village-tenantry areas. Itinerant minstrels such as Mighty Jerry, Shilling Agard and Slammer were well-known forerunners of modern Barbadian calypso. Their song tradition embraced sentimentality, humour, and opinionated lyrics that continued to the 1960s, often by then accompanied by guitar or banjo. The foundation of the National Cultural Foundation in 1984 helped to promote and administer calypso festivals, which attracted tourists, stimulating the calypso industry. As a result, calypso has become a very visible and iconic part of Barbadian culture, and some calypsonians have become internationally renowned, including Mighty Gabby and Red Plastic Bag. Of these, the cowbell and the guitar are widely seen as the most integral part of the instrumentation, and are said to reflect the African origin of much of Barbadian music.
In the 1950s, R&B and rock and roll became popular on the island, and many jazz bands found themselves pushed aside. A wave of Guyanese musicians also appeared on the island, including Colin Dyall, a saxophonist who later joined the Police Band, and the Ebe Gilkes Quartet. Though mainstream audiences were still listening to R&B and rock, modern jazz retained a small core of followers into the 1960s. The foundation of the Belair Jazz Club in Bridgetown in 1961 helped to keep this scene alive. With independence in 1966 came a focus on black Barbadian culture, and music like calypso, reggae and spouge, rather than the preoccupation with British standards of musical development. Calypso jazz arose during this period, pioneered by groups like the Schofield Pilgrim. The genre had developed by 1965, when original works such as "Jouvert Morning" and "Calypso Lament" were composed. Artists including the pianist Adrian Clarke became popular during the '60s as well.
On modern Barbados, oral transmission remains the primary mode of music education, and there are few opportunities for most people to become formally educated in music of any kind. The elders of the island, who are the most educated in oral traditions, are held in high esteem due to their knowledge of folk culture. Modern Barbados is home to several institutions of musical education. There are dedicated schools for ballet: Dance Place and the Liz Mahon Dancers. A number of schools sponsor orchestras, steelbands and tuk bands, including the St. Lucy Secondary School Steel Orchestra. Music is a part of the curriculum for early childhood as well as primary and secondary education. The Barbados Community College has an associate degree programme in music. However, the University of the West Indies, though it has a campus on Barbados, does not offer degree programmes in music. As a matter of fact, only recently has the university started offering students the opportunity to pursue a minor in music.
Music institutions and festivals
The main music festival in Barbados is Crop Over, which is celebrated with song, dance, calypso tent competitions and parades, especially leading up to the first Monday in August, Kadooment Day. The crop over festival celebrates the end of the sugarcane harvest, and is inaugurated by the ritual delivery of the last of the harvest on a cart pulled by mules. The champion sugarcane workers are crowned King and Queen for the event. In addition to crop over, music plays an important role in many other Barbadian holidays and festivals. The Easter Oistins Fish Festival, for example features a street party with music Opera, cabaret and sports are a major part of the Easter Holders Season. The National Independence Festival of Creative Arts and Crop Over are two of the festivals sponsored by the National Cultural Foundation (NCF); the other is Congaline, a recently organized street party that begins in April and ends on May Day. NCF also assists with the Holers Opera Season, Oistins Fish Festival, Holetown Festival and the Barbados Jazz Festival.