The music of the Virgin Islands reflects long-standing West Indian cultural ties to the island nations to the south, the islands' African heritage and European colonial history, as well as recent North American influences. Though the United States Virgin Islands and British Virgin Islands are politically separate, they maintain close cultural ties. From its neighbours, the Virgin Islands has imported various pan-Caribbean genres of music, including calypso music and soca music from Trinidad and reggae from Jamaica.
The major indigenous form of music is the scratch band (also called <nowiki></nowiki>Fungi band<nowiki></nowiki> in the British Virgin Islands), which use improvised instruments like gourds and washboards to make a kind of music called <nowiki></nowiki>Quelbe<nowiki></nowiki>. A Virgin Island folk song called 'cariso is also popular, as well as St. Thomas' bamboula. The quadrille is the traditional folk dance of the islands, and include varieties like St. Croix's Imperial Quadrille and St. Thomas' Flat German Quadrille. The Heritage Dancers are a respected dance troupe that perform traditional folk dances from the Virgin Islands and beyond.
Characteristics
Virgin Islander culture is syncretic, based primarily on African, European and North American cultures. Though the Danish controlled the present-day US Virgin Islands for many years, the dominant language has been an English-based Creole since the 19th century, and the islands remain much more receptive to English language popular culture than any other. The Dutch, the French and the Danish also contributed elements to the island's culture, as have immigrants from the Arab world, India and other Caribbean islands. The single largest influence on modern Virgin Islander culture, however, comes from the Africans enslaved to work in canefields from the 17th to the mid-19th century. These African slaves brought with them traditions from across a wide swathe of Africa, including what is now Nigeria, Senegal, both Congos, Gambia and Ghana.
Folk music
Virgin Islander folk music has declined since the mid-20th century, though some traditions, such as scratch bands, remain vibrant. Trends that contributed to this change include the rise of the tourism industry, the switch of American tourists from Cuba to the Virgin Islands following the 1959 revolution, and the growth of industries based on mass radio, television and recorded music. These changes "(diluted) local traditions and (diverted) younger generations" from becoming involved in folk music, because popular styles came to be viewed as having more prestige, class and income.
The traditional scratch band ensemble varied, but always used a percussive instrument, either the squash, tambourine, or a local form of double-headed barrel drum similar to the Dominican tambora, as well as an accordion, cane flute or violin as a melodic instrument. String instruments were also common, including the banjo, ukulele or a six-string guitar. The ass pipe, made out of a car exhaust tube, often provided the bass, and was played similar to the tuba. Since about the 1980s, the instrumentation for scratch bands became more rigid. The alto saxophone became the most common melodic instrument, replaced sometimes by a silver flute. Conga drums, squash, electric guitar or bass guitar, and a steel (a triangle). Banjo or ukulele, keyboard and additional saxophones or other melodic instruments are more rarely found in modern bands. Lyrics traditionally function as oral history, spreading news and gossip. Modern scratch bands play a wide range of dances, including calypsos, boleros, quadrilles, international pop songs, merengues, mazurkas, waltzes, jigs and other styles. They perform at church services, private parties, public festivals, local dances and fairs, christenings and weddings, and also perform for tourists. The scratch band tradition remains most vibrant on St. Croix, where the bands Bully & the Kafooners, Stanley & the Ten Sleepless Knights, and Blinky & the Roadmasters are well known. Scratch bands are less common on St. Thomas, and in the British Virgin Islands, though the popular Elmo & the Sparkplugs hail from Tortola. being the most popular throughout the Virgin Islands, though their folk origin lies in individuals, who sang the songs in informal settings, celebrations and festivals. The music in most cases involved true stories where the listeners can identify events that happen throughout a timeline. These songs typically contained sexual innuendos and double entendres, as well as other hidden meanings; common topics included political events, such as a boycott.
Other folk styles
The quadrille is a folk dance that was formerly an important part of Virgin Islands culture; it is now rarely performed, except on St. Croix. There, locals dance the quadrille at public performance venues, such as St. Gerard's Hall, or as educational spectacles for schools, festivals and holidays, or as entertainment for tourists. Educational and entertainment quadrille troops both wear traditionally styled clothing reminiscent of authentic attire.
The Virgin Islands tea meetings, the David and Goliath play and masquerade jig all probably derive from elsewhere in the Caribbean. The masquerade jig uses elements of theatre, dance, music and oratory, and functions as simple entertainment with improvised jigs alternated with humorous monologues. Tea meetings are now only performed as reconstructions in folkloric ensembles; they were evenings of speech-making, feasting and the singing of hymns and parlor songs. The David and Goliath play features music, dance, theatre, and dramatic and witty speeches, all based on the biblical story of David and Goliath. Charles Harris, the Mighty Zebra (a well-known Trinidadian calypsonian) influentially performed in the Virgin Islands in the 1950s; he came for the Carnival in 1952, and stayed, playing at the Virgin Isles Hotel with the LaMotta Brothers Band. The LaMotta Band, led by Bill LaMotta, was a very popular group that recorded several albums and backed Mighty Zebra on a 1957 album for RCA Records. The remaining major early calypso band from the Virgin Islands was the Fabulous McClevertys, who toured widely across the East Coast of the United States at the height of the calypso craze in the late 1950s. The Native Brass Band, reportedly the first official band of local musicians, was formed under the direction of Lionel Roberts in 1907, The induction of this all-black unit into the US Navy was remarkable for its time and thus recognised the first black musicians in the US Navy since the War of 1812. The United States Navy Band of the Virgin Islands gave regular public concerts on St. Thomas until the departure of the naval administration in 1931, and not long after its founding two additional navy band units were stationed on St. Croix. Alton Augustus Adams Sr., the founder of the Juvenile Band and the bandmaster of the Navy ensemble, also wrote the Virgin Islands March (1919), now the official territorial anthem of the Virgin Islands, as well as The Governor's Own, the official march of the Virgin Islands Governor. With the exception of a single surviving bamboula arrangement, Adams's marches are entirely in the standard American march style of his idol, John Philip Sousa.
Hip-hop
There has been the development of a hip-hop scene in the Virgin Islands, specifically on the islands of St. Croix, St. Thomas, and Tortola. There is also a burgeoning hip-hop scene among Virgin Islands artists in the Atlanta metropolitan area. Prominent Virgin Islands hip-hop artists include Iyaz from Tortola, Rock City, Verse Simmonds from St. Thomas, K'Are from Tortola, Virgin Islands, British of the CB 4 Lyfe camp who also does Solo but is still a member of CB and the VI centered hip hop group Dem Rude Boyz.
Institutions and festivals
The two most prominent music institutions in the Virgin Islands are the Island Center (on St. Croix) and the Reichold Center (on St. Thomas). Both these centers provide a venue for concerts of Western classical music, jazz, musical theatre and international pop stars. St. Croix is also home to a public performance venue in St. Gerald's Hall in Frederiksted, where locals dance quadrilles and otherwise perform. Carmen Nibbs-O'Garra, wife of well-known Antiguan calypsonian Figgy, is the author of In de Calypso Tent, which, though perhaps no longer available, contains information of calypso competitions of St. Thomas and also reproduces the lyrics of popular Virgin Islands calypsos, and historical programs from past calypso tents on the islands.