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.De Ledesma and Popplewell, p. 518.

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.Millington, p. 816. Millington notes that "(l)inks, fusion and tension between African and British cultural expressions are still currently manifested." 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.Millington, pp. 813–821. 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.Hinkson, The Barbados Advocate.

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. cited in Millington, pp. 813–821. 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.

Western classical music is the most socially accepted form of musical expression for Barbadians in Bridgetown, including a variety of vocal music, chamber and orchestral music, and piano and violin. Along with hymns, oratorios, cantatas and other religious music, chamber music of the Western tradition remains an important part of Barbadian music through an integral role in the services of the Anglican church.

History

Though inhabited prior to the 16th century, little is known about Barbadian music before the arrival of the Portuguese in 1536 and then the English in 1627. The Portuguese left little influence, but English culture and music helped shape the island's heritage. Irish and Scottish settlers emigrated in the 17th century, working in the tobacco industry, bringing still more new music to the island. The middle of the 17th century saw the decline of the tobacco industry and the rise of sugarcane, as well as the introduction of large numbers of enslaved Africans. Brazilian exiles however, along with sugarcane introduced Samba to the island which featured a mixture of Latin music with African influences which soon developed into Soca-Samba which is indigenous to Barbados. Modern Barbadian music is thus largely a combination of English and African elements, with Irish, Scottish, and modern American and Caribbean (especially Jamaican) influences as well.

By the 19th century, the Barbadian colonialists grew to fear slave revolts, and specifically, the use of music as a tool of communication and planning for revolution. As a result, the government passed laws to restrict musical activities among the enslaved population. At the same time, American and other forms of imported music were brought to Barbados, while many important elements of modern Barbadian music, such as tuk bands, also emerged. In the 20th century, many new styles were imported to Barbados, most influentially including jazz, ska, reggae, calypso and soca. Barbados became home to many performers of these new genres, especially soca and calypso, while the island also produced an indigenous style called spouge, which became an important symbol of Barbadian identity.

Folk music

Barbadian culture and music are mixtures of European and African elements, with minimal influence from the indigenous peoples of the island, about whom little is known. Significant numbers of Asian, specifically Chinese and Japanese, people have moved to Barbados, but their music is unstudied and has had little impact on Barbadian music.

The earliest reference to Afro-Barbadian music may come from a description of a slave rebellion, in which the rebels were inspired to fight by music played on skin drums, conch trumpets and animal horns. Slavery continued, however, and the colonial and slave-owning authorities eventually outlawed musical instruments among enslaved labourers. By the end of the 17th century, a distinctly Barbadian folk culture developed, based around influences and instruments from Africa, Britain and other Caribbean islands.

Early Barbadian folk music, despite legal restrictions, was a major part of life among the island's enslaved population. For enslaved people, music was "essential for recreation and dancing and as a part of the life cycle for communication and religious meaning". African musicians also provided the music for the white landowners' private parties, while the enslaved people developed their own party music, culminating in the crop over festival, which began in 1688. The earliest crop over festivals featured dancing and call-and-response singing accompanied by shak-shak, banjo, bones and bottles containing varying amounts of water.

Folk song

Barbadian traditional folk songs are heavily influenced by the music of England. Many traditional songs concern events current at the time of their composition, such as the emancipation of the enslave people of Barbados, and the coronations of Victoria, George V, and Elizabeth II; this song tradition dates back to 1650. The most influential Barbadian folk songs are associated with the island's lower-class labourers, who have held on to their folk heritage.

Some Barbadian songs and stories made their way back to England, most famously "Inckle the English Sailor" and "Yarico the Indian Maid", which became English plays and an opera by George Coleman with music by Samuel Arnold, and first performed in London in 1787.Millington, p. 817.Inkle and Yarico

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.

The "Jean and Johnnie" dance was an important part of Barbadian culture until it was banned in the 19th century. This was a popular fertility dance performed outdoors at plantation fairs and other festivals, and was functional in that it allowed women to show off to men and, more rarely, vice versa. The dance was eventually banned because it was associated with non-Christian African traditions.

Instrumentation

The Barbadian folk tradition is home to a great variety of musical instruments, imported from Africa, Great Britain or other Caribbean islands. The most central instrument group in Barbadian culture is the percussion instruments. These include numerous drums, among them the pump and the tum tum, made from a hollowed-out tree trunk, the side snare drum and a double-headed bass drum of tuk bands. Folk musicians also use gongs made from tree trunks, bones, rook jaw, triangle, cymbals, bottles filled with water, and xylophones. Rattles are also widespread, and include the pan-Antillean shak-shak and the calabash, de shot and rattle. More recently imported folk percussion instruments include the conga and bongo from Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Cuba, and the tambourine.

String and wind instruments play an important role in Barbadian folk culture, especially the bow-fiddle, banjo and acoustic guitar; more modern groups also use an electric and bass guitar. The shukster is a distinctive instrument, made by stretching a guitar string between two sides of a house. Traditional Barbadian wind instruments are largely metal, but in their folk origins, were made out of locally found materials. Barbadian villagers burned fingerholes, for example, on bamboo tubes, made trumpets out of conch shells and pipes from pumpkin vines. Many modern groups use harmonica, accordion, alto and tenor saxophone, trumpet and trombone.

Religious music

Though Western classical and other musics play an important role in Anglican church services on Barbados, religion and folk music are closely intertwined in the everyday lives of most Barbadians. The basis for religious folk music is the Anglican hymn, a kind of praise song mostly sung on Sundays, a day when Christian Barbadians come together with family members to sing and praise God to ask for strength for the next week's work.Millington, p. 817. Millington refers to the hymn as the "basis for Barbadians' religious experience".