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Kaiso
Kaiso is a type of music popular in Trinidad and Tobago, and other countries, especially of the Caribbean, such as Grenada, Belize, Barbados, St. Lucia and Dominica, which originated in West Africa particularly among the Efik and Ibibio people of Nigeria, and later evolved into calypso music. Kaiso music has its origins in West Africa (particularly in present-day Nigeria) and in the Kingdom of Kongo and was brought over by the enslaved Africans, who (in the early history of the art form) used it to sing about their masters. The people would also gather in "kaiso" tents where a griot or lead singer would lead them in song. Many early kaisos were sung in French Creole by an individual called a chantwell. Kaiso songs are generally narrative in form and often have a cleverly concealed political subtext. Kaiso performers are known as kaisonians. In Barbados, ''kaiso'' refers to a form of stage-presented calypso, such as at the crop over festival. Terminology The term ''kaiso' ...
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Calypso Music
Calypso is a style of Caribbean music that originated in Trinidad and Tobago during the early to the mid-19th century and spread to the rest of the Caribbean Antilles and Venezuela by the mid-20th century. Its rhythms can be traced back to West African Kaiso and the arrival of French planters and their slaves from the French Antilles in the 18th century. It is characterized by highly rhythmic and harmonic vocals, and was historically most often sung in a French creole and led by a griot. As calypso developed, the role of the griot became known as a ''chantuelle'' and eventually, ''calypsonian''. As English replaced "patois" (Antillean creole) as the dominant language, calypso migrated into English, and in so doing it attracted more attention from the government. It allowed the masses to challenge the doings of the unelected Governor and Legislative Council, and the elected town councils of Port of Spain and San Fernando. Calypso continued to play an important role in politic ...
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Calypso Music
Calypso is a style of Caribbean music that originated in Trinidad and Tobago during the early to the mid-19th century and spread to the rest of the Caribbean Antilles and Venezuela by the mid-20th century. Its rhythms can be traced back to West African Kaiso and the arrival of French planters and their slaves from the French Antilles in the 18th century. It is characterized by highly rhythmic and harmonic vocals, and was historically most often sung in a French creole and led by a griot. As calypso developed, the role of the griot became known as a ''chantuelle'' and eventually, ''calypsonian''. As English replaced "patois" (Antillean creole) as the dominant language, calypso migrated into English, and in so doing it attracted more attention from the government. It allowed the masses to challenge the doings of the unelected Governor and Legislative Council, and the elected town councils of Port of Spain and San Fernando. Calypso continued to play an important role in politic ...
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Soca Music
Soca music is a genre of music defined by Lord Shorty, its inventor, as the "Soul of Calypso", which has influences of African and East Indian rhythms. It was originally spelt "sokah" by its inventor but through an error in a local newspaper when reporting on the new music it was erroneously spelt "soca"; Lord Shorty confirmed the error but chose to leave it that way to avoid confusion. It is a genre of music that originated in Trinidad and Tobago in the early 1970s and developed into a range of styles during the 1980s and after. Soca was initially developed by Lord Shorty in an effort to revive traditional calypso, the popularity of which had been flagging amongst younger generations in Trinidad due to the rise in popularity of reggae from Jamaica and soul and funk from the United States. Soca is an offshoot of Calypso/Kaiso, with influences from East Indian rhythms and hooks. Soca has evolved since the 1980s primarily through musicians from various Anglophone Caribbean count ...
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Chantwell
Kaiso is folk music, and an important ancestor of calypso music. As early as the 1780s, the word kaiso was used to describe a French-based creole languages, French creole song and, in Trinidad, kaiso seems to have been perfected by the chantwells (singers, mostly female) during the first half of the 19th centurThe chantwells, assisted by alternating in call-and-response style with a chorus, were a central component of the practice called Calinda (stick-fighting). Calinda was a central component of early carnival celebrations in Trinidad, and after emancipation (1834), Afro-Creole peoples, Creoles essentially took over the streets during carnival. Elite French Creole revellers, for their part, moved their carnival celebrations indoors and to private parties. Kaiso used satirical and insulting lyrics, and is related to the picong tradition. Kaiso singers, called chantwells, sang primarily in French-based creole languages, French creole. Chantwells The "chantwell" is another incar ...
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Trinidad And Tobago
Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous much smaller islands, it is situated south of Grenada and off the coast of northeastern Venezuela. It shares maritime boundaries with Barbados to the northeast, Grenada to the northwest and Venezuela to the south and west. Trinidad and Tobago is generally considered to be part of the West Indies. The island country's capital is Port of Spain, while its largest and most populous city is San Fernando. The island of Trinidad was inhabited for centuries by Indigenous peoples before becoming a colony in the Spanish Empire, following the arrival of Christopher Columbus, in 1498. Spanish governor José María Chacón surrendered the island to a British fleet under the command of Sir Ralph Abercromby in 1797. Trinidad and Tobago were ceded to Britain in 1802 under the Treaty of Amiens as se ...
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Mento
Mento is a style of Music of Jamaica, Jamaican folk music that predates and has greatly influenced ska and reggae music. It is a fusion of African rhythmic elements and European elements, which reached peak popularity in the 1940s and 1950s. Mento typically features acoustic instruments, such as classical guitar, acoustic guitar, banjo, hand drums, and the rhumba box — a large mbira in the shape of a box that can be sat on while played. The rhumba box carries the bass (sound), bass part of the music. Mento is often confused with Calypso music, calypso, a musical form from Trinidad and Tobago. Although the two share many similarities, they are separate and distinct musical forms. During the mid-20th century, mento was conflated with calypso, and mento was frequently metonym, referred to as ''calypso'', ''kalypso'' and ''mento calypso.'' Mento singers frequently used calypso songs and techniques. As in calypso, mento uses topical lyrics with a humorous slant, commenting on po ...
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Brukdown
Brukdown is a genre of Belizean music. Its best-known performer and innovator, Wilfred Peters is regarded as a Belizean national icon. The word ''brukdown'' may come from ''broken down calypso'', referring to the similarities between brukdown and Trinidadian calypso music; the presence of large numbers of Jamaicans in Belize also led to an influence from mento music. Brukdown's main purpose is to tell the story of the Belizean Creole people. A typical Brukdown song may reflect the journey of the African slaves to the mahogany slave camps of Belize, but the genre has been sustained by its usefulness in spreading the word of historical and current events to the large illiterate population of Belize. As a result, Brukdown is frequently played at events with large gatherings– specifically around Christmas time. The Brukdown singer is often the bearer of news, and the words of the composer are widely accepted as fact, despite the gossip-like nature of the genre.Olsen, D. A., & ...
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Palm-wine Music
Palm-wine music (known as maringa in Sierra Leone) is a West African musical genre. It evolved among the Kru people of Liberia and Sierra Leone, who used Portuguese guitars brought by sailors, combining local melodies and rhythms with Trinidadian calypso to create a "light, easy, lilting style". It would initially work its way inland where it would adopt a more traditional style than what was played in coastal areas. It would eventually gain popularity after Sierra Leone musician Ebenezer Calendar recorded songs in the 1950s and 1960s and continues to hold a small amount of that popularity. Etymology Palm-wine music was named after a drink, palm wine, made from the naturally fermented sap of the oil palm, which was drunk at gatherings where early African guitarists played. History This music was created from a fusion of local and foreign sailors, dock workers, and local working-class people who would go to palm-wine bars to drink and listen to music. Portable instruments and ...
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Crop Over
Crop Over is a traditional harvest festival which began in Barbados, having had its early beginnings on the sugar cane plantations during slavery. History The original crop-over tradition began in 1687 as a way to mark the end of the yearly harvest, but was wide-spread throughout the region at the time, including in St. Vincent, Trinidad and Jamaica. As such, it still shares similarities with Carnival in Brazil and Trinidad. Many crop-over celebrations were organized and sponsored by planters, who used gifts of food and liquor as a means of reenforcing and excusing the continued enslavement of their labour force. However, slaves would also have often unsanctioned fetes that featured singing, dancing and accompaniment by bottles filled with water, ''shak-shak'', banjo, triangle, fiddle, guitar, and bones that were more in keeping with their ancestral culture. Other traditions that were later added included climbing a greased pole, feasting and drinking competitions. However, with the ...
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Barbados
Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate). Its capital and largest city is Bridgetown. Inhabited by Island Caribs, Kalinago people since the 13th century, and prior to that by other Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Amerindians, Spanish navigators took possession of Barbados in the late 15th century, claiming it for the Crown of Castile. It first appeared on a Spanish map in 1511. The Portuguese Empire claimed the island between 1532 and 1536, but abandoned it in 1620 with their only remnants being an introduction of wild boars for a good supply of meat whenever the island was visited. An Kingdom of England, English ship, the ''Olive Blossom'', arrived in Barbados on 14 May 1625; its men took possession of the island in the name of James VI and I, King James I. In 1627, the first ...
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Ibibio Language
Ibibio is the native language of the Ibibio people of Nigeria, belonging to the Ibibio-Efik dialect cluster of the Cross River languages. The name ''Ibibio'' is sometimes used for the entire dialect cluster. In pre-colonial times, it was written with Nsibidi ideograms, similar to Igbo, Efik, Anaang, and Ejagham. Ibibio has also had influences on Afro-American diasporic languages such as AAVE words like buckra, and buckaroo, which come from the Ibibio word mbakara, and in the Afro-Cuban tradition of abakua. Geographic distribution Ibibio is the language of the Ibibio people. The Ibibio people are found in Southeastern Nigeria in Akwa Ibom State, Cross River State, and Eastern Abia State (Arochukwu and Ukwa East LGA's). Ibibio communities in Opobo Nkoro and Oyigbo LGA's of Rivers State are largely unknown. Some Ibibio are found in other countries (Western Cameroon, Bioko and Ghana). Phonology Consonants * are bilabial, whereas is labiodental. ** has two allophones, w ...
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French-based Creole Languages
A French creole, or French-based creole language, is a creole for which French is the lexifier. Most often this lexifier is not modern French but rather a 17th- or 18th-century koiné of French from Paris, the French Atlantic harbors, and the nascent French colonies. This article also contains information on French pidgin languages, contact languages that lack native speakers. These contact languages are not to be confused with non-creole varieties of French outside of Europe that date to colonial times, such as Acadian, Louisiana, New England or Quebec French. There are over 15.5 million speakers of some form of based French based creole languages. Haitian Creole is the most spoken creole language in the world, with over 12 million speakers. History Throughout the 17th century, French Creoles became established as a unique ethnicity originating from the mix of French, Indian, and African cultures. These French Creoles held a distinct ethno-cultural identity, a shared anti ...
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