Bahamian rhyming spiritual is a religious genre of music found in the

Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to ...

, and also the songs, usually spirituals, and vocal-style within that genre. Rhyming does not refer to

rhyme A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds (usually, the exact same phonemes) in the final stressed syllables and any following syllables of two or more words. Most often, this kind of perfect rhyming is consciously used for a musical or aesthetic ...

but to

verse Verse may refer to: Poetry * Verse, an occasional synonym for poetry * Verse, a metrical structure, a stanza * Blank verse, a type of poetry having regular meter but no rhyme * Free verse, a type of poetry written without the use of strict me ...

, the rhymer, or

lead-singer The lead vocalist in popular music is typically the member of a group or band whose voice is the most prominent melody in a performance where multiple voices may be heard. The lead singer sets their voice against the accompaniment parts of t ...

, singing the couplets of the verses against the sung background of the repeated

chorus Chorus may refer to: Music * Chorus (song) or refrain, line or lines that are repeated in music or in verse * Chorus effect, the perception of similar sounds from multiple sources as a single, richer sound * Chorus form, song in which all verse ...

. Rhyming was most popular during the

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of the 1930s (the sponges having been killed by a fungus), and Peter Elliot is considered the best rhymer. Generally songs are structured verse-chorus-verse form, where the chorus is the goal of the verse, but in a rhyming spiritual the chorus becomes the

accompaniment Accompaniment is the musical part which provides the rhythmic and/or harmonic support for the melody or main themes of a song or instrumental piece. There are many different styles and types of accompaniment in different genres and styles ...

to the verse. The verse progresses over the chorus and eventually coincides, often with the rhymer dropping out for the last few words of the chorus. Usually there are three voices which make up the songs; the rhymer doing the melody, the bass which does a very low tone accompaniment, and the falsetto performing high pitches.

Discography

*''The Real Bahamas in Music and Song'' (1996/2003), recorded by Peter K. Siegel and Jody Stecher in 1965.

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Explorer Series: H-72013/79725-2. *''The Real Bahamas, Volume II'' (1978/2003), recorded by Peter K. Siegel and Jody Stecher in 1965. Nonesuch Explorer Series: H-72078/79733-2.

References

Caribbean music genres Christian music genres {{Music-genre-stub