Don’t you dare call Barbados “Lesser”

All Around This World -- The Caribbean featuring Barbados

This week in our online class we voyage to Barbados, a glorious island nation in the “Lesser Antilles.” Barbados had a long history even before the British arrived in 1625 to find it uninhabited. Amerindians had lived there in about 1600 BC, then the Arawak came-and then the Caribs, who ruled the roost for several hundred years until they disappeared, likely as a result of their encounters with Spanish and Portuguese visitors (and/or their germs).  The island soon became a land full of wealthy sugar plantation owners and their African forced laborers. For the next three hundred years only the very wealthiest citizens of Barbados were allowed to vote, ensuring domination by those very wealthy citizens. Only in the 1950s did universal suffrage come to Barbados. In 1966 Barbados became independent. 

We’re going to enjoy our swing-out to Barbados. There aren’t too many better places to be.

 

M’sieu Michel won’t give you two francs

The original version of “M’sieu Michel,” a Martinican song we sing this season in our online class, tells the true tale (as far as we’re told) of a labor dispute on the island between workers and their French boss. All the workers asked for was two francs in their paycheck rather than one — was that too much to ask, M’sieu Michel?! Apparently it was, because the workers became more and more insistent. When M’sieu Michel didn’t relent, they didn’t just ask for a raise — they demanded it. In real life did the workers receive an increased wage? We don’t know. In our version, OF COURSE.

In 1992 Kali was the Face of France

Kali is a vocalist and banjo player from Martinique who explores the roots of French West Indian music.

In paticular, Kali breathes new life into a genre of Martinican music called “biguine” while addressing political and social issues such as racism and economic inequality. In this video he represents all of France as he performs “Montè la Riviè,”  in the 1992 version of the biggest reality singing competition in the world — Eurovision.

The Beauty of Bèlè

In class this week we try dancing to Martinican Bèlè, a form of West African-inspired music and dancing in Martinique that became an essential part of the working and family life of enslaved Africans on the island.

A traditional bèlè song starts with a call and response section led by a vocalist singing in Antillean Creole. (Watch this video of Martinican Bèlè in motion to get an idea.) After that comes a rhythmic section featuring the Ti-Bwa, two sticks that play on the back of a tambour, a goblet drum with a goatskin head, making music for an exuberant dance. In our classroom, the Twi-Bwa may be two pencils and our tambour may be a textbook, but our bèlè is beautiful.

Musical Martinique

All Around This World -- The Caribbean featuring Martinique

This week in our online class for kids we travel to Martinique, which we’ll find in the “Lesser Antilles.” (Don’t let the islands hear you call them that. They may get a complex.) Martinique is an “insular region” of France, meaning it is officially one of the eighteen regions of France. Martinicans are French through and through..but Martinique is also Caribbean in all the usual, complicated ways — Carib ancestry, a history of being at the mercy of seafaring and plantation-owning British and the French, and an on-again, off-again relationship with slavery that puts African culture at its core.

The Kwadril is not “square”

Let’s square up and dance the Kwadril!

The St. Lucian Kwadril (“Quadrille”) is highly choreographed Creole folk dance and accompanying music style based on the European quadrille. In both dances, as we see in this video, four couples dance in a square, following intricate moves, like American Square Dance. Lucians accompany the kwadril by playing, as says Wikipedia, the cuatro, a rattle, the chakchak, bones called zo, a violin, banjo, mandolin and guitar.

Join us for Jounen Kweyol

We travel to the Caribbean for one of our favorite holidays — Saint Lucia’s Jounen Kweyol.

Saint Lucia’s Jounen Kweyol is a festival that celebrates the island’s multicultural Creole heritage that mixes British, French, African and Caribbean influences. At the festival, which takes place every year on the last Sunday of October, you’ll see, according St-Lucia-Vacation-Guide.com, “men displaying how they used to saw wood, the making of Creole bread using wood to heat the oven, making of cassava bread, bakes and fish cakes made out of Cray fish, the making of certain tantalizing dishes that were prepared long ago that has lost its popularity in recent times; crab callaloo, pemie, roasted sardines eaten with breadfruit, and more.” As you’ll see in this video, at that time of year Lucians wear madras, the national form of dress, and you’ll hear them speaking the local French-based Creole language.

How You Keepin’?

We leap at the occasion of our visit to St. Lucia to celebrate Antillean Creole.

English is the official language of St. Lucia, but about 80% of the population speaks Antillean Creole, which is a Creole based on French and mixed with vocabulary from African languages and Carib. Each year on the last Sunday in October St. Lucians celebrate “Jounen Kweyol” to express pride in Creole language and culture. (We’ll learn more about Jounen Kweyol later this week.) Enjoy this video of the St. Lucia National Youth choirs as you say learn to say hello and goodbye as one might in St. Lucia: hello (how you keepin’?) is “Ka ou fè?” and goodbye (see you later) is “Ovwa.”

Sweet St. Lucia

All Around This World map of the Caribbean featuring St. Lucia

This week in our online class we go LOW — down deep into the so-called “Lesser Antilles,” a stretch of delightful islands in the southern Caribbean. We start today with a visit to St. Lucia, where the first inhabitants of the island, the Arawak who lived there for hundreds of years before the Caribs came in the 800s and pushed them out. Europeans settled until in the 1550s when a feared pirate known as Wooden Leg used it as a base from which to attack Spanish ships. For 150 years the British and French fought over the island; it changed hands between them fourteen times before the British finally pushed the French out in 1814. The island became an independent nation in 1979 but is still part of the British Commonwealth.

Rocking Steady with Phyliss Dillon

Jamaica’s Phyliss Dillon is as steady as rocksteady gets.

Rocksteady is a form of ska that arose in the rough urban neighborhoods of Kingston in the mid-’60s. Slower in tempo than ska, running contrary to the optimism that gripped must of the rest of post-independence Jamaica, rocksteady formed a bridge between boisterous dancehall ska and the more rootsy, political grooves of reggae.  In this video we meet Phyliss Dillon, the groovin’ “Queen of Rocksteady.” We let the Queen sing us out on the last post of our Jamaica week. Onward!