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Wake Up Early and Enjoy Junkanoo

How lucky are we that we get to celebrate Junkanoo?

While a lot of the traditional folk songs from The Bahamas have to do with boats, sailing, pirates, rum running and other maritime pursuits, the islands are actually best known for “Junkanoo,” the celebratory music that arose from the yearly Junkanoo festivals which take place on December 26 and on New Year’s Day. Both festivals start at 1 a.m. and go until 9 a.m. (Seriously!) There are different accounts of how Bahamanians, and those in other parts of the Caribbean like Jamaica, celebrate Junkanoo, but most agree that the tradition is over two hundred years old and began as a dancing celebration of African slaves to mark their yearly three day Christmas “holiday” or of former slaves to mark their emancipation. Early junkanoo dancers costumed themselves in whatever materials they could find, gluing paper or feathers to their clothes. Today there are extensive junkanoo groups, like the one featured in this video, that work on their colorful costumes all year and compete for prizes in an official parade, hit cowbells, play drums and blow conch shells as horns.

 

 

“Speak Like We!”

Let’s speak Bahamian English!

People in the Bahamas speak a dialect of English that playfully blends British, African and Taino words. For example, in Bahamian English, instead of saying “The children are watching the fish,” you would say “Duh chirren dem is vatchin’ duh fishes.” (Want examples? Visit BahamasGuru.com and “Speak Like We!“) Bahamian English is different than Bahamian Creole, which is a creole based on English.

Take a Saw, then “Rake ‘n’ Scrape”

Run to the cupboard for instruments to get ready for some Bahamian rake-n-scrape.


In the Bahamas you don’t need traditional instruments to make music. Look in the toolshed and go forth! You may well find yourself making  Bahamian “rake ‘n’ scrape” music, in which musicians accompany European-style dances like the Bahamian quadrille and the polka by hitting a goombay drum, bending a saw and scraping it with a small tool such as a screwdriver. Enjoy some raking and scraping in this video.

The Sun Shines Brighter in the Bahamas

All Around This World -- The Caribbean featuring the Bahamas

This week in our online class we’re not only lucky enough to be going to the beautiful Bahamas, but we have the honor of marching into the street, drums in hand, to celebrate freedom. Whatever smile is on your face right now, it could be bigger in the Bahamas. Whatever your money is doing in your relatively traceable domestic bank account, it could probably be frolicking much more freely, and more privately, in the Bahamas. So let’s go there.

PLEASE Let the Dogs Back In

You know music by Baha Men…you do.

If you and your Aunt Zippy woofed to “Who Let the Dogs Out” at your cousin Ronnie’s bar mitzvah, you’ve enjoyed music by Baha Men. Having formed in the late ’70s as a junkanoo band from the Bahamas known as “High Voltage,” Baha Men transformed into an international recording sensation with a catchy ditty about barking dogs and an uncanny ability to place their songs on the soundtracks of high-voltage Disney films. The band’s junkanoo roots are legitimate though, and, even after they got Shrek’s personal phone number on their speed dial, much of their music represents the genre well.