Music of The Lesser Antilles - British Antilles

British Antilles

Further information: Music of Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Grenada, Montserrat, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Virgin Islands

There are many popular traditions common to the English-speaking islands of the Lesser Antilles. Calypso, originally from the island of Trinidad, has spread to the neighboring islands; other Trinidadian popular traditions, like soca, are also well-known throughout the region. Steel drum ensembles is also found throughout the English-speaking Lesser Antilles (and abroad), especially in Trinidad and Tobago as well as Antigua and Barbuda. The British Antilles also share in certain folk traditions. Trinidadian folk calypso is found throughout the area, as are African-Caribbean religious music styles like the Shango music of Trinidad. Variants of the Big Drum festival occur throughout the Windward Islands, especially in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Carnival is an important folk music celebration on all the islands of the Lesser Antilles, and the rest of the Caribbean.

Calypso is part of a spectrum of similar folk and popular Caribbean styles that spans benna and mento, but remains the most prominent genre of Lesser Antillean music. Calypso's roots are somewhat unclear, but we know it can be traced to 18th-century Trinidad. Modern calypso, however, began in the 19th century, a fusion of disparate elements ranging from the masquerade song lavway, French Creole belair and the stick fighting chantwell. Calypso's early rise was closely connected with the adoption of Carnival by Trinidadian slaves, including camboulay drumming and the music masquerade processions. Popular calypso arose in the early 20th century, with the rise of internationally known calypsonians like Attila the Hun and Roaring Lion. Trinidadian calypso remained popular throughout the Caribbean in the later 20th century, and other Antillean islands like Antigua began producing calypso stars. In the 1970s, a calypso variant called soca arose, characterized by a focus on dance rhythms rather than lyricism. Soca has since spread across the Caribbean and abroad.

Steel drums are a distinctively Trinidadian ensemble that evolved from improvised percussion instruments used in Carnival processions. By the late 1930s, bamboo tubes, a traditional instrumental, were supplemented by pieces of metal used percussively; over time, these metal percussion instruments were pitched to produce as many as twenty-some tones. Steel bands were large orchestras of these drums, and were banned by the British colonial authorities. Nevertheless, steel drums spread across the Caribbean, and are now an entrenched part of the culture of Trinidad and Tobago.

Though Trinidadian popular music is by far the most well-known style of Lesser Antillean music, the other Anglophone islands are home to their own musical traditions. Carriacou and Grenada are home to Carnival celebrations that feature distinct form of calypso, canboulay feasts, calinda stick-fighting songs and the steelband accompanied jouvert, as well as the Big Drum dance, which is also found in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Grenada and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines share other musics as well including the funereal music of the saraca rite, a call-and-response form with both European and African lyrics.