Black Music in the Circum-Caribbean

Abstract

In most circum-Caribbean locations,' the influence of Africa is evident in the musics that emerged from various mixtures of Yoruba, Bantu, Fon, Kongo, and other African peoples with Spanish, Portuguese, English, and French musical forms, structures, and genres. These intermixtures can be heard in the polyrhythms of the three batd drums and the call-and-response invocations of Cuban Santeria ceremonies; in the singing and drumming of Haitian vodun rituals; in the percussion-driven song of Honduran dugu rites; in the three drums, metallophones, and call-and-response singing of Brazilian candombl6; in the percussion-supported harmonized song of Surinam Winti; in the polyrhythmic and cross-rhythmic virtuosity of the salves of the Dominican Republic's Africanized interpretations of Roman Catholic traditions; in the call-and-response, puya drum-accompanied singing of Afro-Venezuelans; and in varieties of African-derived or African-influenced music-making from Panama, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, Belize, Mexico, Peru, Jamaica, Antigua, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Nicaragua, Colombia, and other locations. In studying this music, its constitution as a large, complex, and tangled array of musical genres fraught with formal and stylistic contradictions becomes apparent. For example, versions of merengue reside in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Colombia, and Venezuela, each differing in some ways from the others. Likewise, there are various boleros in Brazil (set in 3/4), Cuba (set in 4/4), and

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