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Feel da riddum
Bahamian musicians gaining world recognition
The Bahamas’ music scene just may be the only thing hotter than its sun-drenched beaches.
Catchy goombay, raucous Junkanoo, socanoo and jazz are some of the lively music genres you’ll hear during your vacation in The Bahamas.
Indeed, Bahamians have always brought a rich flavour and vigorous “riddum” (rhythm) to their music, from singing old Negro spirituals during the colonial era to scraping a carpenter’s saw with a metal file for a “rake ’n scrape” sound to beating goatskin drums.
Although best known for its sun, sand and sea, The Bahamas boasts a thriving music industry that is one of the islands’ best-kept secrets.
Although influenced by British, American and Jamaican music, the distinctive Bahamian sound differs from that of other countries, says Chris Justilien, a music lecturer at The College of The Bahamas who knows the national music scene well.
“The rake ’n scrape element that you find in our music would be very difficult to find so predominantly in other people’s music,” he says. “The Junkanoo beat that a lot of the artists are using today is also different from what you hear in the music of other countries in the region.
“Just the general instrumentation of the music–the use of cowbells, goatskin drums and the saw–and the way we speak, holding true to the Bahamian [dialect], bring a unique sound to recordings.”
In fact, The Bahamas is bursting with creativity and fresh musical talent, with some artists hoping for success on the world stage. Their dreams aren’t too improbable, because that’s been done before.
Making it big
In 2000, the home-grown band Baha Men was catapulted to international stardom after playing Nassau’s club scene since the late ’70s as the High Voltage band. The group’s sound fuses Junkanoo with hip-hop, rap and pop.
“After twenty years, the Baha Men are an overnight success,” read the headline in Rolling Stone magazine, heralding the band’s breakthrough single, Who Let the Dogs Out.
According to Billboard, a weekly US magazine devoted to the music industry, the all-male band “straddles the line between Caribbean and western popular music and does so while putting smiles on people’s faces and a bounce in their steps.”
Baha Men’s Who Let the Dogs Out album sold more than five million copies, winning this country’s only Grammy Award.
The band also received a Billboard Music Award for World Music Artist of the Year and World Music Album of the Year.
The single reached No 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US, No 2 on the UK Singles Chart and No 1 in Australia.
The Baha Men have been in the studio working on a new album, set for release this year. They plan to tour the US and Europe, beginning in September, according to their official My Space site.
Musical revolution
Obie Pindling, an attorney and veteran musician, says The Bahamas’ music industry is “in the midst of amazing evolution and development.”
Pindling, the son of the late Prime Minister Sir Lynden O Pindling, should know. He’s the leader of the country’s number-one party band, Visage.
“From the ’40s to the ’90s, with the exception of a few, most Bahamian recordings were goombay, rake ’n scrape or Junkanoo,” he says.
In rake ’n scrape, an indigenous Bahamian sound, musicians scrape a carpenter’s saw, play tunes on the concertina (accordion) and beat the goombay drum.
The 1970s and ’80s saw the rise of Bahamian artists such as Smokey 007 (Help Me Make It Through the Night) and Priscilla Rollins (Letter from Miami).
By going more mainstream in their approach, such Bahamian bands as The Beginning of the End found a larger audience in 1971 with Funky Nassau. That hit climbed to No 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and to No 7 on the Billboard Black Singles list in the US, and it reached No 31 on the UK Singles Chart.
In 1977 another Bahamian band, T-Connection, had a disco hit with Do What You Wanna Do. It reached No 1 on the Billboard Disco Singles chart and peaked at No 15 on the R&B chart.
“Back then,” says Pindling, “no one here at home criticized [these bands] or questioned their Bahamian [identity] for recording music which was not of indigenous Bahamian rhythms,” but this attitude is different today, he believes.
“Visage, and now many of the younger recording artists on the local scene, are being bashed constantly by a few because our music contains non-traditional rhythms. Our Bahamian identity is being called into question.”
Hungry for success
Formed in 1981, Visage’s electric stage performances are legendary in The Bahamas. In 1996, the band released its Energy CD, which included a number of hit singles.
The title track, Energy reflected the genesis of Visage’s “socanoo” sound, a fusion of soca and Junkanoo. Soca is a form of dance music that emerged from the calypso style of Trinidad and Tobago. Their other CD releases–Brigga Dum Bram, Power and Xplosion–quickly followed. The band is now working on its fifth album, Nuttin but da Truth, due out sometime this year.
With extensive tours of the Caribbean, the US and Canada to their credit, Visage is said to be the first Bahamian band ever to have a song licensed by New York’s VP Records, the world’s largest distributor of Caribbean music, for use on two Caribbean compilation CDs.
Socanoo aside, The Bahamas has a wide variety of styles in its musical repertoire, with no shortage of hot talent.
One such up-and-coming artist, Terneille “TaDa” Burrows, who believes the country is in the grips of a “new music movement” that features “a handful of well-polished, multi-dimensional artists and music producers and composers.
“The international scene is my number-one priority this year,” says Burrows, a vocalist whose music fuses urban, pop and reggae. “Since I’m an artist and songwriter, any one of those doors might open first.”
Burrows began performing at the age of four, taking to the stage with her songwriter/performer father, Greg Burrows.
In 1997 she became a member of the hip-hop trio Supernatural. Their first studio recording The Rapture, won a Caribbean Gospel Music Marlin Award, which recognizes outstanding achievement in this genre. The following year, Burrows launched her solo career with the release of her first CD, Santigroove.
In 2000, the same year Baha Men hit the jackpot, the Bahamian teen walked away with the grand prize in the hip-hop category of the John Lennon Songwriting Contest, an international competition.
More recently, Burrows wowed the crowd at the 2008 Miss Teen USA Pageant held at the Atlantis Resort. Her voice, featured on the Ministry of Tourism’s “It’s Better in the Bahamas” TV ad campaign, was heard by millions on ads aired during US President Barak Obama’s inauguration.
So far Burrows has released three solo CDs and two compilations. “Success in the music business [for me] is standing out from the norm creatively, having a far-reaching impact on the industry and being able to live comfortably off of it all,” she says.
The gospel truth
For Shaback, The Bahamas’ leading gospel ensemble, stardom has a slightly different meaning.
“Success for us is when we’re able to employ our 22 gospel singers full-time, carrying out our ministry as a corporate body,” says the leader and founder, Clint Watson.
Formed in 1996, Shaback (shabach spelt with a ch is the Hebrew word for loud, foolish praise) delivers more than traditional church songs. Their style ranges from Caribbean to Junkanoo, Latin, soca and pop. They have made two recordings and participated in two compilation CDs.
In the Bahamian gospel music industry “there is a strong link and bond between most artists,” says Watson, who doubles as a professional television news anchor.
“It is the largest music industry in the country, and according to the Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture, Charles Maynard, it goes the furthest and has the potential of doing the best because of the masses and [the] success of gospel artists in the international market.”
Shaback has worked with a number of superstar gospel artists such as BeBe Winans, Byron Cage, Kurt Carr and Richard Smallwood and has performed on stage in a chorale with R&B greats such as Chaka Khan and Patti LaBelle.
In March 2008 Shaback recorded its third full-length project, titled This Is It. The two-week launch tour included fellowship with other international recording artists such as Pastor Donnie McClurkin and Bishop Hezekiah Walker.
Jazzing it up
As much as Bahamians love Junkanoo, soca and gospel music, they also love jazz.
One popular band is Jazz Etcetera, formed in 1998. This is a talented group of longtime friends, all professional musicians, with lots of international exposure.
As the band’s name suggests, they’re adept at playing other musical styles such as contemporary R&B, pop, reggae, calypso and rake ’n scrape.
Says band leader Adrian D’Aguilar, “The band has attracted a wide following of both young and mature enthusiasts…which draws persons from all walks of life and has essentially broken down social, political, and ethnic barriers.”
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WELCOME BAHAMAS - NASSAU, CABLE BEACH & PARADISE ISLAND - 2010
WBN10 - Feature_BahMusic
Feel da riddum
Bahamian musicians gaining world recognition
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