
What is the most popular music genre in the Caribbean?
What Kinds of Music Come From the Caribbean?
- Reggae. Reggae is the best-known of Jamaica's many styles of music and finds its roots in traditional mento music, ska and rocksteady.
- Calypso. Calypso comes from the islands of Trinidad and Tobago and gained quite a bit of popularity (in an albeit somewhat sanitized form) during the folk revival when Harry Belafonte ...
- Compas. ...
- Salsa. ...
- Bachata. ...
What are the different types of Caribbean music?
Music from the Caribbean
- syncopations
- use of percussion
- call and response
- singing styles
- tonal
- instruments. There are similarities in the types of instruments used across the Caribbean islands. The most popular instruments are percussion and drums, different types of guitar and homemade instruments.
- claves
- maracas
- cabasa
- reco-reco
What are some Caribbean music?
Caribbean music history is equally rich with tradition. Calypso, reggae, soca, zouk and many similar styles were each born in the islands of Trinidad, Jamaica, and Haiti.Their continuing popularity is a testament to the resiliency of the culture of the Caribbean culture.
What kinds of music come from the Caribbean?
- Abwe
- Afro-Cuban jazz
- Areito
- Batá and yuka
- Batá-rumba
- Bembe
- Boogaloo
- Bolero
- Chachachá
- Changui
What is the most popular music in Haiti?
What is reggae music?
What is the melting pot of cultures in the islands and coastal areas surrounding the Caribbean sea?
Where did the calypso come from?
Is salsa popular in Cuba?
Who is the most famous reggae artist?
Is baachata a popular genre?
See 4 more
About this website

What is another name for Caribbean music?
Crossword answers for CARIBBEAN MUSICClueAnswerCARIBBEAN MUSIC (3)SKACARIBBEAN MUSIC (7)CALYPSO1 more row
What is Jamaican music called?
Since the late 1960s, reggae has been the primary popular style of music in Jamaica. Its origins reflect the cultural hybridity for which the Caribbean is known. Reggae's roots trace back to the late 1940s and 1950s when the Jamaican recording industry was in its infancy.
What is Afro-Caribbean music called?
As afro-Caribbean music gained popularity, many sub-genres began to emerge. These sub-genres include: son cubano, salsa, calypso, soca, mento, ska, reggae and merengue.
What are three popular Caribbean music genres?
Dance To The Beat Of The Origins And Facts About 12 Caribbean Music Stylesreggaetón. Bad Bunny is one of the most streamed artists in the world, meaning he's taken the genre known as reggaetón far beyond the countries of Puerto Rico and Panama, where it originated. ... cumbia. ... bachata. ... merengue. ... cha-cha-cha. ... bomba. ... plena. ... salsa.More items...•
What are the 3 types of reggae music?
ReggaeMento. This style of Jamaican folk music was popular in the 1950s. ... Ska. A fast dance style with offbeat chords that emerged in the late 1950s. ... Rocksteady. A slower style from the mid 1960s which followed on from ska.
Why is it called reggae?
“Reggae” comes from the term “rege-rege” which means “rags” or “ragged clothes”, and this gives you your first clue into the story behind reggae music.
What genre is Caribbean music?
World musicCaribbean music / Parent genreWorld music is an English phrase for styles of music from non-Western countries, including quasi-traditional, intercultural, and traditional music. Wikipedia
Is reggaeton a Caribbean music?
Reggaeton is regarded as one of the most popular music genres in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, in countries including Puerto Rico, Panama, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Colombia, and Venezuela.
What is the most played song in the Caribbean?
The Kid LAROI - STAY (with Justin Bieber)Lil Tjay - Calling My Phone.Lil Nas X - MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)Giveon - Heartbreak Anniversary.Lil Nas X - INDUSTRY BABY (feat. Jack Harlow)Doja Cat - Need to Know.Olivia Rodrigo - good 4 u.Dua Lipa - Levitating (feat. DaBaby)More items...•
Is Hip Hop Caribbean music?
Most Hip Hop historians claim that Hip Hop was formed in the South Bronx, during the 1970's, in the poor Afro- Caribbean, Latino – Caribbean, and African American mixed neighborhoods.
Which is the most popular in the Caribbean?
The Dominican RepublicThe Dominican Republic is the most visited island in the Caribbean. With its seemingly endless white-sand beaches, the Dominican Republic is a popular getaway for tourists in search of an idyllic vacation, plenty of outdoor adventure, and a tinge of colonial history.
What music and dance originated from the Caribbean?
Think of salsa, mambo, and calypso. They're all part of Caribbean dance, which involves vibrant music and moves.
What is Jamaica's most popular music?
Mento is commonly referred to as Jamaican calypso and although, to some extent, it resembles Trinidadian calypso, it is distinctly different in the beat. The music also holds pride of place as being Jamaica's first and, in a sense, most indigenous popular music.
What is Jamaican rap called?
Toasting (rap in other parts of the Anglo Caribbean), or deejaying is the act of talking or chanting, usually in a monotone melody, over a rhythm or beat by a reggae deejay.
What was Jamaica's 1st type of music call?
Mento is the original popular music form in Jamaica, developing during the plantation period and holding sway up to the 1950s. It was born out of the fusion of African and British influences.
What was Jamaica's first popular music genre?
ROCKSTEADY: A BRIEF SKA HISTORY Though most people associate the island with the laid-back rhythms of reggae, Jamaica's first major musical movement was the more uptempo sound of ska.
Caribbean Music History – Caribcast
Caribbean Music History Caribbean islands have a rich and diverse history. The music and the festivals of Caribbean are rich and cultural. There are several different styles of music that originated on these islands. The genres include traditional Puerto Rico Aguinaldo and the Jamaican Mento and even the salsa and reggae. Caribbean music has influenced the European and American music to a ...
What is the Caribbean music style?
As such, most Caribbean music, however unique to its own island culture, includes elements of African music - heavy use of percussion instruments, complex rhythmic patterns, and call-and-response vocals.
What are the influences of Caribbean music?
Caribbean music genres are diverse. They are each syntheses of African, European, Indian and Indigenous influences, largely created by descendants of enslaved Africans (see Afro-Caribbean music ), along with contributions from other communities (such as Indo-Caribbean music ). Some of the styles to gain wide popularity outside ...
What is the music of Honduras?
The music of Honduras is varied. Punta is the main "ritmo" of Honduras, with other sounds such as Caribbean salsa, merengue, reggae, and reggaeton all widely heard especially in the North, to Mexican rancheras heard in the interior rural part of the country. Honduras' capital Tegucigalpa is an important center for modern Honduran music, and is home to the College for Fine Arts.
What is twoubadou music?
Twoubadou is another form of folk music played by peripatetic troubadours playing some combination of acoustic, guitar, beat box and accordion instruments singing ballads of Haitian, French or Caribbean origin. It is in some ways similar to Son Cubano from Cuba as a result of Haitian migrant laborers who went to work on Cuban sugar plantations at the turn of the century. Musicians perform at the Port-au-Prince International Airport and also at bars and restaurants in Pétion-Ville .
What is Shanto music?
Shanto is a form of Guyanese music, related to both calypso and mento, and became a major part of early popular music through its use in Guyanese vaudeville shows; songs are topical and light-hearted, often accompanied by a guitar. Other genres include:
What is tumba dance?
Performance is often competitive in nature. Tumba is a style of Curaçao music, strongly African in origin, despite the name's origin in a 17th-century Spanish dance. Traditional tumba is characterized by scandalous, gossiping and accusatory lyrics, but modern tumba often eschews such topics.
When was reggae invented?
Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.
Why is Caribbean music so rich?
In some cases, they also incorporated influences from the area’s native Arawak Indian populations, forging new fusions that stand today as a testament to the beauty of integration. This is the reason Caribbean music styles and other cultural elements are so rich.
What is the music of Aruba?
The traditional music of Aruba– like that of its sister island in the Netherlands Antilles, Curaçao– combines classical influences from Africa, Europe and neighboring Venezuela. It includes a variety of waltzes (a ballroom style that originated in Vienna), danzas (a romantic style of music and dance native to the Caribbean) and mazurkas ...
What are the sounds of Colombia?
Colombia’s Atlantic coast boasts an amazingly diverse array of sounds, from the African beat of champeta and the Big Band horns of porro to the Latin rhythms of salsa.
What is the strongest tradition in music?
The strongest of these traditions are scratch bands, which play a form of music called fungi at church services, public festivals and weddings.
What is the name of the Spanish style of folk music?
Each of these plays a significant role in folk music forms such as the West African-influenced bomba, Andalusian-influenced décima, the Spanish-style seis , and the narrative form known as plena.
When did cumbia become popular?
Spreading from rural areas to more urban centers in the 1940s, cumbia entered its Golden Age in the 1950s and remains popular in both Colombia and Mexico today, popularized by artists such as La Sonora Dinamita, Los Black Stars and Los Corraleros De Majagual. READ MORE: The Best Things to Do in Cartagena, Colombia.
Where did hip hop originate?
Most music historians believe that hip-hop actually originated in Jamaica, where DJs “toasted” in rhyming patterns ...
Where did the Punta music originate?
Punta music was born in the 18th century in Central America. It spread throughout Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Punta combines African beats with Caribbean instruments. Furthermore, it began with the Garinagu. The Garinagu came from the original inhabitants of the Caribbean, the Arawaks and Caribs.
Where did the Jamaican dance style originate?
This music style originated in Jamaica in the 1970s. It began as a variation of reggae. Its name comes from the Jamaican dance halls of the 1950s and 1960s. In these halls, young people came together to dance to both western and Jamaican music.
What is a Zouk?
Zouk is fast-paced and danceable. In addition, it’s normally written in French. Today, it is often referred to as “zouk-love”. Usually, it involves playing a synthesizer, guitar, bass, a big drum called a Gwo ka, and the shak shak. The shak shak is an Antillean instrument similar to maracas.
What instruments are used in Indian music?
Furthermore, this style traditionally uses various instruments of Indian origin. For example, the harmonium, a free-standing keyboard, often plays the accompaniment. Two percussion instruments called the dholak and dhantal serve to keep the beat going.
What is dancehall music?
When digital instruments became popular in the 1980s, dancehall evolved to contain fast rhythms and a hip-hop like feel. Today, it has come along way from its calmer reggae roots. In addition, the lyrics are almost always Jamaican Patois.
What is the dance called when you dance jing ping?
Jing-ping is often accompanied by the circle dance, also known as the flirtation, or the Dominican quadrille.
What instruments did Jing Ping play?
Jing-ping musicians normally played several accordions together. Other instruments used are the tanbal, a type of goatskin drum, a large bamboo flute called a boom-boom, and the gwaj, a type of shaker. Today, jing-ping music may be played using modern instruments like a drum set and synthesizer.
What is the Afro Caribbean music?
Afro-Caribbean music was influenced by the ceremonial-style, religious music of the native American people (including indigenous Caribbean people). Traditional elements such as call-and-response style singing and the use of percussive instruments (such as güiros and maracas) are reflected in afro-Caribbean music.
Where did Afro Caribbean music originate?
Afro-Caribbean music is a broad term for music styles originating in the Caribbean from the African diaspora.
What are the most popular drums in African music?
Congas, bongos, bombo and batá drum s are most commonly heard in afro-Caribbean music, however, many other variations of drums are also used including the tumba francesa, palo, yuka and makuta drums. The influence of the drums in afro-Caribbean music is mixed with many popular drum varieties originating in Latin America, Europe and Africa. In most circumstances the roots of these drum types lead back to African origin. A prominent drumming influence from Africa is the use of the hands to create music over a variety of Timbres, unlike in European music, where sticks are favoured to strike the drums.
What is the rhythm of a beat called?
The combination of multiple series of pulses is referred to as a polyrhythm. These rhythms are often created using drums such as the batá. This rhythm is used as a base, to which vocals and other instruments can be added to. The Polyrhythm pattern is common in music derived from Western and Central Africa. In afro-Caribbean music, the polyrhythm is mainly seen in the music derived from Cuba and Haiti.
What are some examples of European influences on African music?
Elements of the contradance have been incorporated into afro-Caribbean sub-genres such as the Merengue. Due to the large numbers of Spanish settlers compared to English settlers in Caribbean colonies, the European influence on afro-Caribbean music is more strongly Spanish. Examples of European influence in afro-Caribbean music include the presence of tonal harmonies, melodies and instruments of European origin. The lyrics of afro-Caribbean music are most commonly in European languages such as Spanish, English or French. The presence of European instruments and elements in afro-Caribbean music is reflective of the European music that slaves were forced to play for their masters. Over time, African elements, such as percussion and call-and-response invocations , were combined with traditional European elements. This led to the creation of a new hybrid genre, afro-Caribbean music.
What are some examples of African music?
Examples of African vocal characteristics include call-and-response invocations and textually repetitious, simple lyrics . Afro-Caribbean music places a strong emphasis on rhythm, or a series of repeated pulses, this is also reflective of the influence of African music. Dominant African influences include those from the Bantu, Kongo, Fon and Yoruba peoples. This is largely reflective of the fact that many slaves were from Western or Central Africa due to their proximity to the Atlantic seaboard.
Why is music considered West African?
These types of music usually have West African / Central African influence because of the presence and history of African people and their descendants living in the Caribbean, as a result of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
What is the Caribbean music genre?
Guitars are also important in Caribbean music. Guitars are also associated with Spanish culture, and have become, due to this influence, important in the Caribbean. In the Dominican Republic, for example, there is a music genre called Bachata. This genre generally consists of a guitar, bongos and maracas. This genre is popular throughout the Caribbean and Latin America, and is closely related to romantic guitar music.
What is the instrument used in the Caribbean?
Another instrument important in Caribbean culture is the guiro. The guiro is a hollow cylinder with ridges on one side, and a stick is run up and down the ridges, creating an amplified noise inside the hollow instrument. Although the guiro is prevalent through the Caribbean, its history is murky.
What is the most recognizable drum in the Caribbean?
Buleador . One of the most recognizable drums in the Caribbean is the buleador. This type of drum is essential in the Bomba musical genre. Bomba dates from at least the 17th century, and the buleador is one of the main percussion instruments in that genre. The buleador has a low pitch and is primarily responsible for keeping the rhythm.
What are the drums in the Caribbean?
Steel drums are another variety of drum that are very important in the Caribbean , and have come to represent the region in popular culture worldwide. These drums, originally made out of steel barrels and developed in Trinidad in the early 20th century, were created in response to a ban on hand drums and bamboo drums, according to The Toucan Steel Drum Band.
What is the most important instrument in the Caribbean?
Drums are some of the most important instruments in the Caribbean. Drums are not only the backbone of music, providing an underlying beat and feeling, but, in the Caribbean, they are also absolutely a part of the cultural history and the current, vibrant regional culture. Drums can be large or small, portable or stationary, ...
Why are musical instruments important in the Caribbean?
They come from the diverse historical origins of Caribbean culture, ensuring that no culture is forgotten or diminished. They also provide entertainment and a distinct sound to the region. Many of these instruments are native to the region, and all come from a rich and vibrant, ...
Where did the Maraca originate?
They play a critical role in Caribbean music, and most agree that that the maraca originated from Indigenous people in Latin America.
What is the most popular music in Haiti?
Haiti is an incredibly rich island, musically, and compas is the island's most popular genre. Like basically all other Caribbean music, compas is a blend of African rhythms with the music of the Native Caribbean people and European musical elements. Some of the more popular current artists include Tabou Combo, Les Freres Dejean and Sweet Micky, who ran for and won the Haitian presidency in 2011. Other styles you'll find in Haiti include rara, mizik rasin, kadans and meringue (which is related to the merengue music of the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti.)
What is reggae music?
Reggae is the best-known of Jamaica's many styles of music and finds its roots in traditional mento music, ska and rocksteady. With its characteristic one-drop rhythm and largely conscious and spiritual lyrics, reggae has widespread appeal among listeners all over the world and has had a major influence on hip-hop music, as well as rock and soul. The best-known reggae artist of all time was undoubtedly Bob Marley, who gained worldwide fame in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Other artists worth exploring are Peter Tosh, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Jimmy Cliff and Burning Spear.
What is the melting pot of cultures in the islands and coastal areas surrounding the Caribbean sea?
The melting pot of cultures in the islands and coastal areas surrounding the Caribbean sea have made this region one of the most fertile breeding grounds for music anywhere in the world.
Where did the calypso come from?
Calypso comes from the islands of Trinidad and Tobago and gained quite a bit of popularity (in an albeit somewhat sanitized form) during the folk revival when Harry Belafonte and some others brought some of the greatest old calypso songs to the international stage. The genre is very much alive, and there are a number of popular genres that are based in calypso, as well, including soca, chutney and rapso.
Is salsa popular in Cuba?
This genre is inextricable from its accompanying high-drama dance, which certainly explains its popularity among international audiences. Salsa is not only popular among Cubans in Cuba; there are vibrant and active salsa music communities in all major cities with large Cuban-American populations, particularly New York City and Miami.
Who is the most famous reggae artist?
The best-known reggae artist of all time was undoubtedly Bob Marley, who gained worldwide fame in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Other artists worth exploring are Peter Tosh, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Jimmy Cliff and Burning Spear.
Is baachata a popular genre?
Bachata has grown to rival Merengue as the Dominican Republic's most popular genre of music. It's a sad music, often equated with the blues, and with deep roots in Iberian guitar music (think flamenco and fado) but, in modern form, has a broadly appealing pop sensibility that is an easy sell to a wide audience.

Overview
Trinidad and Tobago
Calypso is a Trinidadian music, which traditionally uses a slow tempo to accompany vocalist-composers, or calypsonians. Songs are often improvised and humorous, with sexual innuendo, political and social commentary, and picong, a style of lyricism that teases people in a light-hearted way. Calypso is competitively performed in calypso tents at Carnival. Calypso uses rhythms derived from West Africa, with cut time, and features dance as an important component…
Antigua and Barbuda
Benna is an uptempo Antiguan folk song, also spelled bennah and known as ditti. It is characterized by lyrics that focus on scandalous gossip, performed in a call and response style. It has also been a means of folk communication, spreading news and political commentary across the island. Other genres include:
• Extempo
Bahamas
• Goombay
• Junkanoo
• Rake-and-scrape
• Bahamian Rhyming Spiritual
Barbados
• Folk
• Tuk
• Spouge
• Fling
• Calypso jazz
Belize
• Punta
• Punta rock
• Chumba
• Fedu
• Brukdown
Colombia
• Berroche
• Bullerengue
• Champeta
• Chandé
• Chalupa
Cuba
• Abwe
• Afro-Cuban jazz
• Areito
• Bakosó
• Batá and yuka