Posts

Creolization in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean

Image
Heyyy Everyone! Welcome to another segment of "My Music Blog" with your favorite blogger, Ches. I know you all are excited and eager to read what we have for today but before we dive into things, I have to break the news to you guys that this will be my last post on this topic. This was a great learning experience for me and I hope it was for you too. Thank you! Now let's get to it! So far we have covered the Caribbean nations that speak English, French, and Dutch so today we will talk about those that speak Spanish.  Today we're going to look at Cuba but we'll only cover two examples of creolization. Cuba's culture contains a wide range of various examples of creolization. However, the purpose of today's excursion is to raise awareness of the Cuban Son musical genre and the Cuban Santeria religion.  Now, traditional sones typically include a double meter structure that is derived from son lyrics and easy European harmonic rhythms. They employ European-der

Creolization in the Dutch-speaking Caribbean

Image
Hey guys! Welcome back to another episode of "My Music Blog" with Ches, your favorite blogger. So far we discussed creolization of the English and French speaking Caribbean countries so today we will talk about the Dutch-speaking ones. Honestly, I didn't even know we had Dutch-speaking Caribbean countries, I just knew of the English, Spanish and French speaking ones. But now that I'm all caught up, we will look at two of these countries and how they are creolized in some way.  The two countries I chose are Sint Maarten and Aruba. According to Tour De Force, Sint Maarten has a national dance called "Ponum" or "Panam". It is a rhythmic and energetic dance emerged from celebrations of freedom of slaves. It was said that the ponum was danced under a poinciana tree with dancers waving its branches. This dance is a good example of creolization. I say this because it was performed by the enslaved and the book mentioned slaves being brought from Africa to

Creolization in the French-Speaking Caribbean

Image
Hey guys! Welcome back to another episode of "My Music Blog" with Ches, your favorite blogger. Today we will be talking about more Creolization in the Caribbean but we're switching it up today and looking at the French-speaking Caribbean countries.  In previous posts we established that creolization is the mixing of cultures whether its music, food, religion, dances, or festivals, you name it.  And in the French-speaking Caribbean, Haiti, Martinique and Guadeloupe have the perfect examples. According to 'Tour de Force: A Musical Journey of the Caribbean', Haiti has a syncretic religion called vodou, a blend of African spiritual traditions brought by slaves and Christian beliefs enforced by Roman Catholic missionaries. This religion is one of Haiti's two official religions and is widely practiced. According to Britannica, vodou means "spirit" or "deity" and its primary goal is to  offer prayers and perform various devotional rites  directed

Creolization in the English-Speaking Caribbean

Image
Hey guys! Welcome back to another episode of "My Music Blog" with Ches, your absolute favorite blogger. Today we will be talking about some more Creolization in the Caribbean but in the English-speaking Caribbean. Did you know that many of the dances we do, musical styles we use, the food we eat and even the languages we speak are products of Creolization?  Take Jamaica for example, they speak patois. Patois is an English based creole language influenced by West African culture.  This portion of the blog we will only look at Jamaica and St. Lucia, two of the many English-speaking Caribbean countries.  Since I already started with Jamaica, let's continue... Previously I mentioned the language Jamaicans speak, but did you know that "ackee and saltfish", the national dish of Jamaica is also a product of creolization? Yes, I know, me either, I thought that was a full Jamaican thing. But according to Sainsbury (n.d.) ackee is actually native to Ghana and the saltfish

Introduction to Creolization in Caribbean Music

Image
 Hey guys! Welcome to my music blog. It's Ches, your favorite blogger and today we are talking about creolization in Caribbean music.  According to the book 'Tour de Force, creolization is the process of exchanging culture that results in multiple cultures coming together and mixing. The resulting cultural products are unique, combining elements of the original cultures with new and distinct ones. This means elements of different cultures are blended together to create new ones. This is shown across the Caribbean in our food, language, religion and music.  Merengue is an example of creolization. According to 'Tour de Force, it is both a type of music and dance style that originated from the Dominican Republic and has become popular throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.  Picture of Merengue Dancers Retrieved from:  https://www.boardingpasstv.com/index.php/2020/11/21/el-merengue-ritmo-y-baile-de-resistencia-que-vencio-el-pensamiento-retrograda-de-la-intelectualidad-y-bu