"World-a-Riddim" : different rhythm types and functions globally

It seems cool to say – as a percussionist – that few instrumentalists in this modern world are as intensely “multicultural” as a percussionist/percussion player. Potentially, but even to a point inevitably.

As a sweeping, more sociopolitical,statement one can even claim that “percussionists are the only true multiculturalists” in this world.. but that is perhaps too sweeping for now..

The exceptions are those deeply specialized in e.g. purely Indian instruments (tabla) to fit in India’s musical structures, or similar all too mono-cultural percussionists in Arabic (e.g. with darbuka’s), Japanese (e.g. taiko’s), or other specific cultures, even within percussion-rich Africa.

Especially in the Western world, most percussionists in modern “pop”, “rock”, and world music, however, combine instruments from the Americas – often the African Diaspora (Afro-Brazil, Afro-Cuba) -, with African, Middle Eastern, European, or modern Western additions.

Some of these Western modern instruments are based on African or Latin American models, but either way new sounds arose, such as the metal “flexatone”, with some “singing saw” characteristics (known historically a bit in Slavic folk music), combined in sets of many percussion players with African or Afro-Cuban drums (djembe, conga’s), woodblocks, bells (found both in Africa and Asia), the relatively more European tambourines, originally Amerindian “scrapers” , or even Spanish castanets.

Like I said, a truly multicultural mix, this “tool kit” of percussionists in many “pop” or “world” music bands..

THE FUNCTION OF RHYTHM

That is: instrument-wise. It is also a fact, however, that musical “rhythm” is not uniformly defined across cultures worldwide: regarding its function in music in different cultures.

Drums and rhythm play a role in very different cultures, but are just the “tools” used according to different values and with different goals throughout world cultures.

One used to Afro-American and African percussion – like myself – can often not get into Indian “rhythms”, Japanese, or Arabic “rhythms” that easily. Even when you are musically and rhythmically flexible and adaptive – which I claim to be – dancing to it does not go as automatic as to Yoruba, Reggae, or Samba music.

In fact, some music with drums and “rhythms” in some specific cultures are not even meant to dance to (other “social”, artistic, ritual, or narrative functions). Certainly not as is common in African-based rhythms – “dance music” , or European music which we are used to. In a part of European music “rhythm” - or eventually present percussion/drums - is not even that dance-oriented, but rather serving as a harmonic base.

I myself as a percussionist am instrument-wise certainly very multicultural, rhythm-wise admittedly less. I enjoyed - selectively – some Asian, Middle Eastern, or other non-Afro – rhythms in music, some even felt a bit danceable to me, but Afro-American and African swing and polyrhythm, or clave-based music, remains more my “thing”, rhythmically. My main love.

I am a Reggae fan, and a nice thing about Reggae is that it mixes “straight rhythm”, clave, and polyrhythm aspects, with Swing, as known from Jazz and Blues. In that sense it is rhythmically between Afro-Cuban music and Afro-US music (Jazz, R&B, etc.). A good African Diaspora mix.

That is my personal rhythmical world and taste, and it is a personal trajectory, based on own choices and tastes.

OTHER MUSICAL CULTURES: SUMMARIZED

I do wonder, though, how my “world-a-riddim” (ha!) compares to the other ones I mentioned. Music follows culture, so the function of rhythm in a culture’s music reflects that culture.

In this sense “keywords” can be useful. Are there short ways to describe rhythm’s functions in different cultures?

Through Google, AI (a google plus, really), Wikipedia, and some paper sources, I could derive these keywords/short characterizations, related to some representative cultural “zones” in this world..

It is of course terribly simplified, and not all existing musical cultures are mentioned, but it is about main trends.

Africa: polyrhythm (simultaneous, interlocking rhythms) and timeline (clave). Cross rhythms too. Layered vertically.

India: cyclical time and tala (story and language based). Monophonic, linear and mathematical. Horizontal (differing from “vertical”, layered rhythm building in African music).

Western classical music: rhythm subdued to melody and harmony, later more metric flexibility and syncopation.

Celtic music: rhythm built into melodic playing (mixed), also on nonpercussive instruments (like a fiddle, pipe, or harp). Often story based. Flowing, “floating” feel, “rolling” and linear, more “ornamented” than e.g. Germanic music, and also more syncopation. Frame drum use common.

Germanic music: strict, symmetrical meters, strong first downbeat: “marching” and Waltz as archetypes. Mathematically precise, tight on-beat rhythms.

Slavic music: asymmetrical and less strict than Germanic music, some syncopation.

Arabic music: cyclical rhythmic modes, as a structural but looping skeleton, flexible to allow ornamentation. Monorhythmic. Follows melody.

Turkish music (incl. Balkan): sophisticated rhythm cycles, irregular and asymmetric meters “limping” effect), additive meters (bouncing, "swing" effect). Further similarities with Arabic rhythm cycles.

Indonesian music: colotomic structure (gamelan): architecturally precise. Gongs/metal dominant, skinned drums secondary.

Chinese music: not a metronomic rhythm but an elastic framework. Empty space valued. Following energy flow.”Breath”-based. Slight heterophony. Mostly linear, but fluid.

Japanese music: also breath-based – not metronomic -, and gives likewise importance to empty space “ the rhythmic power of silence”. Aids in story-telling and community.

Tibetan music: paces meditation, monorhythmic, non-metric rhythm , but instead - again – breath governed, and elastic. Rhythm aims at stabilizing the mind, and an inward focus though slow repetitive beats. No loops or cycles, but guiding rituals or texts.

Amerindian (or: Shamanic) music: monorhythm, “heartbeat” of nature-based, spiritual functions. Deep bass drum sounds.

Inuit music: asymmetric meter, story-based. Voice-drum interactions. Rim-hit frame drums common, differing from “deep bass” sounds of Amerindians in e.g. Bolivia.

Flamenco (Spanish) music: asymmetric elements / limitedly metered but freer, 12-beat rhythmic cycles. Nonwestern in most rhythmic aspects, including frequent syncopation, and even polyrhythm. Flamenco is rhythmically exceptional within Europe, due to different cultural influences (Roma/Indian, Moorish, African), mixed in with local Andalusian folk music.

STEREOTYPES BUT NUANCED

All this seems to more or less confirm stereotypes (Germanic music tight and “marching” like, complex story-based in India, deep heartbeat among Amerindians, “floating/flowing” Celtic sounds, meditative in Tibet and China, “groove” and polyrhythm-based in Africa), but also shows nuances. Syncopation is not only limited to Africa, for instance.

In several cultures rhythm follows a horizontal, textual “story” or “melody” of some sort (Asia and Europe), but not everywhere. Rhythm is indeed the least subdued to melody or harmony in African music: another stereotype confirmed, albeit not an offensive one (in my opinion). I am of the opinion that words/language/texts are after all also tools to lie and mislead. Their primacy over natural “rhythm” therefore suspicious.

This summary also shows how Japanese culture is partly influenced or derived from older Chinese culture, sharing cultural values of “breath” and “empty space”, in line with spiritual ideas around energy flows, as found in Buddhism (see Tibetan music), Taoism, and Shintoism.

Complicated rhythm structures in India also support ancient cultural “stories” and principles, in this case from Hinduism, showing in drums imitating spoken language.

In its syncopation, “later” Western music (pop, “rock”) certainly underwent African and Afro-American influences (via Blues, Jazz, etc.).

Logically, as part of music, rhythm follows and supports cultural specific structures and goals. In many cultures these align with local spirituality and even “sacred” or “holy” music, albeit with secular versions.

SIMPLIFIED DINSTINCTION

Looking at rhythm’s function in traditional music world wide, this main, oft-repeated – simplified – distinction bears some truth: Europe emphasizes harmony in music, Asia melody, and Africa rhythm.

Still simplified, and all music have harmonic, melodic and, rhythmic aspects, but in essence it holds: in by themselves also differing Asian music cultures (Arabic, Chinese, Indian, a.o.), rhythm almost always supports “melody” or “stories/texts” (textual stories of melodies), while in Europe indeed rhythm often tended to support “harmony”, as noticeable in “classical” music (Bach, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, etc.), though in older folk traditions (Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, Basque), supporting the stories or “melodies” also was a function of rhythm.

Polyrhythms as meant to dance to, ritually or not, remain typically and originally African. Of course, however, lyrics and singing also play a role in African music, even a guiding one, but often also rhythmically-oriented (call-and-response), seldom supporting non-rhythm as in other cultures.

SACRILEGE?

I am not the type of guy who plays the “sacrilege” card too soon, though I have my own, largely Rastafari-based spiritual views. Musicians and artists furthermore need to think creative and free to add value. That humans are born to be free, and think free, is after all also my (spiritual?) opinion.

In addition to this, one must beware of no selectiveness or bias regarding this: all too easy use, distortion, or appropriation of (even spiritual) African musical principles seems more tolerated in the West for even commercial music producers, than if e.g. non-initiates play Indian or other Asian instruments that in many minds connect more to “pure” or “sacred” ancient religions (Hindusim and Buddhism), implicitly to be respected more.

Not the same degree of “respect”, let’s just say, painfully reflecting the disparaging historical treatment of equally ancient African culture in colonial history, The same reason that India – while once a British colony – kept it’s Hindu-based culture, whereas Igbo , Yoruba, - also colonized by the British – largely “Christianized”, or elsewhere “Arabicized”/ Islamicized.. More trampled upon.

Even among African descendants in the African Diaspora – and even within the Afro-centric Rastafari movement - , there exist disparaging view of Vodou and related “spirit invoking” or “ancestor spirits” veneration in Africa.

In Central Africa (around the Congo region), ancestor worship has long been traditionally important, whereas in the Nigeria-Benin-Ghana region specific deities/spirits – connected with e.g. nature, like rivers, thunder (Shango, Yemayá, etc.) - “mounting” believers, long was. All this “spirit possession” occurs through rhythm and drumming patterns, with trance-like effects, and while dancing.

The relative importance and primacy of rhythm and drums in sub-Saharan Africa relates to these faiths.

Christianity and Islam tried to limit that, but African percussion found a way to survive, now more secularly. Think of the Djembe drumming culture and circles in nominally Islamic areas like Mali, Guinea, Senegambia, Burkina Faso, and around

This secular “djembe” drumming gained even international popularity, mostly without a proscribed spiritual goal other than “community” or “musical bliss”, though rhythmic patterns played might derive originally from ritual or “religious” celebrations in Mande cultures, such as male circumcision, initiation, etc. They became secular, though.

REGGAE PERCUSSION AND RASTAFARI

Opinions among Reggae percussionsists in Jamaica differ. These tend to be Rastafari-adherents, where a Biblical/Protestant influence (via British colonialism) still made some condemn African Vodou and related “spirit possession” faiths in Jamaica (Obeah, Pocomania), as devilish and divisive. “Obeah” and Vodou are said in some Reggae lyrics to use their “science” mainly to sabotage/attack enemies, and put wicked spells against their brothers and sisters.

Some Rastas, like Mutabaruka, however deplore this as an unfortunate Western/colonial remnant – once meant to disparage and destroy the African heritage – still within the otherwise Afro-centric Rastafari movement, that chose to be Bible-based.

Indeed, I have researched a period more deeply Vodou, Santería, Myal, Obeah, etc…, and such African “spirit possession” faiths, and their tenets and practices. I concluded it is more about “harmony”, “community”, and “healing” – i.e. the “good” – than wicked tricks and spells against people as the European stereotype indoctrinated people with.

Good and bad/evil are more clearly formulated and distinguished in text-based Christianity and the Bible (and the Quran), which might attract believers wanting to improve the(ir) world and take a clear moral stance, but a lot of that is hypocrisy and hidden power play, as the “conquering” religions Christianity, Islam,..clearly showed with their history of enslavement and second-class citizenships for nonbelievers or, well, women.

Even with this condemning of Vodou by some Rasta percussionists, they still admit that they draw on Vodou, Pocomania, Kumina, Burru, Yoruba, drum patterns or notions, when fitting musically in a Roots Reggae context. Repurposing “spirit possession”, and of course “ancestor worship” long common in Congo regions, can be seen metaphorically as honouring/respecting ones African foreparents, knowing their roots n Africa, so important for Rastafari.

This makes “sacrilege” not a very useful term for creative, rhythmic musicians. Rhythm is everywhere, it is life itself, and thus in all humans, enabling each one to express oneself through it. Just like you can get in a “trance” or meditate in quite different ways: sitting down and silent, or dancing/ moving, and singing.

Still, some “sacrilege” or “disrespect” objections were made by rigid critics against free-thinking” world music” instrumentalists who dared for instance to use a Nepalese singing bowl outside of the Buddhist lithurgical context, such as for a jazzy musical piece, or the double-sided Yoruba Bata drums in Cuba, used normally in spiritual contexts, when used in too secular “party” songs (Salsa, Latin). Those “purist” objections will remain, I think.

Rastafari adherents have at least the good argument that Rastafari arose in Jamaica among Afro-Jamaicans as a reconnection with the African roots and values (i.e. via Kumina drumming), as a broader goal “overruling” petty ritualistic considerations.

Rastafari’s Nyabinghi drumming with the characteristic “heartbeat” drum patterns is partly rooted in Congo-based Kumina drumming of Central African descendants in Eastern Jamaica, and Kumina was originally aimed at ancestor spirit invoking. Later it was replaced – or repurposed - by Rastas with Biblically based “chants” aimed at one God/Jah”, on the same drum pattern.

Some flexibility there, with fruitful results in developing Rasta culture. Culture is after all not static, but dynamic. Influenced by different cultures over time. In this case an own “Black” interpretation of the Bible.

FLEXIBILITY

Just like people are flexible too. Percussionists in the Western world, e.g. in Pop or Rock bands (or Soul, Funk, Reggae, Latin, etc.), or part of bands in Europe or the US, cannot escape being multicultural, with almost inevitably African musical elements, mixed with other ones. Standard percussion sets include Afro-Cuban instruments (conga’s, guiro, bongo), and often also African and Afro-Brazilian ones, along with Asian influences or modern factory variants, with often Afro-Latin models: examples are the now metal Cabasa shaker, based on the traditional beaded Shekere, or the Vibraslap rattle, based on the older (e.g. Peruvian) “donkey jaw”. All in all an intriguing variation of instruments, with own histories

On the other hand: many “pop” or Rock songs in Western music with standard structures (chorus-verses, bridge) are also “stories, more or less derived from Western poetic and prosaic traditions, and rhythm supports these, somewhat reminding of rhythm’s function in Asian traditions (Indian, Arabic, Chinese): supporting main melodies and stories, with timed sounds. Additionally, it also must fit a European harmony structure.

This is the musical playground, wherein it’s fun and inspiring to play, according to one’s own preferences: atmospheric, repetitive, polyrhythmic, syncopated, straight on the beat or swing. And yes, also “free space” and “breath” – as in Asian/Chinese musical culture – plays a role in this rhythmic work, (tension building, rest, etc).

What I like about Amerindian music (Peru, Bolivia, etc.) is the direct spiritual reference to nature of the drum TOOK-took-took-took, TOOK-took-took-took, like a beating heart and life line. That’s somehow part of many grooves in other genres too.

CONCLUSION

It’s good to focus on the “function of rhythm” for me as percussionist, but also as songwriter which I de facto also am, including vocals and lyrics (see my Youtube Channel).

When making/writing songs, I sometimes follow some Western pop standards (bridge, chorus, verse) and elements, mostly genre-wise Reggae, with (e.g.) often Afro-Cuban or Jazz influences adding syncopation and polyrhythm.

In other compositions of mine I depart from such “modern pop” formats and I try to make more traditional African polyrhythmic music, Salsa songs, Flamenco songs, or in European or Caribbean folk genres, with other musical structures: more asymmetric or unmetered.

Spanish Flamenco came early in my life, as my mother was from Southern Spain, and with a large family there. Some distant family members of my grandmother’s side – surname De Tena - are even Flamenco artists/singers I understood (like Miguel De Tena), so really in that culture. I like some genres and aspects of Flamenco enough to make Flamenco-like songs too, haha. This is aided by the aforementioned summary/description that Flamenco is one of the few European genres that has “polyrhythm” and further a non-Western rhythmic base. More toward “Africa”, let’s say, like Andalusia’s geography.

On the other hand: also Alpine Italian accordion music (my father was from Northern Italy), North African, or French chansons, grabbed my interest for periods.

That shows that I like to experiment with different global rhythms, even straying quite far outside my relative favourite African or African Diaspora genres (Reggae, Rumba, Son, Funk, African genres). Hoping to also find beauty in them.

That’s what an open mind – also a “musical open mind” - is: wanting to see beauty everywhere. Wanting to see possibility and inspiration everywhere.

Eventually, despite this, – usually – the “prodigal son returns to his own” to use a Biblical reference, used in also Catholic countries, as my Spanish mother used this expression regularly, for “returning “home”, where you feel in the end most at ease, and in some way “loved”, after curious wanderings.

My percussion playing on jamsessions in clubs (mainly in Amsterdam) can also be seen online, on my Youtube channel, and it also is flexible and “multicultural”, with varying patterns from e.g. Afro-Cuban Rumba and Abakua, Brazilian Samba, African bell patterns, Conga-fied Reggae basslines, Cumbia, Flamenco, but also classical music, “rock” or Pop , folk/Celtic, or Middle Eastern elements, which I try to flexibly add to the songs: usually nice covers of Rock or Funk classics.

I use thus a variety of multicultural, modern and traditional percussion instruments, but also adapt to the different functions of rhythm in Pop or Rock, while adding syncopation and counter-rhythms, without distracting from the main basic songs. This can be also “ornamentation” known in Celtic, Arabic, and Flamenco music rhythms, but also “vertically layered” on top of as well as interlocking with the main bass-drum beat, as in polyrhythmic sub-Saharan African music, hopefully to good “driving” effect.

This all is the multicultural and groovy fun of it.

Troubled identification with Jamaica in reggae lyrics

Reggae music is of course for some time now a main “export product” of Jamaica, and especially since Bob Marley’s fame put it on the global map, since around the 1970s.

There is however one historical elephant in the room, or maybe an inherent contradiction: Reggae is Afro-Jamaican music, that arose among those who descend from Africans who were brought once forcibly to the island Jamaica, had to work as slaves, and remained in poverty on that island. There is thus a problematic identification with the nation of residence.

The same applies of course to all other Black music genres in the African Diaspora, from the US, to Cuba, Trinidad, Colombia, Brazil, and other former colonies, later becoming known for internationalized music. About 70% of what we call “Salsa” is in fact based on Afro-Cuban musical structures – with clear Congo retentions -, to which in New York were added influences, often also from the African Diaspora (Dominican Merengue or Afro Puerto Rican Bomba). Calypso (Trinidad), Blues (US), Samba (Brazil): also all created by descendants of Africans, in a place where they were brought by force.

This is an existential problem, shared throughout the African Diaspora, yet in different ways. Even if, say, countries like Trinidad, Brazil, or Cuba, seem celebrated proudly in lyrics as one’s home, the tragic undertone remains somehow there. Unease remains.

TRAUMA

That tragic undertone is the trauma. In essence, “trauma” can be defined as “losing control” of the situation, and in a sense “inaptitude”. One’s people did not choose to make Jamaica their home, but were pressured to do so, with a lot of abuse. Music helps to remind of the African roots, so that the tree growing can bear good fruits, even in alien soil, to quote Marcus Garvey (more or less).

The human rights abuses, violence, and deaths that came with trans-Atlantic slave trade and plantation slavery, added to the existential problem. After deracination, came dehumanization, and marginalization. Music genres developed among poor Black people answered that, contrasted that with roots, humanity, and self-expression.

REPATRIATION

This existential problem is shared throughout the African Diaspora, but in the case of Jamaica, that trauma of deracination or displacement, has been answered more manifestly with the Garvey movement – Back to Africa -, and the related Rastafari movement, since the 1930s.

Jamaica was and is for most Garveyites and Rastafarians not the ideal place for African-Jamaicans, who should according to them repatriate to Africa. They belong there. The sensed urgency of this repatriation might however differ per person.

While Marcus Garvey attempted in earnest to set up a steamship line to bring people back to Africa – the Black Star Liner – in the US after 1917, it was sabotaged and eventually ill-fated. More sabotage than mere “bad management”, as some claimed it to be.

Within the Rastafari movement, repatriation remained a goal, that seemed somewhat “stalled”. Poorer early (Rastafari-adhering) Reggae artists could simply not travel, whereas later Reggae artists making some money, maintained a lot of loyalties within their island of birth, Jamaica, or migration destinations (US, Canada, Britain). Only a few Reggae artists actually made repatriation efforts to Africa as such, some moving (partly) to African countries: Rita Marley being a known example in Ghana, while other Reggae artists bought land and property in parts of Africa (e.g. Sizzla).

This “back to Africa” focus of the Garvey movement and Rastafari is the most outspoken contrast to the initial trauma of forced displacement: (re)taking control of one’s lot again, as solution to the trauma. In theory to start with, as hopeful vision and, perhaps, consolation..

Elsewhere in the African Diaspora - outside of Jamaica - the same existential trauma is more implicitly referred to.

In Jamaica itself – after all a racially “majority Black” country - , some recent voices call for “Africanizing Jamaica”, instead of the unrealistic – or at least seemingly impractical – repatriation of Africans back to Africa. This cultural Africanization was however already happening all along, and at most will entail some policy changes in the higher circles of society, often more symbolic than anything else. The majority view among Rastafari adherents in Jamaica seem to still be repatriation, returning to the African homeland.

REGGAE LYRICS

Of course, Reggae music has been strongly influenced by the Rastafari movement, especially Roots Reggae (old and new), evident in lyrics, with a maintained Back To Africa focus, real or symbolic.

It seemed to me interesting, therefore, to study how (especially) Rastafari-adhering Reggae artists discuss their island of birth, Jamaica. Is there some sensed connection or sense of belonging with Jamaica?, or is the message that one is essentially just “stuck” there, still trying to make the best of it, while thinking of ancestral Africa?

With the recent hurricane called Melissa in 2025, causing destruction in parts of Jamaica, the sense of community and connection with the island as location was again put to the fore (and test), as rebuilding was required.

Rebuilding a Jamaica where you never chose to be in the first place, but had been made into home, also by your own direct ancestors.

The history of slavery is recalled a lot in Reggae lyrics, wherein Jamaica figures as “plantation island” where Africans taken from Africa lived in slavery, and later “ghetto island” where Africans lived in poverty. Jamaica forms part of larger "Babylon" (the corrupt Western world) in many Reggae lyrics. Of course this is all from the poor people’s perspective, excluded from high society.. or even middle-class society: the sufferers and ghetto dwellers, creating Reggae.

Other lyrics - dealing with current events, or later epochs – showed a broader connection with Jamaica, but mostly also one that is also “tainted”, as inequality between haves and have-nots persists. In many Reggae lyrics, from the 1970s to now, gun violence and crime, are added problems for identification with the island, for ghetto residents, also with a “class” aspect.

This became clear already when Jamaica became independent: especially some well-connected politicians, or Afro-Jamaicans with higher positions, exhibited an opportunistic sense of Jamaican identity and connection, aligned then to one’s position of relative power within the political system. The “Uncle Tom”-effect, you can say, or “Boasy Slave” in Jamaican parlance.

This is also critiqued in Reggae lyrics, such as the patriotic, national slogan, Jamaica had a while: Out Of Many One, in e.g. Mutabaruka’s lyrics. This slogan was copied from the US, but ill-fitted the Jamaican situation, where over 80% of Jamaica is mainly of African descent, so the other of the “many” get a privileged status, it seems. Indeed, minorities like the Chinese, Lebanese, Europeans, and to a lesser degree East Indians, are up to the present economically disproportionately powerful and wealthy within Jamaica.

Reggae lyrics by Rastas, therefore, when dealing with Jamaica include this critique and – one can say – alienation, and dreaming of Africa and Zion. This tragedy at the very least renders great musical art: as James Brown once said “soul” is the word “can’t”.. and Reggae Got Soul, as songs by Toots & the Maytals and later Fantan Mojah are titled.

CULTURE

“Celebrating Jamaicanness” – the other extreme - is found less in Roots Reggae lyrics, but is not absent, even vowing “never to leave it” songs by Eric Donaldson, Admiral Bailey, a.o.). Yet, even among Rastas, as a “cultural” rather than a “political” nation, Jamaica is appreciated: music, food, daily customs, family and friends, specific drinks, parties, specific towns/areas, natural landscapes, but also Jamaica as birthplace of cultural movements with global impact (Garvey, Rastafari, Reggae, a.o.) putting small Jamaica on the map, offering some sense of pride.

Even Sizzla is quite positive about developments – or at least freedoms – within Jamaica on his song In Jamaica.

The quite recent “club hit” The Voices Of Sweet Jamaica at the celebration of 50 years independence of Jamaica from British rule, in 2012, also celebrated food, natural beauty, and culture.

Chronixx has a nice, nuanced vision on Jamaica in Smile Jamaica, as some other Reggae artistes too (like Tarrus Riley, Etana, Jah Cure, a.o.), including mostly the historical existential unease.

Most of the more “conscious” Reggae lyrics (old and new) tend to emphasize the social problems within Jamaica, at most praising cultural resilience. Jamaica equates an involuntary lot or burden to overcome. It appears as such in lyrics of songs by Morgan Heritage, and earlier Culture, Peter Tosh, Hugh Mundell, Junior Delgado, Twinkle Brothers, Bob Andy, or even Bob Marley, the most internationally well-known Jamaican. This accentuates the problematic, conflictive relation, calling for wanting to go “home” (Africa)..

LATIN AMERICA

It also shows, on the positive side, the relative lack of censorship and free speech in Jamaica, and lacking social pressures, compared to other places in the Americas, where Africans ended up, and have less channels to express grievances, than in Jamaica. These grievances and inequalities are certainly there in places like Cuba, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and Brazil, where – as also documentaries by Henry Louis Gosset jr. (Blacks in Latin America) showed - , Blacks/African descendants remained on the lower rungs of society, among the poorest.

In dictatorships like Cuba, this even caused some censorship problems and persecution problems of Afro-Cuban artists with direct criticism in the lyrics on the regime or inequality. Some artists in Latin America, like Cuban rappers, resorted therefore to more covert lyrics and “code words”, to express grievances, when questioning that myth of “racial, mixed democracy”. This also applies in Brazil, being the country outside of Africa with most people of African descent, but presenting the world a “mixed, equal” image, to hide actual race-based poverty and discrimination (also in e.g. police killings disproportionately of Afro-Brazilians in Rio de Janeiro).

GOOD AND BAD

Natural beauty in parts of Jamaica – certainly present – is also mentioned in both Reggae lyrics and earlier by Marcus Garvey in his writings on his growing up in rural St Ann. When I visited, I personally also liked the lush, tropical landscapes of parishes of Jamaica, like St Ann (where Marcus Garvey and Bob Marley were born) – more hilly -, and St Thomas – more mountainous – in Eastern Jamaica. I saw beautiful landscapes there.

Crucially, local living or “culture” is celebrated in such Reggae lyrics positive about Jamaica, more than nationalism. Nationalism, like patriotism – as the –“ism” ending suggests – serves often “politics and (economic) power” goals from élites, and thus top-down. It might influence those lower in the hierarchy, but remains partly artificial.

Culture is by contrast from the bottom-up, as folk culture is what you get when common people are left alone, to their own devices.

You don’t celebrate adversity, but how you “overcame” it, simply said.

Tellingly, the artist Ijahman Levi called Jamaica his “culture country”, where Marcus Garvey was from.

Burning Spear has a song “Land Of My Birth” (“I love you..”), and on his latest album a song called Jamaica (praising its culture), whereas Island In The Sun (rhyming with “fun”), appears in lyrics by group Israel Vibration, and others, quasi-positively, while also some places in Jamaica are described with some mild affection, such as Kingston, Montego Bay (a song by Queen Ifrica), Spanish Town (by Chronixx), or Negril, an affection mostly shaped because of friends or family there.

The mostly Rootical/Rasta group the Itals also have a nice, jolly song about Jamaican style of living and dances.

ALIENATION

The many good Reggae songs, also about this theme of alienation or connection with regard to the nation Jamaica, furthermore go interestingly against the Nazi-doctrine of “Entartete kunst” ..

When the Nazi’s took power in Germany in the 1930s, and turned it into a fascist and racist (Germanic supremacy) dictatorship, it entailed censorship of certain art forms, not fitting the national-socialist party line of Germanic superiority, and being too foreign, non-German, racially impure (made by Jews), or “entartet”, which is the German word for “degenerated”. This art thus deemed was condemned openly then banned, by that regime.

What Reggae – and other music and art in the African Diaspora - proves is in fact the contrary: art being valuable as precisely an expression of alienation and being deracinated, therefore all the more soulful and powerful.

More so than just confirming conservative cultural norms in closed communities, with lack of creativity and innovation, remaining safely on the well-trodden paths, to please the authorities. This occurs when people have not been displaced by outside forces, and remained in the same land as their ancestors, practically since years BC, only with some admixtures. Stagnation sets in those cases inevitably in. More travelling and persecuted groups like Jews or Gypsies had to be more creative with their art, yet those were precisely seen as “undesirables” in Nazi Germany.

To a degree, also more historically “mixed” Mediterranean nations (also culturally) like Spain (with a Moorish past), France, or Italy have this less than dominantly, more mono-ethnic Germanic or Slavic countries elsewhere in Europe, giving some more space for creative artistic periods in Southern Europe. Yet, also Vienna in Austria at the time of Mozart, was more multicultural than the rest of Austria, while also Amsterdam and Antwerp (and London) had long an international, “tolerant” image, enabling innovations, though at first mostly economically motivated, it increased variety and openness.

Jamaica was a British colony, and inherited more the Germanic/Northern European sense of “racial purity” and racial connection to a specific land, that the Spanish colonizers had less.

From the start, as even racist, ruthless colonizing conquerors following Columbus to the Americas, like Pizarro and Cortés, soon accepted racial mixture between Spaniards and present Amerindians, even allowing on occasion the mixed offspring some of the inherited power and material inheritance.

In British colonies, and the US, racial purity, segregation, and strict inequality was however more the norm, whereas societies like Cuba, Brazil, and others boasted earlier a “mixed” identity.

This more “mixed identity” in Latin America, proved on the other hand often however hypocritical in light of actual racial inequalities, - as already mentioned -, that persisted in places like Cuba and Brazil, where people of African descent, especially when darker-skinned, remain among the poorest of all groups, and descendants of Europeans among the most powerful and wealthiest. Up to this day: even the in name progressive and anti-racist Communist Party of Cuba, is mostly disproportionately “lilly-white”, or at least Spanish-looking, in its higher echelons.

Similarly, in Brazil, only very light Mulatto might obtain some political power, further the domain of also “lilly white” (European-descended) people, with only in sports and music (Pele, for instance) some status for Afro-Brazilians, similar to the situation in the US, for that matter.

NATIONALISM

US comedian Roy Wood jr. had an entertaining bit about the “conflicted relations” of African Americans with the US, inhibiting them from writing truly “patriotic” songs about the joy of being from the US, - as some White US artists did -, but instead created the lamenting Blues.

This more or less applies to Jamaica as well, and to elsewhere in the African Diaspora, especially in light of persisting racial inequalities, also in e.g. Colombia. The national projects simply went from colonial to postcolonial projects, any popular input in achieving or fighting for independence soon sidelined. Nationalism became an élite thing in the Americas, much more than in Europe.

Many borders in Europe developed historically in a rather haphazard manner (or through royal interests), hardly ever conscious political projects, though a shared ethnic base and history procured a sensed affiliation, even with political leaders. Italian unification – led by Garibaldi – seemed a project, but covered uncomfortably many regional identities within current Italy, and to a lesser degree also German unification.

Still, a sense of being where one historically belongs is present among most European nationals (and in Asia and Africa), resulting in stability and self-assurance, as well as arrogance.

My personal prediction in Late 2020: that the whole Covid virus ordeal or “scam” (according to opposers of it) impacting societies and limiting usual freedoms globally, but especially in Western countries, starting around March 2020.. this would (I predicted) increase nationalistic tendencies, rather than global rebellion. It is not my genius, but rather my knowledge of history that made me predict this well.

While political leaders in Italy, France, Germany, or elsewhere - both on the Left as on the Right – pay lip service to “patriotism”, their alignment with global élites is also evident, mostly for power and economic reasons.

Some right-wing popular movements or political leaders contest this with sometimes even xenophobic nationalism, and simplistic and generalizing “anti-migration” stances. Not positive, but showing that the “national belonging” is sensed and ancestral, with “outsiders” becoming intruders. Outweighing – harshly – global inequality or shared injustices.

This never developed as such in the Americas, only a bit more in more racially mixed societies like Brazil, Cuba, Colombia, or the Dominican Republic, where nation or a vague “Latino” identity becomes a substitute for uncertainty of identity, almost by necessity. This is not without creativity, and even understandable, but the “depth” of the connection with the nation should not be exaggerated.

I have met Cubans and Colombians of mixed race, knowing more or less of a Spanish ancestor, a Chinese one, and African one, and even where from in China, Spain, or Africa. I met a quite dark-skinned Cuban woman once in Cuba – adhering to Yoruba Santería btw –, who asked me if I have ever been to Asturias, as I was half-Spanish. I answered that my mother was more from the Southwest of Spain (close to Córdoba), and Asturias was rather in the North of Spain, having only visited it once. Apparently one of her ancestors came from there. She was mostly of African descent, though, so mixtures differ.

Anyway, the focus remained in the cases of people with mixed ancestry worldly and international, which in itself helps to keep an open mind, and makes identity less “strict”. Yet also more insecure.

FRICTIONS

While the result of a largely tragic history of inequality and exploitation, this “looser” national identity in the Americas is not without its merits. It avoids “redneck”-like small-mindedness and xenophobia, that even hides behind the “subtle” racism now common in Western Europe, or more open variants of xenophobia in parts of Eastern and Southern Europe.

The cultural friction with the also proud Islamic adherents - present among migrants - caused increased tensions and misunderstandings, as both in England as in the Netherlands – for instance – anti-migration parties – called “racist” by some, e.g. the National Front in Britain, or the Dutch Centrum Democraten, soon shifted their focus from people from the colonies of another race (but at least speaking the language and adapted in some ways), to the increased group of Muslim migrants, increasing in number.

This cultural friction is maybe lamentable, but to a degree universal, as such frictions are also found in mixed American and Caribbean societies, e.g. Guyana. There is then only no connection to "sacred" patriotism for the country, where one’s ancestors are after all not even from, but is more a matter of cultural frictions or irritations.

Reggae lyrics therefore also address the dominant influence of Chinese finance in Jamaica (Kabaka Pyramid in the song Well Done, or Vybz Kartel’s Poor People Land), partly in line with tourism promotion, sideling the local population, benefitting thus less from tourism. Kabaka Pyramid states that politicians “sell out the country” Jamaica, for their own gain.

This happens also in parts of Africa, along with neocolonialism trough the banking system (IMF), seemingly rendering repatriation to Africa as an idealistic, yet unrealistic daydream.

In a very recent song (late 2025), Kabaka Pyramid has a quite positive song about Jamaica as “sweet”, even stating as nowhere better, and its culture.

ONE’S GEOGRAPHICAL ROOTS

One - maybe - can “feel at home” in places where one’s (geographical) roots are not, especially when among one’s own people and family. The lack of a deeper connection need not to inhibit happiness.. or does it?

One may be satisfied somewhere else in the world, even a place nothing to do with their family, yet sense on occasion a lack of purpose, or “tranquility” and “security”. For that reason, most people when arriving in places where their roots lie – especially the first time – tend to sense stronger emotions than they thought, which some even describe as a combination of goose-bumps and tears. Migrants know how this feels, when returning to their native countries.

I recall from my youth that when once driving to our Spanish family for holidays - from the Netherlands where we lived -, my Spanish mother was reading or sleepy when driving through France, in the back of the car my Italian father drove, but that my mother started singing merrily when she knew we crossed the Spanish border. I found that funny – knowing how she was - , but my father mumbled something like “too proud and patriotic, always, those Spaniards”.

I had, however, similar feelings when arriving in Spain after some time, in different epochs of my life: recognizing accents, looks, names, knowing my ancestors lived there, gave me a special feeling of “calm”. I missed that growing up in the Netherlands. Afro-Americans – even mixed-raced ones - visiting for the first time Africa, have that even stronger, often with overwhelming yet satisfying emotions. There was after all a real trauma to resolve, based on slavery and forced displacement, lacking even the semi-voluntary aspect of migration.

One can be happy without that actual connection with one’s geographical roots, I imagine, yet to degrees, perhaps missing a dimension to make it perfect. On the other hand, humans have always travelled and migrated, so that is also humanity and fulfillment of another kind. Traveling, but then “back home” – or at least the promise of it , and totally by free will! - seems even more satisfying and consoling, as the Jamaican and Rastafari cases show. It helps heal the historical trauma.

Africa as home remains also in modern Roots Reggae lyrics, therefore. In some parts of Africa, the Islam is also quite dominantly present, or strict Christianity, not necessarily welcoming of a Rastafari people “influx” from the Caribbean. Luckily, some African countries, often heralded as “Zion”, and the main place of return for Rasta’s, like Ethiopia or even Ghana, have showed some tolerance for this migration, and do not know so much religious (Islamic or Christian) extremism, allowing tolerance. Ethiopia's Muslims tend to be relatively "mild" or moderate nowadays, some Ethiopian friends of mine told me.

Still: there are vested interests there, as shown in conflicts in Shashemane land in Ethiopia: a territory emperor Haile Selassie set aside for Africans in the diaspora for settlement, and a group of (Rastafari-adhering) Caribbean migrants indeed settled there. A land conflict with local Oromo people arose there, however, causing some tensions, as there were earlier with Ethiopian Communist and later governments, long (about 40 years!) even withholding Caribbean Rastafari-adherers in Shashamane recognition as national citizens, up to only about 8 years ago.

Still, repatriation as proposed within the Rastafari movement – and still in Reggae lyrics – is in theory not impossible, as the history of mankind shows, sometimes even led by leading “prodigal sons”, wishing to improve their country of origin, as a way to honor ancestors, in some way. It is by itself redemptive of the historical trauma, as I pointed out.

It is therein that I think that the “enduring wisdom” of Marcus Garvey’s “back to Africa” approach, inherited by Rastafari, lies.

IDENTITY

Elsewhere in the African Diaspora, - notably the US - fake, somewhat forced “identity politics” (rigid yet simplistic black-white distinction) has taken this place, with a less clear, often inherently contradictory direction. In Latin America however, African cultural and racial presence is as indicated more often “drowned” in a carnivalesque mix, which may seem pleasant or realistic, but is inherently infantilizing and patronizing as well, especially in less-democratic contexts. The goals seems all too clear to “depoliticize”, and defuse any rebellion.

On the plus side: the latter openness to local mixture makes all rigid, ancestral “national identity” relative and malleable, thereby allowing an open mind and flexibility, and avoiding parochial mindsets, rigid xenophobia or racial thinking, all too common elsewhere. This openness contributed to rich, and fascinating cultures in places like Brazil, Cuba, and elsewhere, including recognizable African retentions.

On the down side: one is more dependent on higher-placed others in a set location and on shaped conditions of inequality and poverty, for lacking another place of one’s own where one actually belongs, and the protection and consolation this provides. This is undeniably an existential need, that is then ignored and denied.

Interestingly, much Reggae expresses Rastafari views (repatriation, Afrocentricity, spirituality), along with serving as the “true, popular newspaper” of local conditions and problems, rather than the mainstream news in most countries, driven eventually by élite, upper-class interests, hidden or not.

Reggae lyrics seem to encompass both these spectrums (African roots and local conditions), in my opinion, even allowing a healthy “open doubting”, which makes one not only more “intellectual”, but I think also more fully human, “realer” as person. It also makes “art” – which includes music - more profound.

The latter might even have attributed to the international appeal of Reggae, since Bob Marley, who had deep lyrics about this, in simple language. Identifiable language and lyrics of a searching, spiritual individual, later found among many more Reggae artists, from Alton Ellis, to Culture, Burning Spear, Dennis Brown, Ijahman Levi, the Mighty Diamonds, Morgan Heritage, Luciano, Sizzla, Bushman, Buju Banton, and countless others. That spiritual searching can also be called “soul”.

In accord with the accordion?

To be honest, I never really had before the idea of delving myself into the world of the “accordion”, the musical instrument. Sure, some musical instruments I did study – and wrote about on this blog -, but these were more in my fields of interest, related to either my musical tastes , or my cultural background. They were “cool” for me, so to speak. The accordion apparently was not in that “world of the cool”, according to my personal taste, of course fully subjective. Or was it?

“..not related to my musical tastes or cultural background”, I just suggested. Is that totally true?

The fact is that my father, hailing from Northern Italy, told me he used to play the accordion back in Italy as youngster, and quite well, occasionally also the harmonica. Over time, and after migrating to the Netherlands in the 1960s, he played less and less (a few times), and eventually mostly forgot it.

My own father thus played the Italian accordion, but I had not so much interest in Italian folk music, especially when younger: later a little more. I even got to like Italian classical music (Puccini, Vivaldi, Monteverdi, etc.) better than German/Austrian composers (Bach, Beethoven) – that never did it for me - because of that connection to Italian folk music. Some aspects of it I liked, after all, and several instruments, cello, violin, but definitely also the accordion are part of that. The same appreciation I obtained for e.g. some French, Celtic-based folk music, e.g. from the Auvergne (Massif central) region..

My other side, the Spanish one on my mother’s side, more in the South of Spain, had less that accordion-connection, due to its own rich musical culture of guitars, castanets, flamenco, tambourines, and more, with accordions more associated with parts of Northern Spain, I vaguely heard (Catalonia, Pyrenees, Basque country). Flamenco has no role for accordions, neither other known (Central and Southern) Spanish genres like Jota and Fandango. Not traditionally, anyway.

I became a Reggae fan since my teens, and in Jamaican or non-Jamaican Reggae music you rarely – if ever - hear an accordion, safe for “novelty”, experimental purposes, as I believe on some Dub albums.

Yet, I also got an interest in Latin American, and Afro-Latin American music, especially with good grooves, studying later the percussion patterns. As I would become a percussionist, the accordion remained an “external” realm, yet it was used in genres I liked and studied in the Caribbean, Brazil, and Colombia, combined with (to me) more appealing, percussive rhythms. Think of Merengue in the Dominican Republic, Vallenato and Cumbia in Colombia, or Forró and Lambada in Brazil. The country of which the music I fell in love with most in Spanish-speaking America, Cuba, though, Afro-Cuban music, had little or no accordion use. Therefore my connection with or interest in the accordion as instrument was hardly sustained.

Nonetheless, I got intrigued by the instrument more and more, as sometimes happens with phenomena you first somehow “coldly” acknowledge or even take for granted, but then start looking at them from a different angle.

ORIGIN

My prejudice of the accordion’s association with European folk music in France, Northern Italy, and such, was not entirely just that: prejudice. It indeed plays an important role in parts of European folk music. I only forgot Germany and Eastern Europe.

I always thought the accordion was a French invention, seeing it there in folk culture, and a MIDI sound set I worked with had as sounds Accordion, and it subdivided into French or Italian. I knew the hand violin in the European tradition was of Northern Italian origin, so the accordion could also be an Italian invention, I then started to think.

Turns out that the accordion was neither a French nor an Italian invention: it was invented in Germany (Berlin), by a Christian Buchsmann, and around 1822. The partly related (instrument type-wise; both use “free reeds”) harmonica also, but more in the Southwest of Germany, I also recently found out.

Interestingly, the deepest origins can be traced to China, where the first instruments using "free vibrating reeds" were known to appear, with a bamboo (mouth) instrument called the Sheng or Cheng, already around 5000 years ago. So, it's not solely European in origin. This principle of "free (vibrating) reeds" reached Europe around 1777, inspiring instruments there (harmonica, and a bit later the accordion). So, ultimately partly Chinese in conception, but the accordion in this form was nonetheless a German invention, and first used in the musical culture there.

For tourism promotion reasons, recently Berlin was called “the capital of cool” – with which I did not agree (not my favourite city in Europe, let’s say), but “cool” is a personal definition, so no disrespect for people who like Berlin. Anyway, that accordion’s origin in Berlin didn’t make it per se “cooler” for me. I liked the folk culture of Italy and France better than the “Germanic spirit” (in parallel with the classical music from these countries). So I had my own personal, cultural reasons, due to my more Latin than Germanic background..

It is what it is: German-invented and spread, and it can still be interesting to study the origin and trajectory of the accordion, specifically since I heard – and liked – its creative, and “groovy”, rhythmic use in some Latin American genres.

The instrument itself is – like the Belgian-invented saxophone – quite interesting, in fact. The German inventor, Buchsmann, in 1822 at first named the accordion the “handa-online”, I read, and the keys pressed on both sides (melodic and harmonic functions) can only sound when moving, pulling the flexible bellows in between. That’s the reason it became known in e.g. the Netherlands as the “trek-harmonica” (“pull-harmonica”). By using this mechanic move, with wind, pressed through the bellow into metal (free) reeds, it became in fact categorized as “wind instrument”, despite the keys/buttons on the sides. You use wind, but not your mouth for it.

Soon after 1822, in 1829, the accordion further developed and first was "updated" in Austria, where a more complex type was patented called “diatonic”, allowing chord playing. It remained still somewhat limited, as the pulled/pushed bellows only played notes of the buttoned key, whereas a later German- (some say Russian-)-invented type, around 1850 – known as chromatic accordion - had more possibilities, was larger with more buttons, and made the bellow move per each note pushed. It could then include more semi-notes. The comparison is made between the chromatic accordion playing like all keys on a piano, and the diatonic only able to play the white ones.

The simpler “diatonic” accordion was however smaller and more portable for travel, than the more complex “chromatic” one. The chromatic accordion is popular in former Yugoslavia, I understood.

I can imagine, anyway, why this instrument would be interesting or fun to play, as my father chose to do in his younger days.

From Germany and Austria, it soon spread to other European countries, France, Italy (in both places obtaining an important place in folk music), but also Eastern Europe and Russia, equally gaining an important place. Especially in (Northern) Italy the accordion became very popular, and even “claimed”. This included unfortunately by dubious figures like erstwhile dictator Mussolini, seeing it as a sign of Italian invention and industriousness, stimulating its production in e.g. Castelfidardo (Marche, E. Italy), still an epicenter today of accordion production.

Despite some dubious connections with Fascism, it remained popular, and one can say that after Germany and Austria, as explained above, Italy became the accordion’s second/third “main” homeland.

It would, however, travel globally, and especially to the Americas too.

Predictably, to the US, with e.g. much German migration, to some French colonies, but also to parts of Latin America, colonized by Iberian countries that had less that accordion tradition.

LATIN AMERICA

There it became more interesting, at least for me. When examining the reasons why the accordion came to the Dominican Republic, it also has a link with Germany: German traders coming into the Dominican Republic, around the mid-19th c., spreading the instrument. Something similar occurred on the Caribbean coasts of Colombia and Venezuela, while in Brazil there was much German and (Northern) Italian immigration, bringing the accordion to the mixed society.

Similar as in the Dominican Republic, where a culture developed from the mix of Hispanic and African elements, and some Amerindian elements, but with also some other influences. The rhythmic structures remained mostly African in local Merengue from the Dominican Republic, song structures and guitars showed Spanish influences, and some instruments Amerindian influences.

The accordion was simply fitted within this musical context (added or replacing guitars): mostly playing counter-rhythms and –melodies in the Afro-Caribbean tradition, including syncopation and polyrhythm. Both rhythmically and melodically, sometimes even more rhythmically. This meant an evolution from the accordion’s first European uses, when it rendered popular folk melodies – like the well-known Polka - with some harmony (or on mostly simple rhythms). The patterns on the accordion in Dominican Merengue (típico) in turn show rhythmic and call-and –response retentions from Africa, later translated to modern Merengue (or other instruments, like the “salsa” horn section).

The – I know: over-simplified – distinction between the continents and their folk music’s main focus: - Europe’s “big” on harmony, Asia on melody, and Africa on rhythm -, more or less applies here.

The same can be heard in a genre I recently also studied: NE Brazilian (Bahia a.a.) Forró: a mixed genre with African (drum), Amerindian, and Portuguese influences, and over time other European influences. I was inspired by this study for my own instrumental composition Xaxado Adaptado (Xaxado is a subgenre within Forró).

The accordion became thus a prominent instrument in Forró, but adapted to stronger rhythms, as happened with Merengue. Another instrument commonly used in Forró, besides the double-sided tambor (drum), and seen as European, the metal triangle, also obtained a rhythmic, percussive function within the whole. The triangle played in a “funky” way, believe it or not.

The Lambada dance becoming famous as Brazilian “dirty dance” due to the catchy world hit Lambada by Kaoma (and another catchy one: Dançando Lambada), is also on music with accordion, as influenced by Forró (and other NE Brazilian music genres).

While a commercial hit, Lambada is interesting as an example of the accordion’s global development over time, to another, Brazilian context: more rhythmical. Much earlier in the century, the accordion was in popular music in the US and Europe, associated to quite other genres, - with Slavic, Germanic , Celtic, or Latin touches (like the Waltz, Mazurka, a.o.) - though sometimes dance-oriented too, as in Eastern European traditions. People also danced to Polka.

In Colombia, the accordion gained in time a place within the Vallenato genre, in its Caribbean region. Again, German trading travelers probably introduced it, via ports. It even became used within Cumbia, like Vallenato an Afro-Colombian genre, with African, Amerindian, Spanish, and various other influences. Mostly the piano accordion (keys instead of buttons) drove the melody in Colombian Cumbia (or Cumbia in other Latin American countries, like Mexico), as the diatonic accordion does in the Vallenato genre. That same melodic – or semi-melodic – function the accordion (usually the diatonic one) got in Merengue or Brazil, usually replacing guitar types, that nonetheless played quite rhythmically.

Elsewhere in Latin America, the accordion got used in Northern Mexican music (Norteño), and the Bandoneon or “concertina” in Argentina (also for Tango) is a related instrument, developing as the accordion reached Britain by 1829.

ME, MYSELF, & I

My point in this blog post is, however, what my personal connection with the accordion is, related to my musical tastes and passions, as a Reggae fan, and also, as musician, mainly a percussionist, influenced by Afro-Cuban and African musical patterns.

And my songwriting activities. I write and record songs under different influences, and used the digital MIDI (faux, but sampled well) “accordion” sound from the keyboard on some of my songs. I made a few “Merengue”-like songs, and felt it appropriate to use this MIDI “accordion” on them, within hopefully Dominican Merengue vibes.

Likewise the few French “chansons” I once made, could, in my opinion, not do without the in my idea typical “folk French” accordion. I used it on my songs Pluie Sur Paris and my “soul cry” ‘Un Artiste’ (also featuring a Midi-samples bagpipe).

Yet, in Reggae, which I love and follow, I rarely encountered or heard sounds of the accordion. The related, more “bluesy” harmonica sometimes (several artists, incl. Bob Marley on Rebel Music), but very rarely the “hand-bellow” accordion. The related harmonica/mouth-organ I do play (the actual one, not the MIDI one), by the way.

OTHER POP

Other “pop” music artists I kind of liked or followed – outside of Reggae or Latin - had some accordion in songs I liked. Some examples: Paul Simon’s Boy In The Bubble, within an interesting South African musical mélange, and Tom Waits on the nice song Innocent When You Dream. On both these songs the accordion added to the nice, overall feel, in the way that it’s played.

I like some of the albums of the unique “cabaret” blues/folk-like music of Tom Waits, as some work of Paul Simon. Partly because of their creative use of instruments and genres (and “lyrics”).

While Tom Waits uses the accordion on some of his songs – and fit the folksy vibe on more songs -, and also has one of his album cover with an accordion, Waits is also know to have said: “A gentleman is someone who can play the accordion, but doesn’t “. The same cryptic yet intriguing message as in much of his lyrics, and seemingly a “diss”, a critique of the accordion. Or not? Irony? Who knows, haha.

IN CONCLUSION

My bond with the “accordion” is less insignificant than I care to admit. I used, after all a MIDI sound imitating the (French) accordion on some of the songs I released, such as the Merengue-influenced Soy El Chévere, a Forró instrumental, as I mentioned, and even more melodically on my French-language “chansons”, that I also mentioned earlier. Not the real thing, as I don’t even own an actual accordion, but still.

I go jamming sometimes in clubs in Amsterdam with my percussion, and sometimes someone plays an accordion there nicely (on e.g. Jazz or Blues). Indeed, the accordion has found a place in Jazz, by the way. The owner of the oldest Blues club in Amsterdam, Maloe Melo, plays the accordion.

Other main influences on my musical tastes - and consequently my main musical activities (songwriter, percussionist) - are often (poly)rhythmic and from sub-Saharan Africa, Reggae/Jamaica, and Afro-Cuba, and a bit also from(southern) Spain and its Flamenco culture, where my maternal family hails from. All these “regions” and cultures have very little of an “accordion” tradition, yet shaped me.

Spain is as said hardly in the “heartland” of the accordion within Europe. This “heartland” must be placed in Central Europe: Germany, Austria, Northern Italy, most of France, and parts of Eastern Europe, including Russia, (up to the Balkan), with some outliers (under German, Austrian, French, or Italian influence, or through travelers).

The accordion obtained a place in northern parts of Spain (Catalonia, Pyrenees, and Basque music), even in folk music, but not much beyond it. In the Basque country, the Accordion is called locally Trikiti – or Trikitixa (meaning “small” accordion) -, and came there probably through Italians in the port of Bilbao or through Alpine Italian migrants or workers. Not via neighboring France (as more to the East and in Catalonia), as one would assume. It adapted either way to Basque folk genres.

Later, some Basque younger artists used it more creatively and experimentally, mixing traditional Basque music with modern influences. Probably the best known accordion/trikitixa player in Spain, Kepa Junkera, from Bilbao, is such a “composing” artist.

Elsewhere in Iberia or Spain, I heard it less in folk music. The “own invention” of Spain itself (albeit with some Persian-Moorish antecedents), the acoustic guitar, is there heard much more, and is also associated strongly of course with Flamenco. Like the accordion, the Spanish guitar spread widely globally of course, also outside Europe: perhaps even more so than the accordion.. In Spanish colonies like Cuba that guitar has a predictable historical presence, but pretty soon also in Jamaica, the US, parts of Africa, Asia, etcetera. The accordion – in turn - more in other parts of the world, related to different national (German, French, Italian), colonial or historical influences, or migrations.

I may – safe some interest and experiments – overall not be an accordion “buff” or “fanatic”, but still find it interesting to learn how a 1820s-invented German, bellowed wind instrument like the accordion, got to spread so widely, to be ultimately used in and adapted to different musical idioms, even in exotic cultures, and in groovy, rhythmic ways.

Afro-Venezuelan music: a preliminary study

The African Diaspora as a result of a tragic centuries-long history of colonialism, slavery, exploitation, and discrimination is a significant historical fact for several reasons. Knowledge about it is in my opinion crucial to understand the present world. Economically, it is less known than it should be that slavery and colonial gains in the British colonial empire - including the Caribbean - in fact helped finance the first Industrial Revolution in Britain, since the mid-18th c., and spreading to wider Europe. Birmingham, UK, thus became for instance the world’s very first “industrial city”.

That industrial revolution spread since the later 18th c. to continental Europe, but sooner to some places than to others: Belgium, Germany, France, Netherlands, northern Italy, for a large part industrialized..

It reached on the other hand some other main colonial powers, Spain and Portugal, much later and less. Even today, as a country, Spain is much less and limitedly industrialized than e.g. Britain or Germany. Some “pockets” of industrialization in Catalonia, Basque country, or Madrid aside, Spain remained since then economically behind other European nations. The same applies to Portugal, with industrialization mainly limited to main cities Lisbon and Porto.

COLONIAL EMPIRES

Yet, Spain (and Portugal) had of course once vast colonial empires as well, or as bad, as Britain and France, with similar brutal exploitation and slavery in what is now Latin America. The “blood money” gained at the cost of enslaved Africans, was – historians explain – spent only less efficiently in both Portugal and Spain, mostly on luxuries, or expanding the wealth of already wealthy families, with less wider economic investments.

Portugal was the first European country enslaving Africans on a larger scale, though there were precursors by Arabs, serving as a kind of model. Even during the Moorish (Islamic) period in Spain and Portugal (8th c.-15th c.) – known as a relatively enlightened period – sub-Saharan Africans in Iberia were often the slaves or servants of lighter-skinned Arabs or Berbers (or Iberians converted to Islam).

The “discovery” of Christopher Columbus (at the time a Portuguese citizen, of Genoese origin) in 1492, of American lands in the name of the Kingdom of Spain – that in turn claimed them - started Spain’s colonialism, and in fact broader Europe’s.

IBERIAN COLONIES

Like Britain, Spain thus has a long colonial past, with much African enslavement, thus helping to shape cynically this African Diaspora.

A difference of Iberian slavery systems with British (and Dutch) slavery systems, was the less modernized, or efficient, “industrial” nature of them: less specialized. While still inherently dehumanizing, Iberian slave systems were said to be also a bit less "harsh" (with a few more protective "rights" for slaves) when compared to stricter British or Dutch slavery systems. Nonetheless, enslaved Africans were also forcibly brought throughout the whole of Latin America, to most Spanish colonies. Often this was to “societies with slavery”, rather than to specialized “plantation slavery societies” as e.g. colonies like Jamaica, Haiti, St Vincent, or Barbados, where the majority population even became enslaved Africans.

Even then, people of African descent can be found throughout Latin America, in quite significant numbers, even if minorities. US scholar Henry Louis Gates, jr. made a series of interesting documentaries about Black in Latin America, highlighting this, and often persisting discrimination and inequality, even in nominally “multiracial” or “mixed” societies like Brazil, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, or Peru.

MUSIC

The African Diaspora thus results from a tragic history, and includes persisting historical inequalities in several Latin American countries. On the positive side there is survival, also culturally.

Many Black music genres have become internationally spread and known by now, both as a result of Anglo-Saxon slavery: from the US: Blues, Jazz, Gospel and off-shoots Soul, Funk, etc. Then, from the British Caribbean e.g. Reggae, Calypso.

Yet also, “Afro-Latin” music genres also became quite international and influential. Large, former Portuguese colony Brazil is known as the country with most people of African descent outside of the African continent, and gave the world Samba, derived Bossa Nova (largely mixing elements of Samba and Jazz), and some other genres, while Cuba – one of the Spanish colonies with most people of African descent – is musically the roots of most of what we know as Salsa, while also Afro-Cuban Rumba and Son have become quite well-known internationally by now.

Outside of Cuba, also Merengue and Bachata from the Dominican Republic (with evident African retentions and roots) became internationally known, and also Afro-Colombian Cumbia has spread by now well beyond Colombia(ns) as well.

I know all this, and often listened to these music genres my whole life, and even play now this music myself as a musician and composer, occasionally. As for other fans and lovers of Black music or “African Diaspora music”, the music helped shape my life in a beautiful way, as beautiful culture and music, albeit resulting from a tragic past.

Blues and Jazz certainly gained fans of all races, also in Europe, the same applies to Hip-hop, Funk, and Reggae. For the latter, the international fame of Bob Marley, helped spread the genre of Reggae.

Afro-Latin music remained – due to the language barrier – a bit more restricted to Spanish and Portuguese speakers (though there are many Salsa fans outside it too, of course), but widely spread across countries. Salsa and related Cuban music has had a strong influence throughout Latin America.

What we know as ‘Salsa’ music is in fact for at least 70% Afro-Cuban music (Son-based, Rumba-influenced), with Afro-Puerto Rican and Afro-Dominican elements, added among Latino migrants in the US (first the New York area).

Still, you have quite substantial “Salsa scenes” throughout non-Iberian Europe and the US and Canada as well, whereas artists like the Buena Vista Social Club or Juan Luis Guerra helped spread Spanish Caribbean music genres like Son or Merengue, outside of just the “Latin music scenes” .

There were a few international Samba, Bossa Nova, or Cumbia (La Colegiala, notably) hits in the international “mainstream”.

VENEZUELA?

This made me wonder, though.. what about Venezuela? We don’t hear much about Venezuelan music genres in Europe, or even the “Latin” world.

This applied to me personally as well. More focused on Afro-Cuban music, I still knew quite something about Afro-Dominican, Afro-Brazilian and Afro-Colombian music as well, albeit broadly. What I knew, I tried to use – e.g. rhythmically - in several of my compositions and live patterns, fused at times with other influences.

The term “Joropo” - for presumably the best known Venezuelan genre - was on the other hand, until recently, unknown to me. I read something about Gaita music in Venezuela in a book about world music, but somehow I changed my attention to other music genres, in other countries.

My mother – who had several Latin American friends – had an album – a long-play vinyl disk - of Billo’s Caracas Boys. I liked to play this album – some groovy rhythms and dynamic singing – and assumed at that time that it represented “Caracas” (capital of Venezuela) music. Later (when I learned about the musical Cuban influences in Latin America), I found out that the Billo (lead singer) in question – real name: Luis Frómeta - was actually from the Dominican Republic, influenced by Cuban genres, but also by Merengue from his native Dominican Republic. He just was more or less “stuck” in Caracas, Venezuela. Literally, as he could not return to the Dominican Republic because dictator Trujillo banned him.. for changing the band name from Santo Domingo Jazz Band to Billo’s Caracas Boys. Trujillo saw this as an insult and prohibited Billo from returning to the Dominican Republic.. Strange but true story, and a weird dictator: exiled because of a band name change..

Billo’s Caracas Boys made good, danceable music, with certainly talent there, but the Billo’s songs I heard were hardly representative of Venezuelan indigenous, own music, as it represented more Cuban, Dominican, and some Colombian (Cumbia) influences, in a Caracas context.

I began to think about this more also, because I know some Venezuelan musicians in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, where I live. I even played with them as musician, and they at times infused the jam sessions with “Afro-Latin” sounding music (Salsa, Cumbia, Samba, or otherwise).

I noticed the Cuban influences in what they played, but also Colombian ones. Somewhat simplistically I imagined that Venezuela, as bordering Colombia, might have music genres that resemble some Colombian ones. Upon asking Miguel Padrón, a Venezuelan percussionist I know, also active in Amsterdam, he responded with something insightful.

Miguel explained how there is quite a rich musical history in Venezuela itself, with interesting genres, also with African influences, and from a percussion perspective (we shared that percussion passion), with different drums, etc. It was, he pointed out, only less known internationally, because Venezuelans tended to “travel” or “migrate” less in recent history. There was simply less need to, because of the “oil”, the petroleum industry, simply said, and a resulting more profitable economy. Probably unequally distributed and ending up mostly in privileged pockets, but still making the economy in general relatively stronger, than e.g. the ones of Colombia, or the Dominican Republic. Less Venezuelans needed then to migrate abroad, to e.g. the US, and therefore neither could spread their culture and music. An interesting explanation.

Indeed, Venezuelan music genres like Joropo or Gaita, are even by their very names, not very much known, outside - or even within - the “Latin music scene”. As said: because Venezuelans up to recently, migrated less.

Less known, but – of course! – not per se less interesting. I will therefore focus on this own traditional and popular Venezuelan music, especially with African influences, in the remainder of this post.

The differences with music from also former Spanish colonies nearby (Afro-Colombian, or Afro-Cuban music) is interesting as part of that analysis, I think.

FACTS AND FIGURES

First some facts and figures, as needed context. Though perhaps not in quite the high numbers as neighboring Colombia or Cuba, also Venezuela received an influx of enslaved Africans, mostly for cocoa and coffee plantations as in surrounding areas. These concentrated a bit in certain parts of Venezuela, like the Miranda state in the coastal North of Venezuela (around Caracas city), and around the Maracaibo lake, in Western Venezuela. Some went to inland (Llanos area) indigo plantations.

Wikipedia says that Africans came from different parts of Africa (as in other colonies) and numbered a total of about 100.000 brought to Venezuela (in comparison: to Cuba a total of over 700.000 enslaved Africans were transported over time).

Venezuela has today around 30 million inhabitants. Of these around 9% claim significant African heritage (some say somewhat more), while over 65% of Venezuelans are considered Mestizo (mixed Spanish/Amerindian), and about 20% White/European.

Still, so while around 9% of all Venezuelans – that would be close to 3 million persons - claim main African heritage, the country’s population (as in surrounding areas) is overall very racially mixed: many combine even European, Amerindian, and African ancestry, so precise figures are difficult to ascertain.

The cultural and musical influence is certainly there, however.

JOROPO

I mentioned the funny word “Joropo” a few times now. It is the name of a genre from Venezuela’s interior central Llanos (high plains) region, characterized by semi-dry tropical grassland, and comparable to Savanna landscapes elsewhere. That’s where Joropo the music and dance genre originated, apparently among people with a “cowboy”-type of living, mostly of Mestizo descent (mixed European and indigenous), but also with some Africans in the mixture. Joropo is string-instrument dominated, with the small guitar called “cuatro” often leading, including further at times a bass, mandolin-likes “bandolas” a harp, but also maracas (shakers) and sometimes a drum or cajon.

The Joropo, known even as “national music of Venezuela, is rhythmically loosely based on Spanish examples, such as the Fandango, while also South Spanish/Flamenco-like influences are noticeable in the melismatic singing.

On the other hand, the rhythmic and shaker-instrument flow – and the ways the string-instruments are played – rhythmically – allow polyrhythm, showing all in all Amerindian as well as African influences.

MARACAIBO LAKE REGION

The Gaita music from the western Maracaibo lake region, the state Zulia – therefore it is also known as Gaita Zuliana, – mixes likewise broadly European, indigenous, and African influences, but the balance – so to speak – tipping more to African influences than in Joropo. The small but broad double-sided Tambora drum (also found in Dominican Merengue) is for instance common in most Gaita, while also shakers and other percussion (such as a metal scraper) further add rhythmic and polyrhythmic texture. Gaita as genre relates to Christmas celebrations, and funnily a Spanish-type of rubbing drum (like the Cuica: with a stick attached to the skin being pulled) is also used in it. Venezuelan musicologists recognize African musical and spiritual retentions from the Ashanti (from Ghana) in this region, but also from Dahomey (the Benin region).

More purely African musical genres are found in the Maracaibo lake region in western Venezuela as well, especially South of the lake and city of Maracaibo. These include the 'Chimbánguele' genre, with mostly drums and African-style call-and-response vocals. The drums are interesting. Most used are about 7 drums called Cumaco or Mina drums. The models were probably from the Mina people, from what is now Benin (Fon Ewe speaking peoples), explaining why similar drum types and musical characteristics are found in Haiti, and, well, Benin. They are played mostly with stick and one hand, also found in the Benin region. Less common in Yorubaland (East of Dahomey, now Nigeria), and descended Afro-Cuban musical forms (there more played by hands).. An interesting difference: more sticks are used in the drumming in Afro-Venezuelan than in Afro-Cuban or Afro-Brazilian music.

MIRANDA STATE (AND AROUND)

I say broadly ‘Afro-Venezuelan’, because other Afro-Venezuelan genres I have not mentioned yet use sticks too for drumming, such as those found in the central-coastal Barlovento region in Miranda state: with relatively many people of African descent. A region not far from the capital Caracas.

Tall, quite thin, cylindrical drums, with slight similarities to the conic Ashiko drums, but thinner and taller, are known as “culo e’ puya”, and are found in this Barlovento region. Similar tall, but with small diameter of skin, drums, are found among Jamaican Maroons.. Also broader and shorter Tambora-like drums are found in genres in Barlovento as Fulia. While some differences in drum types with the western Maracaibo region (and similarities), they are often similarly played with stick and one hand.

Some more pure Congo-influenced styles in the state of Miranda and bordering coastal states like Carabobo (a funny state name, probably to some Spanish-speakers) in Venezuela use more hand drumming, such as the Sangueo: this includes hand drumming on the skin of a larger drum one sits on, with sticks hitting the side (similar to also Congo-influenced Kumina in Jamaica).

The enslaved Africans brought to this coastal Barlovento region came more relatively often from Bantu-speaking regions (Congo, Angola), leaving their musical heritage, but also the stick-played cylindrical Mina/Cumaco drums are found there, and mentioned larger drums sat upon, combined with cuatro guitar, other string instruments, and shakers. These more “bass” drums are played with both bare hands. Both the rhythmic, “heartbeat-like” bass patterns, as the type of drum and playing style, show these Congo influences, also found elsewhere in the African diaspora (Kumina in Jamaica, parts of Cuba and Brazil).

These genres in the Barlovento region – often related to festivals – Parranda, and the more purely African Luango, show mainly Congo, but also some Yoruba, influences. Yet, with some drums and aspects shared with the (part) Afro-Venezuelan music in the Maracaibo region (with more Benin and Ashanti influences, musically and spiritually). Some rhythmical differences, relating to different African origins, are interesting to notice: more lower “repeated heartbeats” from central (Congo) Africa (oversimplified, of course), and the longer "semi-melodic" patterns from the Benin culture and Ghana region (again: oversimplified).

They all share recurring sub-Saharan African features like polyrhythm and call-and-response (also in singing), but with different accents and drums.

The Congo and Yoruba influences (in coastal Venezuela) are also found in other Spanish colonies (Cuba) and in Brazil, whereas the Benin influence causes similarities with the music in Haiti, and the Ashanti influence with Jamaican or Surinamese Maroon music (and a bit with Puerto Rican Bomba, or Afro-Peruvian Pacific Coast music.

Finally, the interesting genre ‘Quitiplás’ should be mentioned, also in the Barlovento/Miranda region. This is played with solely thick Bamboo sticks, and arose once when drums were banned by colonial policies, as (portable) replacements. Bamboo sticks are dropped on ground, as well as slammed together in Quitiplás, creating polyrhythm and cross-rhythm in the African tradition.

Interesting, lesser known African diaspora connections, and beautiful survivals of African heritage, or as academically known: African retentions. Even watered-down in Joropo, more African but mixed with other influences (similar to Colombian Cumbia), but in some regions with more African influences.

CONCLUSIONS

As a preliminary study – to term it academically – I did not go into all or full detail of all Afro-Venezuelan music. I restricted myself to indigenous, locally developed music genres, not “imported” ones (even if reworked in a Venezuelan way). Calypso from nearby Trinidad even reached Venezuela, I read, and I already mentioned the strong influence of Salsa, and Cuban music, on Venezuela, with Oscar D’León being Venezuela’s best known international Salsa star.

I however wanted to get an idea of the distinctiveness of Afro-Venezuelan music within the Americas, its uniqueness. At the same time study inevitable parallels with Afro-American genres elsehwhere.

I can conclude that there are unique aspects of Afro-Venezuelan music genres. This includes especially the instrumentation, with own type of drums. While some similarities with drums elsewhere in Latin America and the Caribbean, they are not “quite” the same. The most unique is the very tall/long, yet small-diametered and thin, ‘culo e’ puya drum’.

What in my judgement is most distinctive within the region, is the way most drums are played, most commonly with stick and hand: stick in one hand, and the other bare on skin. This is more common in Venezuela than elsewhere, for drums. The sticks on drum cases or sides, probably of Congo origins, can be found elsewhere (Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti, Brazil), the stick-hand playing to a lesser degree. Afro-Cuban drumming is mostly bare hands-based, as is most Afro-Brazilian, and other parts (Jamaica, Haiti), though it occurs in Afro-Surinamese music.

It (stick-hand combination) is found in parts of Africa too, so is not necessarily (or totally) an adaptation to Venezuela.

The latter is the case with the Bamboo sticks-played polyrhythmic music called Quitiplás, relating to colonial bans, and bamboo growing by then in Venezuela, while originally Asian.

The rhythmic structures, patterns, and musical pieces, are in some ways unique, yet share more similarities with other Afro-American genres. The cuatro –small guitar – can be compared to the small Tres guitar combining with percussion in some Cuban Son and Dominican and Mexican genres. Parranda, Gaita, and Joropo – as string instrument-led but with some African influences too – have unique song structures, related to Christmas or other festivities, in the Venezuelan context. More akin to music in Colombia, the Amerindian/indigenous influences, mixed in with European/Spanish and African ones, in e.g. Joropo, are nonetheless an unique mix, mixed uniquely.. you dig?, haha, in Venezuela.

The more (relatively) purely African genres like Chimbánguele, Luango, Sangueo in different regions of Venezuela (central coastal and Maracaibo regions) follow general patterns of clave-based “forest” Africa music: call-and-response (in singing), poly-rhythms (several rhythms at once, on several drums and percussion instruments), and the idea of invocation of spirits, surviving amid or behind Catholicism. These are found in the whole of Afro-America, especially in Latin America, where “forest Africa” slaves, from less-islamicized areas (Southern Nigeria, Cameroon, Congo, Angola) were more common.

The “swing” aspect in some African cultures originate more from what can be called Griot Africa, or Sahel Africa: the Guinea, Mali, and Senegambia regions, sources of slaves for British and US slavers (and to lesser degrees French, Portuguese, and Spanish). This “swing” and other “griot” characteristics of the US Blues from the Mississippi region clearly show these origins in Sahel/Mali/Guinea, Mande-speaking parts of Africa, with Islamic influences and own string instruments (like the kora), less found more to the south in forest Africa (Yorubaland, South-Benin, and South-Ghana, Congo, and elsewhere).

Musical characteristics of more purely African Afro-Venezuelan genres are therefore evidently shared with Afro-Cuban or Afro-Colombian ones, yet.. with an own twist, of course. Playing styles (more often with stick on drum skin) and patterns became unique to the genres in Venezuela.

The way Venezuelans speak the Spanish language has own accents, some more similar to Caribbean Spanish (like the Caracas region), some more to the Colombian accents. Own accents of the Spanish language also influences, of course, how sung music comes across. In Cuban Spanish there is a Congo intonation, while in Peru and around a Amerindian, Inca intonation. In Colombia – the influence of the Basque (Northern Spanish) accent – more “pronounced” - is more stronger, elsewhere of the South Spanish (Andalusian) or Canary Islands variant of Spanish (in Caribbean Spanish, for instance). In some not uninteresting way, this all also affects type of musicality.

My overall conclusion (and lesson learned) would be that Afro-Venezuelan music (and culture) stands on its own within the African Diaspora – with own creations and distinct genres - , yet with several cultural parallels with other parts of especially Spanish America, related to origins within Africa of the enslaved Africans. It remained well alive today, also in popular Venezuelan music, alongside Joropo or foreign (Latin) genres.

As already said, having "travelled" or "migrated" less - thus less internationally known than other "Afro-Latin" genres - but nice, danceable genres as well, representing in their own way beautiful examples of cultural survival and creativity, within the wider African Diaspora.

Hausa music

More active in percussion for over 10 years now - beyond privately: composing/releasing compositions and performing -, I can conclude that my own percussion style may have been influenced by different sources, related to my personal trajectory and preferences. Like with other instruments (bass, guitar, drum etc.), I after all noticed that each percussion player I know has his or her own style..

In the case of percussion, with many bigger and smaller instruments, an “own style” can apply to both choice(s) of instrument(s), as patterns/playing style for each instrument (e.g. congas or bells).

OWN STYLE

I love Reggae music, so that is an influence. Afro-Cuban music and percussion – having been several times to Cuba – another one. African traditional music also had my interest, partly as part of the wider African Diaspora approach I take to music. I always found the African retentions in Black American music genres, and in folk music in the Caribbean and Latin America, intriguing. Obvious in music of Vodou, Santeriá, or Jamaican Kumina, more subtle – in gradations - in popular or “secular” music genres as Rumba, Samba, Salsa, Cumbia, Merengue, Reggae, Calypso, Blues, etcetera.

AFRICAN DIASPORA

This African Diaspora approach made me look at Africa as a direct percussion source. Personally, I got most interest in music from Southern Nigeria – Yoruba and Igbo -, and a bit less (though not absent) for the Guinea and Senegambia regions.

Other percussionists I know specialized more in “Guinea/Senegambia”, mostly Djembe enthusiasts. I, in turn, specialized a bit more in Southern Nigeria, percussion-wise, you might say. Neither this is exclusive, and more parts of Africa I studied (notably Congo and Uganda, besides Guinea), but somehow it was easier to find information on, say, Yoruba music, and bordering areas. Patterns, playing styles, and instruments from roughly South Nigeria, all helped to find my own style. Illustratively of my particular path, I got and played an Ashiko drum (drum of Yoruba origin), before I started (about a year later) playing the better known Djembe (Mande/Guinea/Mali origin).

This influence shows not so much in instruments, but in patterns. Congas I play regularly, and are of Afro-Cuban origin, with strong Congo/African influences, but patterns for other drums can be played on them too, of course. Similarly “round” shaped, open-bottom drums can moreover be found in large parts of sub-Saharan Africa (also in e.g. Benin and Ghana).

This being said, South Nigeria’s percussive influence on me, a question imposes itself. Why specifically South Nigeria, and not other parts of Nigeria, like the North-Centre parts, where the Hausa are a large ethnic group. What about Hausa music?

It is kind of odd, since I received some Guinea influences, having had in time Djembe lessons, learning patterns from Guinea and South Mali, yet I did not really got into Hausa music directly.

HAUSA

The Hausa consist of a large ethnic group, mostly Sunni Muslims, in a.o. Northern Nigeria and Niger, speaking an own Afro-Asiatic (Chadic) language. They are however largely of African descent, according to genetic studies related to Nilotic groups (such as in South Sudan). Some geneticists assume alongside this about 45% of the DNA of Hausa from Afro-Asiatic language speakers, others assume less (estimating more Nilotic DNA), and only regionally, suggesting thus cultural over ethnic influences. Some sources state that “Hausa” refers not so much to a race or nation, but rather to a common language and culture.

Anyway, degree of racial mixture aside, the Islamic influence became strong on the Hausa, shaping – some say: “de-Africanizing” - their culture. The Hausa live in quite a wide area of Northern Nigeria, but are also important in Niger, and are substantial minorities in other countries like Ghana, Chad, Benin, or Cameroon, sometimes mixed with the also Islamic Fulani. Northern Nigeria (Kano state) and Southern Niger are either way the strongholds of Hausa culture.

With a total of about 80 million members – or Hausa language speakers- , the Hausa people, are one of the largest ethnicities of the region.

Negatively put, as described in some (South) Nigerian sources, the stronger influence of/conversion to Islam of the Hausa, limited the traditional African heritage in favour of Islamic norms and prohibitions. Positively put, you can say that Islam and Arab influences mixed uniquely with local, present African culture, into a new culture.

Culture is after all not just about heritage and authenticity – however crucial -, but also about creativity and innovation.

The truth is in fact something in between, I think. Islam limited and destroyed parts of the traditional African culture (and music), but only partly, and incorporated some of it into a new mix. The conquerers‘ religion got hierarchically the upper hand, though, as did later colonizers, the British, bringing Christianity.

IRONIES

Traditional African music in Northern Nigeria was thus more affected/conscribed (“Islamicized”) than e.g. Yoruba or Igbo music in Southern Nigeria, at least in an earlier stage. There was of course a strong British colonial and Christian influence in South Nigeria, but in a later stage in history, and more indirectly.

There are some interesting ironies here, and some “painful” ones too. The Islamic conversion since mainly the 13th c. among the Hausa, created a stronger central rule before the British came, than in the South, seemingly representing a cultural “defense”. This Hausa culture was however not fully indigenous, bearing strong influences of pre-European, but non-African Arab invaders bringing the Islam. This same Islam historically also could work on occasion against “African solidarity”, as the history of Yoruba enslavement shows.

When the (Hausa-Fulani) Jihad – Islamic conquests - spread southwards in the early decades of 19th c., many Hausa conquered non-Islamic Yoruba in SW Nigeria, enslaving them. While Britain had by then formally abolished the slave trade (some illegal trade continued), France, Spain and Portugal still needed slave workers, especially in Cuba, where plantations increased, being the reason why many Yoruba ended up in Cuba and Brazil, especially brought by Portuguese slave traders (also for Spanish colonies), but often bought from Hausa middle-men, holding Yoruba as war captives. That is the painful part, I guess.

The irony is that in present-day Nigeria, superficially the South (with big cities like Lagos and Ibadan) seems more Christianized and thus Anglicized/Westernized – in part -, while the largely Hausa North seems to have maintained an own strong (Islamic-based) culture as seeming counterweight to the colonial influence.

As shown, though, the influence of earlier external conquerors (Arabs), already diluted and limited, its indigineous Africanness.

HAUSA MUSIC

To focus on the positive: what is maintained or perhaps reworked interestingly, of the traditional culture, including musical forms, in Hausa-land? One can focus on “traditional purity”, but of course the mixing of cultural influences resulted throughout history, and on different continents, in interesting new musical genres. “Black music” in the Americas, I already mentioned (think e.g. also of Jazz), but “different cultures mixing”, one also finds in e.g. (South Spanish) Flamenco music, Italian Tarantella, Greek music, Turkish influence on Balkan (Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, Albanian) music, some genres with mixed influences in India or Madagascar, and some Ethiopian genres. Perhaps being something like the process of “taking the best of both worlds”.

Did interesting “own” musical genres arise among the Hausa, perhaps also percussively interesting for someone like me?

Besides this, folk culture has the inherent beauty of resilience against authorities, and against all odds, I love so much. The totalitarian, prohibitive aspects of organized religion (Christianity or Islam) need not wipe out or even dominate local indigenous culture, only limiting it maybe.

The also nominally Islamicized Guinea, South-Mali, Northern Ghana, Northern Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast and Senegambia (Sahel Africa), often Mande-speaking, regions, definitively have developed an own interesting culture, also regarding percussion, with the Djembe instrument as prime example, only the djembe’s goblet shape (similar to the Darbuka’s) betraying Middle Eastern influences, but further part of an African-based mixture, with Islam only an element. More “swing” besides polyrhythm, Islamic adaptations, but a same focus on rhythm, dancing, and communal story-telling, such as through travelling “griots” (folk musicians, “jeli’), as in other parts of Africa.

There is also some beauty in the creativity of culture: the popular inventiveness to create something new from what is there, without remaining “stuck” in inherited traditions. This can also be organically and collectively, especially in Africa, for cultural reasons.

INSTRUMENTS AND PATTERNS

Drums are used in Hausa culture, at times dominantly (especially the Talking Drums), but not in an extensive or very multifaceted way. Not always dominant in the sense of “central” to the musical piece, as more to the South in Africa (with combined drum rhythms). Drumming serves more to underline vocals or other instruments, and at most helps “meander” the main musical accompaniment. The hourglass-shaped ‘Kalungu’ Talking Drum is nonetheless a steady accompanier of both urban and rural music, as some other kettle drums, usually somewhat high-pitched and often played with sticks, rather than with hands, and some other percussion instruments. Playing styles tend to be “meandering”, as said, and not “staccato” or “straight” rhythms (as in Congo/South Nigeria), but more akin to Darbuka playing styles in the Middle East and North Africa.

TALKING DRUM

The Talking Drum (called "Kalungu" among the Hausa) is typically African, and in fact as common among the Yoruba in SW Nigeria, as well as elsewhere (Guinea/Mali/Senegambia and Ghana). It is found in both regions with or without Islamic/Arab influences, so is indigenous to Africa, mimicking often the tonal languages in parts of Africa (at least the Yoruba language). The Kalungu among the Hausa is relatively big: the Yoruba know bigger and smaller sizes Talking Drums, Dagomba in Ghana bigger ones, Mande-speaking peoples (Guinea a.a.) in turn smaller sizes. The difference is that the Talking Drum (known as Gangan) is among the Yoruba (and Mande-speaking people) only one of several drums with prominent roles - drowning in wider drums, you might say - and remains more dominant/audible among the Hausa.

Other instruments among the Hausa are the Goje (one-stringed fiddle), trumpets, and flutes. The Goje is somewhat similar to the Ethiopian Masenqo instrument, also one-stringed. So, apart from a Middle Eastern influence, it can be an Eastern African one too, in light of the genes from Nilotic (South) Sudanese people found in the Hausa.

Interestingly, but explainable, the “bells” seem less common – though not absent - among the Hausa, being more crucial in both Yoruba and Igbo music in South Nigeria. The same applies to shakers. On some occasions the bell types of neighbouring peoples like the Yoruba or Igbo are “borrowed”.

In more rural parts of Hausa-land, ancient spiritual traditions are kept alive, including the invoking of ancestor spirits, besides nominal Islam. Here more African aspects and even bells are used in the music. Yet, even in “mainstream” Hausa culture, such as with urban songs for the Emir, African culture remains, such as the Kalungu “talking drum”, also found among the Yoruba, and in Guinea, which has no original equivalent in the Arab world, and is thus African.

Less pitch changes or polyrhythm than more to the South, but still a focus on drumming, as with some kettle drums, also used in Hausa celebrations. Other aspects of Hausa culture, like trumpet and flute use, or the importance of horses, show other influences, so there is an own, not uninteresting cultural mix.

I find as percussionist the most interesting – and potentially educational - the importance of the Talking Drum – relatively big ones - among the Hausa -, kept underneath the arm to change the pitch, played with bent stick. I play a smaller talking drum (from another part of Nigeria), sometimes, in the same way (one hand a bowed stick, other hand hitting on skin too).

Remnants of call-and-response singing are also there in official Hausa celebrations, as elsewhere in (also non-Islamic) sub-Saharan Africa, again pointing at mixture, and cultural survival.

DANCING

About "dancing" - of course related to musical structures - and differences between the Hausa or Yoruba, Igbo or other dancing, I found less information. Characteristically African, exuberant, hip and pelvic movements among the Yoruba and Igbo confirm what many people imagine of Black African dancing, along with at times acrobatic moves, and indeed dancing is important in these cultures. There is common dancing among Hausa too, but it seems more modest/contained or "stiff", which might relate to different male-female relations, and Islamic inhibitions regarding too free female dancing, seeming sensual, even if the hip and buttocks follow the rhythms, as a way to enjoy the music in the African tradition. They are not always as "sexual" as they seem.

Nonetheless, there are some dances known as "acrobatic" among the Hausa too.

TWO THEORIES

Musically and historically the Hausa are thus interesting. Some theories I studied before (and partly discussed on this blog) seem relevant to further contextualize Hausa music.

GRIOT AND FOREST AFRICA

The distinction between “Griot (Sahel) Africa” and “forest, polyrhythm” Africa, made by Western anthropologists like Robert Farris-Thompson, is certainly relevant here. The Islamic influence shared with Guinea/Mali/Senegambia created a “swing” aspect in musical patterns, i.e. going/gliding “around” a basic beat (like guitars/strings), and not straight drum-based rhythms as in “forest Africa” (South Ghana, South Nigeria, Benin, Congo), several simultaneously, around a clave (“key”). This lack of this “key pattern”, explains also the scarcer use of bells or shakers in Hausa music. This type of “time-keeping” was simply less needed, in the meandering, Arab-influenced music, less focused on combining multiple rhythms.

Rather, Griot African music (including Hausa music) is swinging around a beat like string instruments (e.g. the Kora) do, distantly related to the vocal melisma (stretching syllables to different notes) of singing in Islam-influenced cultures (including Flamenco), or perhaps best known for the muezzin’s calls for prayer at mosques. Even the Talking Drums follow partly this meandering pattern.

Echoes of music from “polyrhythmic”, forest Africa can be found in Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Latin American genres, and echoes of “swing”, Griot/Sahel Africa in Blues and Jazz. Interestingly: that whole “shuffle” and “swing”, reached Jamaica too, via radio stations playing Black US music like Blues, R&B, Jazz), partly influencing Reggae, though mixed with local, as scholars call it, "forest Africa" (Congo, Ghana, Igbo) musical aspects and accents, adapting that shuffle input according to Jamaican norms.

This makes Reggae a representative, varied representation of the wider African Diaspora, and thus also fit for varied percussion.

ISLAMIC CONVERSION

Quite different, but also relevant, I consider the work of the Dutch scholar (of Arabic and Islamic studies at Leyden University, Netherlands) Hans Jansen, about religion. Jansen wrote a book with the somewhat provocative title Het Nut Van God (The Use, or Function, Of God), in Dutch. I read it in Dutch. It was published in 2001.

Not all in this book by Jansen I found interesting, but parts of it – when he went deeper, beyond news or topical issues – I certainly did, even making me look differently at certain things. Religion served, Jansen argues, for people in certain places or cultures to provide them what they lacked in their environment, their real world.

According to Jansen, the chaos and lawlessness in war-ridden areas where Arabs and the later Islamic converts lived (Arabia, Middle East, parts of Africa), had religion serve the function of bringing “order” and “structure” by the good example and instructions from God (Allah). By contrast Judaism and Christianity of the Old Testament (with enslaved Jews) emphasized more “justice”, and New Testament Christianity, in materialist, money-driven societies, “love” (beyond interest). With the Saul-to-Paul conversion, he also contends, the emphasis in Christianity came more on “believing” than just practice.

Islam went a bit in a different direction. Believing mentally – or being able to “read” a holy book – seemed less important than clear, practical rituals, which were easy to adopt: praying 5 times a day, fasting in a part of the year, food prescriptions.. All once present in Christianity too, but diluted in favour of more abstract “belief”. Due to Islam’s clear, easy-to-adopt rituals, partly fitting local customs (polygamy, for instance), many people converted to Islam more willingly, even convincingly, if not always deeply. Added to this, the idea of “order” and a “high – if abstract - moral norm” of Islam was welcomed in violent, chaotic environments.

All this might explain why the Hausa so readily embraced Islam, and some among them even quite fanatically. The emphasis on rituals, though, still left some space, hidden or not, for own indigenous interpretations or survivals, clear in the Guinea region, as in other parts of Africa.

In Hausa-land, also with the recent Boko Haram fanaticism, this maintained, freer “own” Africanness, seemed less clear than e.g. among the more “flexible” Guinea or Ethiopian Muslims (or Somalian Muslims, before a conservative jihad there), but is still there.

CONCLUSION

I mentioned the African (not Arab) Talking Drum in common use among Hausa, and some other African musical aspects. Sure, the Middle Eastern “mono-rhythmic” focus is there, but Africanized rhythmically with a “swing” focus, and still some call-and-response, as elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa.

It is precisely this cultural resilience of Africanness which still makes the Hausa music interesting for a percussionist like me.

Percussionists are by definition “multicultural”.. they have to be. Me too, playing African drums and percussion instruments (from different regions), Cuban drums, Brazilian shakers, Spanish castanets, the Middle Eastern Darbuka, North African Bendir frame drums, bells, Western tambourines, modern “pop” jamblocks, etc.

I thought a period that an interest in Africa – as most percussive continent –, or the African Diaspora, was inevitable – even required - for a percussion player, but I later heard about percussionists strictly playing Middle Eastern or Indian instruments. That is them: I prefer to focus on the African Diaspora and Africa, and Hausa music is an affected, yet enigmatic and interesting part of it..

Historically, the Hausa were (relatively) less affected by the European slave trade, especially when compared to the Yoruba and Igbo in South Nigeria (or the Coromantee in Ghana, Ewe in Benin, and Congo peoples). The beauty of resilience of Yoruba cultural retentions in the Americas shows in Yoruba-derived instruments in Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazilian music, from there internationalizing: the Shékere (common in both Brazil and Cuba), and its modernized version invented in Brazil, the Cabasa shaker. The Ganza shaker, the Agogo double bell, the double-sided Bata drums survived in the Afro-Cuban (largely Yoruba-based) Santería faith, etcetera etcetera.

Congo music influenced Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazilian music (with clear echoes in Samba, Salsa and Son), and even influenced Reggae music from Jamaica, alongside Ghanaian influences. Congo drums even influenced the Afro-Cuban “inventions” of the by now well-known drum types the Conga and Bongó. Igbo ended up in Jamaica, Barbados, and parts of the US too.

Escaping (more) enslavement by Europeans can partly be explained by the inland, non-coastal location of Hausa-land, but also the Arab enslavement – likewise affecting millions of Africans – affected Hausa a bit less, probably due to their early conversion to Islam. In Islam, Muslims were formally not allowed to enslave other Muslims.

The book about ‘The Use (or Function) Of God’ by Hans Jansen I mentioned, thus also sheds light on this: how “modern times” and expansion and conquest through military means of both European Christianity and Arab Islamic expansion – and the inherent hypocrisy of exploitation, under the guise of “holy faiths” – apparently needed an organized religion to make sense of this, to structure this.

Within and despite this, “free” indigenous, original (“African”) culture and music still survived, also among the Hausa. Again: the beauty of cultural resilience, against all odds.

Also, the nice creativity of combining sources into “new art”, in this case Arab/Middle Eastern and African influences. The prominent drums, call-and-response of Africa, but the monorhythmic meandering of Arab music, yet “swung” in an African way.

Not uninteresting, but I always felt more attracted to polyrhythm of other parts of Africa: South Nigeria, but also the Congo region. Rhythms responding to each other, and intertwining. Evident in Yoruba, Igbo, and Congo music, more subtly in Afro-American genres like Reggae, Calypso, Samba, Merengue, or Salsa.

This does not mean that I love only that, as I see interesting aspects in most of authentic folk music, even if not very rhythmical, only less.

The continuous and fluid, meandering/swinging, talking drum-led drumming among the Hausa I find somewhat appealing, also as a change from my usual approach (clave, dialoguing and intertwining separate drum patterns), as well as the “intense” singing over it, fitting it due to its “melisma” (“trembling”) influences.

Perhaps this appeal increases into "inspiration" one day, who knows..