Europe underdeveloped Africa

In an earlier post from 2016, I already discussed a work by Guyanese scholar Walter Rodney, notably his The Groundings With My Brothers (1969). In this book he combined a Black Power and a Marxist perspective, and drew connections with the also rebellious Rastafari movement in Jamaica. He worked in Jamaica at the UWI (University of the West Indies), but came in conflict with Jamaican authorities.

I chose in that post to highlight what he wrote about the African continent and its culture, because I could connect that to other works about music and culture I read, in line with my activities as percussion player. My focus was cultural. True, more joyous a theme, than usually politics or economics: culture we “want”, economy we “must”, I always say.. Though I notice “political animals” among humans exist, who actually enjoy political games and their study and analysis: I am not one of those. Still I think it’s good to study such “cold” themes (colonialism, politics, economics), to understand the current world I live in too.

The best-known work of Walter Rodney has indeed a more political-economical theme, which he wrote a few years later than Groundings With My Brothers, when living in Africa, working as scholar in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania (the scholar and Black Power activist Rodney had an eventful life, eventually returning to Guyana, where he was murdered by state forces in 1980): this book was ‘How Europe Underdeveloped Africa’, first published in 1972, and I recently could read it. You guessed it: this post is more or less my review and opinion about it.

First and foremost, I conclude that How Europe Underdeveloped Africa was a “good read” (I like Rodney’s clear, attractive, at the same time somewhat humorous writing style), and to take it a step further, also a “necessary read”, a “must read”. The latter for myself, but broader for all people claiming to be Black Power - or Rastafari- adherents. Broader still, for all – what in French are called “tiersmondistes” (“Third World-ists”): mostly Left-wing, multicultural-minded Europeans with a postcolonial guilt complex, but mostly well-intending. I even argue that this book is recommendable for all people (irrespective of ideological leanings) to learn about colonial history and Africa – and therefore the world - , even though in my bitter experience closed minds (even if proved mistaken) are not easily opened, and hard hearts not easily softened..

In my personal past (also professionally), I have already studied colonial and slavery history, so not all was new to me, but professionally I was focused on the Americas, less on colonial developments in Africa. Walter Rodney’s book is precisely about that. The title, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, is rather summarizing or self-explanatory, and indeed “to the point”.

MARXIST

It is good to point out that Walter Rodney had/has a certain Marxist perspective, and definitely anti-capitalist. His focus is – at the same time – on modernization and progress. He sees state socialism as preferred direction, differing in that from anarchists, as well as from more “return to nature” and self-sufficiency answers of other anti-capitalists. Most Rastafari (though there are internal differences) tend to be the latter type of anti-capitalists, arguing that “isms” and “schisms” (capitalism, socialism, whatever) are Western, or: "Babylonian", schemes, systems to dehumanize people, in a totalitarian manner.

History has – in hindsight – proven the Rastafari movement more right than Rodney’s (albeit relatively open-minded) Marxist ideas. Capitalism is exploitation – very simply put – by capital- and means-owners, resulting in lacking freedom and dependency of the majority of the working populations. The Communist regimes that arose, however, such as the former USSR, the Eastern Bloc, now still China, Vietnam, North Korea, and Cuba, are not known as “free societies” for their populations, and not just in biased Western (“capitalist”) propaganda. Personally, I have most experience in Cuba under Fidel Castro. I have visited it several times, befriended Cubans, and speak Spanish.

Besides personal experiences some might have, also what we hear through media about Chinese repressive totalitarian policies restricting and controlling people, the treatment of minorities in China, repression in Tibet, etcetera, may put doubt in heads of even the staunchest (neo)Marxist or Communist apologist, about whether what’s called “real existing communism” actually is a success “for the people”. Older Eastern Europeans I spoke to (i.e. old enough to remember Communism before 1990) were neither positive about the restrictive Communist societies, even those with more or less socialist anti-capitalist ideas themselves. Only Croatian and Serbian people I spoke with, had some positive memories of Communism, but Yugoslavia had a mild, open variant of it (even allowing free international travel) under Tito (who for that reason came into conflict with the much stricter Stalin: they say Stalin even tried to get Tito killed).

HISTORICAL MATERIALISM

Be that as it may, Rodney’s critique of capitalism-driven colonialism in Africa by European powers, the main theme of How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, seems very sensible to me, the history well-explained, using the proven, in itself valuable method of “historical materialism”. This last method is – ideally – a way of letting history speak for itself, and therefore can exclude many biases and hidden interests, cloaked falsely in scientific jargon. I appreciate that about it. Later (e.g. in dictatorial Communist regimes) historical materialism as method also got polluted with propaganda and biases, including simplistic, self-interested distortions.

Rodney is too intelligent and open-minded for the latter propaganda nonsense, rendering more neutral historical accounts, very engagingly told, of how colonialism by European powers took place in Africa, and its effects.

These negative, halting effects (overall: underdevelopment) of Africa stem, he insists, from capitalism’s inherent exploitative base, but not just that. Racism and earlier colonialism also played important roles in shaping policies in Africa, he also shows.

This book, thus, deals with this whole process, from early colonialism, and to the infamous Berlin Conference (1884/85), during which European countries subdivided Africa (further) among themselves. Africa was then largely colonized, until independence struggles gained some success since the 1950s and after.

CAPITALIST MODES

A period of less than a century, this African colonization since the Late 19-th c., but with intense economic changes, and what can be called “capitalist strengthening” in Europe itself through imperial expansion. It followed on periods of mercantilism and (earlier) British colonialism and slavery eventually financing the First industrial Revolution in Britain (Late 18th-Early 19th c.), in turn normalizing “capitalist modes of production” as Karl Marx called it, characterized by private ownership of means of production and wage labour.

He goes on to show - with many telling examples -, how all economic policies or “investments” by the European colonizers of Africa since the later 19th c., were self-interested and exploitative, even harsher than exploitation of capitalist societies in Europe itself: lower wages (relatively) for African labourers in set-up industries, only allowing a passive role as consumers of (European-made) products.. In short: an even more intense cynicism and inequality than wage labourers already faced in Europe, with not even the “modernizing” gains and opportunities that capitalism did in theory produce (despite its exploitative premise) for European economies and even workers (economic individualism).

Foreign investments meant mostly foreign dependency for Africans - Rodney summarizes these policies as "growth without development", based on exploitation for European interests, with no real long-term benefits for Africans. Regarding agriculture, it made "monoculture" dominant in African colonies, e.g.: Gold Coast centered on cocoa, Dahomey (now Benin) on palm, Uganda on cotton, etcetera. This was forced on these colonies for European demands. To quote directly from the book: "Diversified agriculture was within the African tradition. Monoculture was a colonialist invention". Also this had a lasting negative influence.

Alongside this racist “thread” of exploitation, there were of course differences within Africa, dependent on regions, as well as colonizers. Britain, France, and Germany modernized and industrialized (and became “democracies”) earlier, adapting colonial goals to human advancement, including modern patronizing philosophies of (supposed, fake) inclusion, and the “white man’s burden”, aimed (supposedly) at helping Africa and Africans to develop and modernize. Rodney convincingly shows that this was largely hypocrisy.

The tone and indirectness differed from what he calls, quite justly, then more “backward” capitalist nations exploiting Africa, notably Portugal under dictator Salazar (with a Fascist-like ideology), and (though with only small colonies in Africa) Spain under Franco, Italy under Mussolini, but also – of course – the Apartheid regime in South Africa. These did not “sugar coat”, and directly stated the preferred racial inequality and racist presumptions, reminding of equally candid Nazi-examples, especially the White regime in South Africa. Similar harsh exploitation and direct statements on African inferiority were found in Portuguese colonies, albeit mixed with patronizing Catholic missionary goals for Africans, as variants of the “white man’s burden”, hiding harsh exploitation and self-interest behind seeming benevolence and aid.

FEUDALISM

Interesting is also how Africa was developing – or would have developed – before/without European invasions and intrusions. Rodney treats this too in the earlier part of this book, pointing at “organically” developing feudalism in parts of Africa, as societies became more large-scale, hierarchical, and complex (less primitive). Several African states and nations did not need Europe for that, this modernization seemed to develop organically, although the Islamic/Arab world (also foreign, after all) influenced it in some areas. This was a learning experience for me, especially the word “feudalism” and “feudal”. I knew what capitalism and colonialism was, but “feudalism” I had to study a bit more – to define it well for myself - , as a stage in human development.

It turns out that (as stated on Wikipedia) feudalism is: “Broadly defined, .. a way of structuring society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour”. Of course, this dependency on nobility and “lords” owning land can be seen as serfdom of the masses. Karl Marx said that capitalism in theory enabled these masses the freedom to choose their employer, but in reality did not improve much for these masses, just bringing different, more confusing dimensions to dependency and exploitation. Centralized state/monarchy power and administration usually meant the decline of (inherently regional/local) feudalism.

According to Wikipedia, feudalism flourished in (mainly) Europe between the 9th and 15th c., not coincidentally before Columbus and the start of European colonialism, requiring centralized monarchies. Parts of Europe maintained some feudal aspects (Russia, Eastern Europe), but even pockets in Western Europe (including the South of Spain, from where Columbus sailed, ironically enough), even persisting partly as Spain was colonizing the Americas.

What we now know as “capitalism” thus followed – and came forth out of! – colonialism, especially as more developed societies as of Britain and the Netherlands began colonizing too, investing colonial gains with more foresight in their economies, starting the Industrial Revolution. Some see a link between the Protestant ethic and the rise of capitalism (like in Islam still, Catholicism then forbade “interest” on loans, Protestantism allowed it). Spanish and Portuguese colonizers- or “conquerors” as they were called - wasted a lot of those gains on “stupid” luxuries (palaces in Lisbon, Barcelona, or Seville, or even rural areas), or on limitedly successful agricultural experiments.

Capitalism was fully developed, though, when European powers started to colonize Africa mostly in a later stage in history (19th c.). This colonialism in Africa was therefore clearly capitalist (mercenary/exploitative) in nature, and Rodney – as self-declared Marxist – criticized this, but with an open mind. Of course, he was also critical of inequality or injustice in earlier or other systems (feudalism, but also primitive, closed communities with no individual freedoms), showing his open mind and true interest in humane justice. I respect that.

INDIVIDUALISM

Some economic scholars find the term “capitalism” a misnomer, preferring instead to call it “economic individualism”. Walter Rodney would not agree, and gives some good arguments for it in this book, through various examples. While he in itself appreciates that “individualism” as moral stance or ideology can have a “liberating” value in too collectivistic, strict societies, Rodney indicates how it was soon corrupted by narrow, “bourgeois” owners and elite powers - read: capitalists -, simply only claiming it for themselves (individualism became egoism) and their rights to exploit, but preferring the masses and wage labourers dependent on them.

This inequality was the case in Europe and the Western World, but even stronger and worse in Africa, during this colonial period, and the postcolonial history after it. Rodney’s book does an excellent job in showing this, as economic freedoms or progress for local Africans were deliberately excluded and discouraged from any colonial investments of European powers in Africa. "Growth without development".

Racial prejudice - or persisting assumptions of African inferiority - played a role in this, while further the proven colonial strategy of divide-and-conquer proved useful, in various ways. This could be within families and communities (European colonialism diminished the importance of female labour, relative to male “breadwinners”), and between different ethnic groups within colonies, sharpening tensions to avoid unity against the European invaders.

LEGACY

This relatively short “colonizing period” (though longer in some Portuguese colonies) of about one century (roughly between 1875 and 1975), seemed to have cemented Africa’s postcolonial dependency on foreign investments afterward. Further Western/capitalist/political machinations, and combined historical developments (end of Communism in the Soviet Union by 1990), made this foreign investment with dependency on the West part of global “neoliberalism”, the newest variant of Euro-Western capitalism, building on all previous variants, including “corporatist” (state supporting big private companies) ideas from Fascism (first used by Italian dictator Mussolini, who himself tried to “colonize” Ethiopia - then Abyssinia - in the 1930s).

More involvement of formally Communist China in Africa in economically investing in Africa in recent times, seems to point at change and other trade connections, sometimes but not always more “equal”. So does the increased cooperation between “non-Western” BRICS countries, including South Africa.

All of course – for better or worse – a “far cry” from what Walter Rodney seemed to expect as best economic policy, namely state socialism, planned economies, etcetera.

COMMUNISM

I spent a quite intense period of my life travelling to Cuba between 2001 and 2006, having friends and intimate relationships there. Due to my Spanish mother, I was fluent in Spanish, so could get to know the society in Cuba - then under Fidel Castro - well, also because of the type of relationships I had.. way beyond polite “small talk”, let’s say.

As even some (former or adapted) Communists admitted: the absence of private ownership while having to develop an entire economy and society – on that scale -, requires almost by definition an authoritarian state, operating in a totalitarian manner: the bottom up-ideal (or rhetoric) thus gets abandoned for top-down repression of people’s individual freedoms. Read: “dependency” on, well, just other type of exploiters, oppressors, and bosses, with some “party member” or “politician” now interfering with you instead of – but in the same way as - “Mr. Boss Man”.

My experiences in Cuba (also undergoing an economic crisis, called Special Period, with lost USSR support) in 2001-2006 confirmed this. The bottom was a bit less low (state services for food and shelter, education, and medical care) than in other developing countries, but much broader and firmer. The censorship, lack of free speech or movement, and the highly regulated society, mixed – as usual in dictatorships – with corruption in high and low places. This latter limited the trust between people, while the restrictions on and force used on people had more to do with a type of incarceration and Fascism under another name.

A woman in Santiago de Cuba (Eastern Cuba) who I knew well, worked as teacher but had to assist in other state-led jobs (like harvesting/rural work) when asked, or rather: “ordered”. Refusal would have consequences. She told me, sadly, that she felt as if she was a slave. She was of African descent (Afro-Cuban), making her statement, perhaps even more sad and symbolic.

My own mother – at another time – also told me she “felt she was a slave” when living - and having to work - under dictator Franco in Spain in the early 1960s, and that dictatorship was largely Fascist/Right-wing, mixed with some older reactionary (Catholic) elements. The “backward capitalist” countries of Europe, Walter Rodney referred to in his book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Portugal under Salazar had a similar Fascist ideology as Franco in Spain, and Portugal had large colonies in Africa up to 1975).

An excellent book, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, in my opinion, and Walter Rodney overall an inspiring scholar and activist, but if there is a critique on him possible, it is that he overestimated the democratizing tendencies of state socialism “for the people”. Marxism seems to lack the cynical, egoistic greed and exploitation that capitalism (now neoliberalism) implies, but with a similar power inequality and dependency, on a similar scale, the masses simply are not that much better off or freer.

Marcus Garvey called Communism: “the white man’s solution to problems created by the white man”, implying interestingly also something like “two sides of the same coin”.

This is somewhat in line with the Rastafari movement, developed since the 1930s in Jamaica, influenced by Marcus Garvey, and aimed toward Haile Selassie and Africa. For Rastas, all “isms” are oppressive systems from Babylon (the Western world), calling instead for a natural living, with self-sufficiency in full equality, on a small scale. Other tenets within Rastafari thinking (such as the “I and I” concept, that the divine lives within beings), also strengthen a healthy sense of individual freedom and creativity, as well as a communal focus, make it – you might say – anarchist/anarchic, in some sense. The cultural focus on Africa, and its origin in the Black Power movement, further make the Rastafari movement less “suitable” to fit in the globally current, foreign/”White” economic systems, let alone those bluntly based on exploitation and/or control through totalitarianism, and this happens to apply to both capitalist and communist states and economies.

CONCLUSION

Despite this mild critique and caveat, Walter Rodney showed in How Europe Underdeveloped Africa from 1972 to me to be overall a sensible, perceptive analyst of colonialism in Africa and its effects, writing in a pleasant style (well readable, but also allowing humour and irony). The book is very educational regarding Africa’s development, with negative effects up to the present (as earlier colonialism, of course), somewhat broader: regarding North-South inequalities in the present world.

How Europe Underdeveloped Africa is also educational in a deeper, more philosophical sense, namely as a “bird view” – or in this digital age: “zooming out” – of world history. Earlier scholars, including Eric Williams (in his work Capitalism and Slavery), showed how slavery and colonial gains eventually helped finance the very first Industrialization in the world, in Britain (Birmingham being the first “industrial city” as such) by the Late 18th c. This industrialization – in turn – led to the development of “capitalist modes of production” or capitalism, still dominant in this world, developing via postcolonialism, to present-day (since the 1980s) “neoliberalism”, shaping global policies by Western powers and even some non-Western powers (e.g. in Asia).

We all – as present-day global citizens - live now under such an economic system, in some way. Whether we want to, or not, haha.

This has the same “capitalist exploitation” base, as more harshly exhibited (although often hidden/subtle, especially in British colonialism), due to historical racism, during the period of colonization of Africa (1875-1972), as Rodney describes in this book.

Tragically, the enslaved Africans brought to the West/the Americas (since the 16th c.) - with partly genocidal effects - during slavery and earlier European colonialism, were used and “sacrificed” for not just temporary profit of some individuals or families, but for wider Western economic progress toward wider profit for (racially, geographically) privileged, thus ensuring global inequality between the haves and have-nots.

When slavery was abolished by Britain (1836, later elsewhere), the industrialization and capitalist society was already well-established in Britain. Unfortunately, as How Europe Underdeveloped Africa shows, Africa as continent was a bit later used to “test” or even strengthen this now “capitalist” exploitation for this new, industrialized economy, based on global inequality and Western dominance.

A recommendable book for, well.., one and all.

Chalice

Chalice was a Jamaican Reggae band, formed in 1980, active mainly up to 1996. The odd thing is that the band Chalice largely escaped my attention, while being a Reggae fan exploring the width and breath of Jamaican Reggae since I was about 11 years old, thus since around 1985 (up to now!).

Interestingly, eventually one tends to find one’s specific preferences within a music genre as an art form, as a very personal matter of taste.

Of course it relates to, besides one’s (cultural) background, also to highly individual trajectories through life, different conflicting influences, lifestyle, temperament, traumas, attitude, friends.. all factors probably influencing music tastes of persons, even within one genre.

In my experience, also within Reggae this is the case. There are, to be sure, examples of broadly shared appreciation - by different people - for certain songs or artists due to mere quality – the bigger “club” hits – of a catchy nature, typically. I Feel Good by Beres Hammond, is such a quite recent “Reggae club hit” appealing to many, Tarrus Riley’s Gimme Likkle One Drop, perhaps another example, of such hits.

As for me, personally, I seemed soon to prefer somewhat “rawer” Rootsy 1970s Reggae, with a “folksy” feel and call-and-response/harmony vocals, drawing me to Rootsy Reggae bands like Culture, the Itals, the Abyssinians, Israel Vibration, and the Wailing Souls. Also I could appreciate “soulful”, but equally Rootsy artists and good singers, like Ijahman Levi or Hugh Mundell. I seemed to avoid “too poppy” or cross-over Reggae, for some reason.. Dennis Brown, Jacob Miller, or Peter Tosh, might have had some “pop” appeal, but were still on the right “Rootsy” side, according to me.

A band like Third World, on the other hand, I deemed too “commercial”, too “mainstream” or “cross-over” for my taste. The same seemed to me to apply to Chalice, of which I vaguely heard its cross-over efforts.

PERCEPTION

The problem is only that I am not quite sure whether this perception was due to my own impartial listening experience, or that I was influenced too much by convincing-sounding writers or speakers about Reggae, even before the Internet (I had some encyclopedia-like books about reggae), and so was maybe “led” - or misled? - toward rejection.

I think it was – as for others, I imagine – a matter of both. I like original, popular folk culture, and adapting or modernizing a sound to please foreign, external audiences felt akin to “lying” or insincerity to me, not fitting my straight-forward character.

Before I delve into too much self-congratulation or –praise, I must also admit, that of bands like Third World or Chalice (and other a bit more commercial Reggae bands like Matumbi, Aswad, Inner Circle, etc.) I have mainly “heard” from others – Roots Reggae purists – that they were more commercial and not as real as “sufferers” Reggae from poor areas, from people like Culture, the Mighty Diamonds, the Wailing Souls – with also stronger Rastafari and rebellious messages. These latter “kept it (more) real”, so to speak.

MIDDLE-CLASS

In the case of Third World, in Reggae encyclopedias or other writings, often is alluded to their wealthier, “middle-class” background (with even the son of a politician as member), differing from the other lower-class, “ghetto” Reggae musicians. Less folksy and “earthy” therefore, presumably, and also more internationally minded, including therefore more modern jazzy and Western aspects on a Reggae base, in Third World’s music.

Something similar occurred with Chalice, only their background is more “rural” than Kingstonian, urban Third World, as Chalice formed in the small town Gibraltar Hill in the parish of St Mary. Their modernizing tendency with synthesizers, and often “light” themes in their lyrics (though not without Rasta references), nonetheless smelled like seeking commercial “pop appeal” toward a cross-over audience.

Still.. a good song is a good song, and skilled musicianship is skilled musicianship. Okay, maybe you have to suffer more in your life to gain more “soul” in your vocals and art – that seems psychologically sensible to me – and from a more well-off, wealthier family you are more protected, thus “hurt” less.

As James Brown once said: “soul” can be resumed in one word: “can’t” (cannot).. Poor or suffering people’s music has therefore almost by definition more “soul”.

All true, but to a point. Every individual is different, and artists tend to be free and original thinkers, often able to look beyond their class background, or even their relative privileges.

CHALICE AND DESI

I got to think about how Chalice did not get my attention as much as Reggae fan, because I heard of the recent sad passing of Desi Jones (at 65), a drummer and founding member of Chalice, later drumming for other artists (like Bob Andy and Mutabaruka) and forming another band Skool. Quite suddenly and unexpected this loss and passing away of Desi Jones, also for ones close to him, some reacting shocked.

I saw some instructional films, e.g. on “straight” and “swing” feels in Reggae drumming, by him, that I found educational (I am a percussionist, but am occasionally “trap” drumming on a kit). A skilled drummer Desi Jones (Chalice member) was for sure, anyhow.

I knew a few songs by Chalice, like Good To Be There and Dangerous Disturbances, both “mellow”, nice, and let’s say “accessible” songs, that I kind of liked. It’s been a while since I heard these songs, though.

It confronted myself with an aspect I accuse others sometimes of, and thus with required self-reflection.

SONG RECEPTION

I have released some songs of mine (written, composed and played) officially (also recently), and these were, well, listened to by some, but (initially) ignored by many. I suspected therefore that some mix personal sympathy with wanting to listen to someone’s songs: people really can’t listen to a song impartially, unbiased. Not fully, I think.

“Race” and “ethnicity” can play a role, as a White, European person in e.g. Reggae (or Rap) might meet some initial scepsis as either – a possible - “wannabe”, “fake”, or intruding “culture vulture”. Besides race, also other "looks" or traits may people react sceptically toward artists (unlike their friends), and prefer getting into other, for them "cooler" ones. Humans can be that shallow, sometimes.

In theory, all art is open and free for all humanity to enter, which is a good thing. In practice, however, all humans are full of biases and prejudices, with differing capacities of trivializing or distancing these.

In your own personal sphere, a song you released as (upcoming) artist will not be appreciated – if listened to at all – by someone you only “vaguely” know by name, spoke to superficially once or twice – never visited his or her home (or vice versa), etcetera.

Those people in your circle who actually make an effort to talk with you, might also be more interested in your songs: so real friends, rather than vague acquaintances. “Duh”, you would say: indeed quite predictable, even without having studied psychology or psychiatry, but many upcoming artists nonetheless forget that, I noticed, in their promotional efforts among people in their surroundings, and become disappointed.

The other direction, nepotism, is likewise wrong and fake, in my opinion. It is by definition discriminatory, besides. This nepotism can also be found in Dutch Reggae and music scenes (I live in the Netherlands), but does of course not make music or songs any better. Quality should be inherent.

LISTENING WITHOUT PREJUDICES

Beyond such actual personal contacts relevant to “upcoming” artists, when listening to music of people far away – already known and settled artists -, theoretical constructs about artists or bands also play a role, like racial or ethnic (or national) identifications, superficial images, other prejudices or ideas put into your head somehow, when choosing to listen to them or become their fan.

In my head, both Third World and Chalice were known as “too cross-over and commercial” for my Rootsy Reggae tastes. I am not sure it this judgement is (entirely) true, though.

In the remainder of this post, I try to overcome this human tendency of prejudice, by trying to listen and analyze some main songs that Chalice released, as impartially as I possibly can. Just judging the songs by themselves. Unsubstantiated criticism is worth nothing, when you think of it.

My mother once told me that she mistrusted people who criticize, but never give concrete examples or explanations, when asked even just one follow-up question (e.g. “what did they do?”), beyond their first negative characterization. I think she had a point, I realize now better as I got older. Critique has only substance when detailed or concrete, I know now. Also a good way to deal with many “easy criticizers” out there (certainly also in a city like Amsterdam).

According to Jamaican activist and thinker Marcus Garvey, in addition, criticism: “is indulged in by the fellow who knows more than any one else, yet the biggest fool”..

This all can be applied to music appreciation. If I do or don’t like songs, I should at least be able to explain it well, including musical details and concrete aspects, and (where possible) some “distance” from my own biases and frustrations.

A good, psychological test for myself (listening without prejudice), - useful for a musician, also, evaluating music factually and dry -, but also a way to delve a bit deeper in the band Chalice, of which I did not know so much. Do I like their songs in and by themselves?

CHALICE SONGS

I choose some of Chalice’s biggest hits (high in charts in Jamaica), plus some other relatively well-known songs, to give some “song reviews”: still personal, but at least also with details and distance.

I STILL LOVE YOU

(1982, album Blasted, number one hit in Jamaica!)

Ballad-like with a ”soul” touch (some Commodores-echoes) this song is not even really Reggae. Well-sung and –played, and interesting, balanced “synth” additions, it is nonetheless somewhat boring, also melody-wise. Not too engaging or catchy, this melody, in my opinion.

GOOD TO BE THERE

(1982, also hit in Jamaica)

This is clearly 1980s Reggae, with some rootsiness. It has a Third World-like cross-over vibe, but a slight one. The critique of over-dependency of Chalice on synthesizers, by reggae purists (the site allmusic.com mentioned this critique) is indeed present. Well-sung again, and tightly played, and the song melody is this times more catchy, with a good hook in the chorus. The typical “1980s Reggae” feel of digital-edged bass-and-drum can be found on albums by other artists in Jamaica at the time, including “big names” like Gregory Isaacs (e.g. album Victim), Sugar Minott, or Black Uhuru, and has a nice “pump” to it. The extra synth additions, however, on this Chalice song seem a bit too much and unnecessary (even distracting from the rhythm), though - on the plus side - help give it a “light” feel. This song is overall good, I think.

I’M TRYING

(1983, from album Standard Procedure, hit single in Jamaica)

1980s Reggae, with again some exaggeration with the synthesizers (then a novelty, I suppose), but a good modern Reggae groove, with a groovy, keyboard riff as nice addition. This accompanies a simple song, a catchy chorus (sometimes keeping it simple has a good effect). The drum is kept a bit too simple, though, if straight and tight: no playful hi-hat or other drum creativity (that seems reserved for synthesizer sounds), neither percussion (e.g. hand drums, scrapers, shakers, or bells), that could have counterbalanced both the “synth” feel and simple drum on this song.

So, in my opinion, all in all the song is nice and catchy enough, but misses some rhythmic and atmospheric variation as I did find in other Jamaican Reggae. A bit too digital and simple.

POT OF GOLD

(1983, album Standard Procedure)

Less “synth-like” digital (though still a bit that feel) I kind of liked this song, as it is somewhat fuller, even allowing extra percussion besides drum or synth “bleeps”. The chorus is catchy with a good hook, though somewhat simple. There is still a Third World-like pop appeal in the “sound” that might, despite good message lyrics, put off the biggest “reggae snobs” or “purists”, but an okay song in and by itself.

WICKED INTENTION

(1985, a hit of sorts)

From somewhat later in Chalice’s career, this song – while quite popular – impressed me less. The same 1980s, digital, synth-filled Reggae feel as in vogue in Jamaica then, but of less quality and layers (compared e.g. to higher-quality 1980s albums from e.g. Black Uhuru or the Mighty Diamonds). Somewhat catchy chorus, but a too simple song. This seems the more commercial side of Chalice, with a “calypso/soca feel”, but also nonsensical lyrics. While being mad at a woman (or man) you’re intimate with, for “two-timing” or “cheating” is an understandable human emotion, becoming violent or aggressive (or even threatening just with it) – “not a man with a wicked intention, but I will make you feel pain” (as the lyrics go), is not very wise. Just curse in yourself and find a better partner/woman, I would say, haha.. No edifying lyrics on this already mediocre song, let’s just resume.

STAND UP

(1985)

Title song from the same 1985 Chalice album (Stand Up!) as Wicked Intention, which as song – I find – somewhat better.. Kept simple, but melodically effective (an art by itself), and a light, but bearable digital edge. Catchy and groovy enough, and maybe a more “poppy” feel than other Reggae from the period, but less commercial than other songs of them, plus with conscious lyrics more bearable for Roots fans, I imagine. Could be enriched with e.g. percussion, and not the best song I ever heard, for sure, but nice enough.

CONCLUSION ON CHALICE SONGS

These are of course not all songs of Chalice, but a mere, I think representative, “sample”, showing different sides to their style. I could enjoy some of their songs, but overall it is not the kind of Reggae I chose to focus on personally, but that’s me.

The only thing I liked about the Chalice sound is – in certain moods, anyway – that it maintained a ”light”, joyous vibe: not too “heavy” or “serious”, not too “deep” and “mystical”. Can’t always be in a “deep and mystical” mood (though I at times am), and sometimes it’s fun just to listen to guys playing around with synthesizers on simple, light-hearted catchy Reggae songs. Chalice’s being formed near the “touristy” but fun-oriented North Coast of Jamaica, might have influenced also that loose, party vibe.

Though receiving the same “middle-class” cross-over accusation by Reggae purists as Third World, Chalice thus has similarities, but just as much differences in their sound from Third World, the band. Chalice uses the synthesizer more, is an obvious one, but also Chalice seems more Disco/Soca-vibe focused – with several simple yet catchy dance songs -, whereas Third World as band has a more, sophisticated “jazzy”, instrumental and acoustic vibe to it, showing in e.g. the many solo’s by instrumentalists on even their biggest hits, and more complex song and chord structures (more so on their less commercial work).

Chalice is simpler, but like Third World is a self-contained “band” band: a fixed set of people (hopefully friends) writing songs, singing, and playing the instruments together: the “Beatles” or "Earth Wind & Fire"-idea, say. The musical skills within Chalice might be a bit less high or sophisticated than Third World’s, but certainly good enough, with some skilled instrumentalists, like the mentioned, recently deceased drummer Desi Jones.

The nice, joyous and catchy sound of many Chalice songs, is in fact helped by the fact that Chalice members as musicians know how to play “tight”, and a “crisp” (if maybe too simple) production, thus not requiring too much effort of the listeners to get into it. Less “rough edges” than as in some Roots Reggae (Black Ark, Augustus Pablo productions, Culture, early albums Israel Vibration and Twinkle Brothers), in the 1970s and part of the 1980s. Midnite/Akae Beka from St Croix, - later - in their early albums also sought those “rootsy” raw/rough edges, with some success (rhythmically a bit less groovy than Jamaican Reggae though).

I liked and preferred those “rough edges” from Jamaican Roots Reggae from an artistic point of view – and still do -, but some variation – such as with the Chalice-like sound - now and then, is also okay. As a “yang” to my “yin”, so to speak. Trying all kinds of things, to then stick – or: return - to what I love most..

Cuban and Dominican music: differences and similarities

The Dominican Republic consists of a large eastern part of the island of Hispaniola, in the Caribbean. A former Spanish colony, it has predictable similarities with a country like Cuba, which I personally have visited repeatedly, and studied the culture of. The Dominican Republic overall has a mixed African-European population – like Cuba - , as a result of African slavery, of course, but the economic intensity of plantation slavery was stronger (and longer) in Cuba. On the other hand, European (especially Spanish) added migration was during and after slavery stronger to Cuba, changing also the demographics.

ETHNIC BACKGROUNDS

Another difference is the more retained – or less diluted - Amerindian, indigenous Taíno “blood” within the Dominican Republic, more rarely noticeable (safe some rural areas) within the present Cuban population, mostly ranging from – simplifyingly said – Southern European to dark-skinned Africans, and all in between.

In a very general sense, this also applies to the Dominican Republic. This also has cultural connotations, and also musical ones. As a percussionist, and being interested in Caribbean music, I am very interested in that. This is also the case, because I studied Afro-Cuban music quite a lot, in a detailed manner for my percussion playing and songs. Dominican music, however, I studied less, for some reason. I have been several times to Cuba, but never to the Dominican Republic.

I heard Dominican genres Bachata and Merengue here and there, liked some songs, but never got the same “bug” as with Cuban music, notably Son, Changui, and Rumba. That could relate to the fact that I was simply already focusing on Cuba, so could contextualize Cuban music better, with less effort than having to delve in another culture and context (the Dominican one, in this case).

In some instances, I studied some Dominican rhythms for musical and percussive variation. It did not went much further than that, however. I kept focusing more on Cuba.

LIBRARY

Having worked in/for a scholarly library with many anthropological and socio-political works about wider Caribbean history and culture, I nonetheless acquired quite some knowledge about the Dominican Republic’s history, but more so more recent history, under dictator Trujillo (1930-1961), and later political developments. Politics got overall more attention in those scholarly historical works than popular culture (though there were some interesting works about culture too), which perhaps showed an elitist bias, I guess. There was also much attention in those works to cultural policies by the ruling classes, that can be characterized as pro-white/-European, and against the African heritage. The upper class (predictably mostly more of European descent than Amerindian or African) manifested in that sense a racist, pro-European, or Spanish, culture for the country, downplaying the African heritage at most to the merely folkloric, and even that at times reluctantly.

Also dictator Trujillo, ruling from 1930 until 1961 (partly as force behind puppet presidents), and himself a light Mulatto, promoted such policies during his strict, repressive and violent regime, albeit with some contradictions. The historical animosity with the neighboring, more African/”Blacker”, Haitians was in propaganda for instance stimulated.

Among the common population of the Dominican Republic this found some resonance, though not so much. Unlike what I noticed in parts of Northwestern Europe, Latin American people do not sense so much identification with their political leaders and their policies: there was and is much more distance with the political class, to be explained by historically lacking democracy and large social inequalities.

Studies also showed that despite that Trujillo or other leading Dominican political leaders promoted animosity to Haitian migrants in the Dominican Republic, in many places there was Dominican-Haitian cooperation, and even family ties. The somewhat pro-Spanish biased “Latino” identity the Dominicans seemed to favour over a “Black” or “African” one – or even instead of an appropriate Mulatto one – was not so widespread among all Dominicans, many simply recognizing African contributions as well, calling themselves “mixed”, with some African contributions.

Such African contributions are found in music, including in the well-known Merengue genre, having spread internationally over time to later also compete with Cuban-based Salsa in “Latin music” circles, as well as Bachata music, developing later in the Dominican Republic (on Eastern Cuban models).

Of both Merengue and Bachata it is clear – and recognized – that it somehow reflects the different legacies of Dominican culture: the Spanish one, the African one, and the indigenous, Amerindian one, showing in instrumentation. Guitar/string instruments – and song types – reflect the Spanish heritage, the drums and rhythmic patterns (e.g. common syncopation) the African heritage, whereas the scraper and shaker instruments (Guira) are connected to the indigenous heritage. In itself an interesting “triracial” mix, not dissimilar to what recent DNA studied showed about most inhabitants of the Dominican Republic, with European, African, but also indigenous DNA (more than previously assumed).

MUSICAL DIFFERENCES

I wonder then, though, as to a degree comparable “mixtures” (Spanish-African, Amerindian instruments) are also found in Afro-Cuban music genres – with different accents -, what are the differences between the best-known Dominican genres of today, being Bachata and Merengue, with Cuban genres like (mostly) Salsa, Son, Rumba, etcetera?

The remainder of this post is about that. How different are the music genres between these different parts of the “Spanish Caribbean”, after all, not so far away from each other geographically? What explains those differences? And also, why those differences?

Where there perhaps also interactions in historical epochs, between Cuba and the Dominican Republic?

Due to my personally acquired knowledge and experience by now, my starting point and base is Afro-Cuban music, comparing Merengue, Bachata, and other Dominican genres to that what I happen to know better the history and characteristics of: Cuban music.

MERENGUE

Merengue is faster than Salsa or (other) Cuban music. I noticed that soon enough. The dance to it is also faster (and simpler). Other musical differences are that Merengue tends to be in counted in 2/4 beat/time signature (Cuban Son/Salsa 4/4, Rumba often 6/8), shared with Brazilian Samba (also 2/4). The common instruments used in traditional Merengue include the typically Dominican double-sided Tambora drum, the Guira metal scraper, and the Accordion, that at one point replaced string instruments (since the 1880s).. The Accordion play repeated syncopated patterns, rendering often a danceable, lively groove. The Guira metal scraper bears similarities to the East Cuban Guaya scraper (in Son Changui, for instance), but plays faster patterns

The Accordion is by contrast not really used in Cuban music, neither is that (Dominican) Tambora drum type found much in Cuban music (mostly open-bottom drums). Rhythmically, Merengue has similar “swaying” characteristics as found in neighboring Haiti’s music (only faster), perhaps shaped as such originally (some Haitian influence), but denied with the later mentioned Dominican-Haitian tensions that arose. There is also a Haitian genre named Méringue, which shares similarities not just in name with Dominican Merengue (see my post about Haitian music), and has not coincidentally its origins in the same 19th-c. period (around 1850).

Later, more modern Merengue versions (such as “de orquesta”, orchestra-types) added more instruments, including wind instruments (notably the saxophone), other percussion (conga’s a.o.), often with influences from other parts of the region (including Cuba), and string instruments.

Dictator Trujillo actually promoted Merengue music as national music, related to his own humble origins (like Merengue), while at the same time contradicting his anti-African heritage stances regarding other aspects of Dominican culture. He used Merengue for his propaganda, and connection to the populace.

BACHATA

Bachata is a newer genre, of more recent origin (becoming known in the Early 1960s), like Merengue hailing from Northern parts of the Dominican Republic. It is less “local” in that it is influenced from the start by Cuban Bolero and Son, with an own touch over time, but maintaining a string-instrument base, unlike Merengue. From Cuban models, it developed into an own genre over time in the Dominican Republic, including Merengue influences, and a shift to steel and electric guitars, resulting in prominent guitar patterns, mixed with varied percussion, mostly including the (originally Cuban!) Bongos, as small, high-pitched hand drums. The syncopated, rhythmic interaction between the strings and bongo (and other percussion) still reflect its origins in Cuban Bolero and Son, albeit adapted.

One difference with the Cuban models are faster, own Bongo rolls and also “fuller” and electric guitar patterns, less “spacious” than in Cuban Son. It tends to be overall faster in tempo to Cuban Son or bolero.

PALO

Palo is a semi-religious, more sacred folk music genre in the Dominican Republic with more direct African retentions, centered on (Catholic) saints or ancestors and combined drums and call-and-response vocals of African origins. The drums are three open-bottom drums as in the Congo tradition, with the low-pitched drum providing steady beats, and the other drums variations. This has superficial similarities with Afro-Cuban Rumba types, while “heart-beat” like drum base rhythms reflect a Congo heritage, also found elsewhere in the African diapora in the Americas (Haiti, Jamaica, Colombia).

The three drums combine with different instruments in different parts of the country, with the Guira scraper recurring, but in some regions of the Dominican Republic also with e.g. tambourines.

Also a difference with Cuba, where bells are used more often, as well more shaker (maraca) types. It lacks a bit that “clave” (key beats) base of Cuban music, but further has similarities. Mainly of Congo origin, the similarities could be explained by the strong Congo influence of much Afro-Cuban music, including on Son, and (partly) on Rumba, and similar genres – also named Palo – in especially Eastern Cuba. Cuban Palo uses some other patterns and instruments, though, than its Dominican namesake.

EXPLAINING THE DIFFERENCES

What I find interesting in this case, is how these differences – and similarities - between the music genres of two “Spanish Caribbean” nations, with both (in general) a mixed Spanish-African population, geographically close to each other – Cuba and the Dominican Republic – can be explained. This explanation is mostly historically, of course.

SLAVERY

More intense and longer-lasting slavery of Africans in Cuba explains some differences. The historical conflicts of the Dominican Republic with neighbouring Haiti also some. After the Haitian Revolution (up to 1804), - and in the 1820s - Haiti occupied the bordering Dominican Republic for a period, even making some Dominican leaders prefer continued Spanish colonial rule, while border disputes were also long problematic. The animosity between more European-oriented Dominicans, and more African Haitians continued for long, including racist aspects in the Dominican Republic.

This went so far that dictator Rafael Trujillo (from 1930 to 1961) hid his part-Haitian ancestry (on his mother’s side) as part of his regime’s propaganda, inventing instead a vague personal Spanish nobility origin from colonial times, and lightening his mulatto skin tone.

POPULAR LEVELS

These kinds of sentiments were mostly political, and to a lesser degree “popular”, as Afro-Dominican culture was still kept alive, albeit sometimes diluted or denied.

This was somehow different in Cuba, where “Africanness” as cultural identity was by some parts of the population proudly asserted, even though it was deemed certainly problematic by elite, pro-European circles, and seen as vulgar, in several historical epochs, even postcolonial ones, It proved, however, impossible to deny or ignore, especially as music genres like Son (from “blacker” Eastern Cuba) and Afro-Cuban Rumba gained wider popularity also in Havana.

Interestingly, in both Cuba and the Dominican Republic, “white political elite” dogmas and preferences were largely ignored, or circumvented, on the popular levels, continuing the incorporation and even celebration of African cultural retentions.

In the case of Cuba, with more slave imports, up to a later time period (even up to the 1860s), there were more maintained sensed African identities among Afro-Cubans, and more direct African cultural retentions, even of a specific ethnic nature or geographical origin (Yoruba, Congo, Calabar/Efik), including spiritual and musical aspects.

This was simply too hard to repress, although in certain epochs it had to be hidden more in Cuba. Even during Castro’s communism – frowning on Afro-Cuban “religion”, like Santería (mostly Yoruba) or Palo Mayombe (mostly Congo), the spiritual rituals continued underground.

Such African identities were more fluid and mixed – or downplayed - in the case of Afro-Dominicans, though surviving in part in Palo music (mixed with Catholicism) and subtly in musical elements of Merengue and Bachata).

It resulted – however – in less types of hand drums and other African percussion in the Dominican Republic, when compared to Cuba, though Congo-type drums are present in Palo music,. Bachata, however, adopted the Afro-Cuban Bongó. The indigenous Amerindians left their mark in both Cuban and Dominican music, mostly in instruments like the scrapers (Guiro/guira, Guaya), and in some shakers.

AFRICAN ORIGINS

While close to each other, and despite the Spanish colonial connection, some musical differences thus arose in the local contexts. The normative Accordion use in Merengue relate to German traders and travelers to the Dominican Republic, related to the tobacco trade, bringing the (after all German-invented) instrument. This did not seem to have occurred in Cuba, where the accordion remained an oddity in its folk music, if present at all. It never replaced string or other “chording”/melodic instruments in Cuba, maintaining its tres or other guitar use.

The characteristics of the Accordion made Dominican Merengue more “swaying” than Cuban “straighter” rhythms, but also the early Haitian connection of Merengue, however denied by authorities. The irony of neighboring enemies, that nonetheless share more than with others.

The bells, and clave-patterns might relate to the Yoruba influence in Cuba, as well as some other instrument uses (like the Shekere bead shaker). Africans from various nations ended up in the Dominican Republic. Christopher Columbus himself brought some from the Senegambia area around 1500 (one of the first African slave transport to the Americas), while later Congo, Dahomey/Ewe (like in Haiti), and even Ghana, became sources for slaves to the Dominican Republic.

Yoruba were less represented in the Dominican Republic, as they were enslaved and sold in a later stage in what is now Nigeria, related to the “jihad” (religious war) attacks of the Islamic Hausa invading from north of Yorubaland, enabling their capture and sale to Europeans (Portuguese, Spanish) up to the 1840s. Britain by then has (formally) abolished the slave trade, but it continued to Brazil and Spanish colonies (and illegally by Britons), but the Dominican Republic had abolished slavery already by 1822 (under Haitian influence), Cuba only as late as the 1880s, still importing slaves (also illegally) up to the 1860s.

Quite some Congo/Central African/Bantu slaves ended up in Cuba (estimated at 40% of them), which does provide a cultural link with Afro-Dominicans, though with some differences. Scholars assert that Bantu-speaking slaves in the Dominican Republic, often came from other ethnic groups in the wider Congo-Angola region than those in Cuba, besides sometimes from the same region. Still shared similarities as a cultural region, but with regional differences. Just like you have, e.g., within countries like Spain or Italy.

EUROPEANS

Regarding the Spanish, or European side, there were similarities in migration between Cuba and the Dominican Republic, such as a shared input of Canary islanders (even on the Caribbean Spanish language accent), and further Andalusian/South Spanish and Catalan influences. The Catalonian influence became stronger with the slavery peak in Cuba after 1820, as many slave owners and investors in plantations came from more wealthy and industrialized Catalonia, and other northern Spaniards (like the Basque slave-owning family Zulueta). The famous Bacardi family (from the rum) was also Catalan in origin, and were also owners of many African slaves.

Yet, sources state that among the earlier Spanish (“White”) settlers in the Dominican Republic, there were also relatively many Catalans, alongside Canarians, and others. This still reflects in Catalan surnames in present-day Dominican Republic (Bosch, Balaguer).

The South Spanish influence was still there, as what we know as the early Spanish guitar was in fact Andalusian in origin. Some Cuban music genres (like Punta) show Andalusian and Flamenco elements, while the recurring string instruments and guitar patterns show this South Spanish influence in Cuba (soon mixed with African ones), perhaps stronger than in the Dominican Republic, where guitars nonetheless were known too.

In fact, a French influence (via Haiti) might have had some effect on the European side of the mixed music in the Dominican Republic.

POLITICS

A final influence relate to political differences. Trujillo supported Merengue music for his propaganda, as pre-Castro leaders sometimes supported (selectively) Afro-Cuban aspects, despite a stronger pro-European/Spanish bias. Fidel Castro’s communism in name supported Afro-Cuban culture, yet its policies and dogmas sometimes limited it. The Marxist and Communist formal atheism was at first strongly adhered to under Castro, working also against popular Afro-Cuban faiths and folk religions like Santería, obliging practitioners even to secrecy in periods.

While music education was stimulated and is conveniently state-paid – supporting musicianship – under Cuban communism, the general cultural focus was more European/Western. This was noted also by Carlos Moore, who became a Cuban refugee and opponent of Castro, after first sympathizing and working some time for Fidel Castro. Moore - in exile - critiqued Castro’s dictatorial tendencies, but also his cultural bias and close-mindedness, restricted to Castro’s own “White”, Hispanic ethnicity. Castro was not in touch with Afro-Cuban culture, Moore argued, forming after all a substantial part of Cuban society: a majority (estimated at 80%) is at least partly of African descent, with over 25% of Cuba even mainly of African descent. Add to this around 50% of Cubans being mixed-raced.

Trujillo was unlike “Hispanic White” Fidel Castro (who was of Galician Spanish and Canarian descent), rather a light Mulatto, with some African blood, but was in denial about it, resulting in the psychological complexities and contradictions common to self-hatred and troubled identity issues. What Black Americans dubbed as the “Uncle Tom” effect. Later presidents – from 1961 to now - (often mostly White) continued the pro-European, anti-Haitian cultural focus of Dominican politics.

Like in Cuba, though, the popular culture could not be shaped or altered so easily by politicians, maintaining a strength by itself among common folk, showing in subtle yet noticeable African retentions in main Dominican genres as Merengue and Bachata (syncopation, percussion, call-and-response), and even more direct African retentions in Congo-derived Palo music in the Dominican Republic.

More recent allowance of social commentary lyrics in Merengue (also by famous Juan Luis Guerra) and Bachata (beyond romantic or party themes) affirm these genres all the more as truly nonelite and popular.

INTRA-CARIBBEAN

And yes, there were relations between the Dominican Republic and Cuba, historically (through Cuban Son and Bolero) by shaping the Bachata genre, and also on Afro-Cuban influences on later Merengue styles (“de orquesta”).

The other way around less, confirming Cuba’s special place as musical hotbed in Latin America, not unlike Jamaica for the rest of the Anglophone Caribbean. Dominican radio stations – on the other hand - reach Eastern Cuba (around Santiago de Cuba, Son’s heartland), making Bachata and Merengue songs quite popular there as well, as varying foreign influence. There are by now also Cuban artists making Bachata, like Kirenia, Michel Felix, Meyita, and Verónica Velázquez, found on a compilation “Bachata from Cuba” to be found online.

Funny how the Domincan touches that later adapted Cuban Son and Bolero (electric steel guitar, faster bongo rolls, a.o.) to form Dominican Bachata, actually came back to Cuba as well. Not the “purist” approach, let’s say, but open and creative, accepting “what they did with it”. Something comparable happened with what in New York became known as Salsa in the 1980s, but was largely Cuban Son-based.

Merengue is of course known in present-day Cuba, but as Dominican and foreign genre, and sometimes appreciated or played on the radio or in clubs (as international, foreign “Latin” hits). Yet it seemed less “absorbed” by Cuban musical artists, as few Merengue artists as such in Cuba are known (some experiment with it).

There is a traditional, percussive Haitian Merengue known with that name in Eastern Cuba, due to historical Haitian influence, but this derived from Haitian Méringue. Interestingly, yet not surprisingly, it has some rhythmic, “swaying” similarities even with modern Dominican Merengue, showing original Haitian-Dominican connections on Hispaniola, shaping Merengue.

Chad: not a dead heart

Already since I was a child, I always had an interest in geography. Maps with countries – and their names – even intrigued me. I soon began to read about different continents as well, with especially Africa arousing my interest. Why that is, I am not sure. It could relate to my musical preference that soon developed: music from Africa, and the African diaspora, music with good rhythms and grooves.

LANDSCAPES

Also, for some reason, “inhospitable” landscapes intrigued me, in relation to human cultures there too. Deserts like the Sahara, but also dense jungles. Again, hard to explain why. One explanation could be is that I grew up in the Netherlands, its Western part, with a non-wild, quite “ordered”, partly even “geometrical” landscape, and a hospitable, man-made accessibility. The flat, ordered, humid and fertile “polders” - crossed by ditches and canals -, and mostly in agricultural or livestock farm use, characterize a large part of the Netherlands.

These Dutch polders are not entirely without charm, to give my honest opinion. Sure, it is not really “wild” nature, but as a historically developed “cultural landscape” it still has a mind-easing, “down to earth” vibe. Those Dutch “polder” landscapes I was surrounded by lacked however “drama” and “character”, more natural and “wilder” landscapes elsewhere in the world had. Even landscapes that can be seen as arid, “barren”, “eroded” or “deficient” (steppes, desserts), still had some “character”, especially when in mountainous or hilly areas.

Visiting Spanish family in central and southern Spain in the summer I noticed that already: impressive landscapes with character, even if arid.. though for agriculture probably more difficult and limited, requiring even for basic production irrigation (irrigation in Dutch agriculture was only to increase production). That part where my mother was born (not far from Córdoba, SW Spain) therefore by necessity specialized in olive production, though other nice fruits grew there too (figs, oranges, a.o.).

OVERWHELMING

Even more I was intrigued by the overwhelming, mighty Sahara and other African landscapes, and the Sahara, also with cultural connotations (how do people live there?).

A Syrian friend of mine, who travelled a time throughout Northern Africa, before settling in the Netherlands, described to me journeys he had through the Egyptian and Algerian Sahara, as magical, existential experiences – perhaps even “life-changing” experiences: “you are nothing there”, he told me. He meant as a mere human in that wide, overwhelming desert, even compared to more “manageable” desert-like landscapes he knew from Syria.

Maybe it is good for humans to be reminded that sometimes nature is stronger than humans, who so often want to dominate or “tame” it. The Dutch “polders” are of course an example of such “tamed nature”, but more parts of the world adapted for intense agricultural use as well, mostly more accessible, less accidented or mountainous landscapes. A large part of England too, for instance, man-made plantations, etcetera.

CHAD

A country with also a name that intrigued me was Chad (Tsjaad, in Dutch), including how it was located on the map, amid the “untamed” Sahara desert, largely, but also extending South of the Sahara. It seemed “empty” or inhospitable, but I started reading about its inhabitants and their culture as well. Chad had indeed a relatively low population density. Later my attention shifted to other, equally interesting parts of Africa.

Still, I remember my fascination with the country Chad, and why I had that. Now I think it’s time to focus more deeply on Chad. Having studied more intensively other parts of Africa that got my interest over time, also related to music and percussion (and other interests and passions) of mine, especially Nigeria, Congo, Uganda, Ivory Coast, Guinea, and Ethiopia, all varied an intriguing areas as well. I am glad I studied them.

Having learned about these other African countries, Chad in reality only became more interesting: how does Chad relate to those other parts of the African continent? It is an interest that “connects” to these other ones I learned about, you can say.

I can also look from the perspective of my interests culture, music, and percussion. Southern Nigeria and Congo influenced my percussion playing as musician – to put it somewhat simplified, but still factual. For this blog, I also delved a bit into Hausa culture and music (in northern Nigeria). What has Chad then to offer musically? Always an interesting question, of course.

DEAD HEART

Quite negatively, Chad is sometimes called “the dead heart of Africa”. Its Saharan, inhospitable location and barren territory made some call that. Too negative, because the dramatic Sahara has an undeniable “strong” and overwhelming character, making – as it did with my Syrian friend – realize his own nullity and futility. Besides, also in the less populous Sahara part (the northern half of Chad), and the half-desert Sahel part (central Chad) people live their for ages, mostly living nomadically. The more fertile, savanna-like South is more populated, largely by the Sara people, a Nilotic people with an interesting culture, more akin to other parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Northern and Central Chad are inhabited by nomadic Fulani, Arab, Toubou, and other peoples. The Fulani are racially mixed, and even what are called “Arabs’, are by now quite mixed with “black” Africans.

Like with the Hausa, Arab and Islamic influences are also there, and most people in the Northern half of Chad embraced Islam, albeit in their own way, and most often Sufi (milder, freer) variants. The Sara in south Chad are mostly Christian (again: in their own way) or maintained ancient, animist beliefs.

Interesting variation, although of course the result of “colonial” borders, reflecting French colonial interests. The ethnic groups in Chad share in fact only that European colonial interests made them part of the same country, but that applies to other countries as well.

SHORT HISTORY

The Islamic Northern Muslims “bothered” and molested the non-Muslim Black African Sara and others in south Chad, and regularly enslaved them (slave raids) in the past, so it’s not a tension- or conflict-free past.

Under French colonialism later, the Southern Chad was deemed more “utile”, or “useful” than the more arid, lesser populated North, for French economic (read: exploiting) goals. The French colonial system invested thus more among the Sara and neighbouring peoples, leading to some degree to an “assimilation” within the colonial system and economy. This – albeit vulnerable – upper economic hand of more populated southern Chad thus became an ironic change of relative power toward those once raided to enslave by Muslims from the North.

After independence from France, since 1960, came – after a hopeful beginning – dictatorships, several coups d’etats, civil wars, and political violence up to recently. An unfortunately all-too-familiar neo-colonial trajectory. Tensions between the Islamic North and the Sara-dominated South of Chad recurred in internal power tensions, up to the present. Sometimes external North African or Islamic support to Northern Chad rebels against the South, increased military conflicts.

This has in a broad sense several parallels within Africa. It is comparable to what happened in Nigeria (British colonial emphasis on Christian South), Benin, Cameroon, though different from elsewhere in Africa, such as Sudan, where Muslims in the North remained dominant.

The later independence struggle also began in Chad’s South. After independence in 1960 – as elsewhere – remained a dependency on the West (France, Esso and other multinationals) and neo-colonialism forced its independence toward failure, even though the discovery of “oil” and a risen petroleum industry, brought wealth into the country after 2000. Predictably this ended up primarily in Western pockets, and the remainder among a wealthy elite in Chad, especially in the South. According to critics, these economic gains hardly “trickled down”, though the government claimed it increased crucial investments in health and education.

Whatever is the truth, poverty levels remain high and the society unequal. Life expectancy is a bit over 50 years, in Chad (to compare: a bit over 80 years in the Netherlands)..

Thus contextualized, I can relate Chad better to other African countries, after all a goal of studying something.

Most interesting as a person I consider cultural history. What ethnic groups came to constitute Chad, what are their cultural customs, their location, and differences among them?

COMPARING

Again, similarities with other parts of Africa. The widespread Fulani people, found in a large part of “Sahel” Africa, from Gambia and Mali in the west, to Nigeria in the south, and Sudan in the West, are quite present in central parts, whereas the South is inhabited by the sedentary, farming Sara people, speaking a Nilo-Saharan language. In North Chad, the nomadic people include Arabs, but also Toubous, Islamic, but speaking a Nilo-Saharan language, travelling through the Sahara.

Not much use to repeat what each person can study for oneself through the Internet (Wikipedia, documentaries) about the general history and characteristics of Chad.

What is I think more interesting for my blog is how I can relate it to other countries or themes I personally studied, also for this blog. More interesting and more educational, albeit shaped by my personal interests.

CULTURE AND MUSIC

Southern Chad, dominated by sedentary farming, has a more Central African culture, with more drums, and also the balafon (xylophone-like) instrument found in Africa from Senegal to Moçambique, calabash resonators (discussed on my blog before), also common throughout Africa. Maracas-like shakers are also used. Musical structures I could find information and examples from, tend to be polyrhythm-based.

The North and Centre/East of Chad is mostly Islamic, with Arab and North African influences, mixing with local (e.g. Fulani) or Toubou (Nilo-Saharan people, but islamicized). Whereas the Sara and related peoples in the South of Chad are racially Black, the Chadians of the North and Centre tend to range from light Berber-like to (mostly) mixed-raced (with dark Africans). Ironically, this increased with the slave raids.

Musically, also in line with what I studied before, string instruments’ dominance, like the zither, show Arab/North African influences.

More peculiar, though also found among the Hausa (I also discussed the Hausa people on this blog), are a long metal trumpet, and further the use of flutes and whistles used by the Kanembu and Sara peoples in other parts (the South) of Chad, often mixed with kodjo drums. The Fulani also use single-reed flutes.

There seems to be no use of Talking Drums in Chadian traditional music (which I could find, anyway), unlike the Hausa in Northern Nigeria and bordering Niger. This makes me hypothesize that the Talking Drum is an influence from Nigeria’s South (the Yoruba know talking drums), or Sahel areas West of Nigeria, on the Hausa in Nigeria.

Harps are also known in the South of Chad, so the distinction: string instruments in Islamic North, and percussion and wind instruments in the South, is appropriate, though somewhat generalized.

The varied cultures within Chad, often mix own ethnic traditions with Islam or Christianity, in an interesting way.

The landscape variety adds an extra dimension I find interesting. Nomadic people in the desert-like North and Centre of Chad, like all nomadic peoples, cannot travel with too much material culture, like e.g. large musical instruments. Less trees to make drums as well, logically. Nomadic people – like the Gypsies in Europe -, combine an own culture flexibly with cultures they encounter, adopting and adapting it even. This happened with Flamenco music in Southern Spain, whereas related Roma gypsies in Bulgaria and Romania adopted musical aspects from there (more violins), quite different from Flamenco.

This nomadic travelling in Chad, and the ethnic/racial mixing, enabled some flexible cultural adaptations, within the same Islamic-influenced context. Also the Sara people in the South of Chad remained connected with bordering Central African peoples (e.g. in Cameroun and Central African Republic), including cultural influences.

This makes Chad much more than the negative description as “dead heart of Africa” by outsiders, only thinking of their own interests and loyalties. This reflects the common problem of colonization and exploitation of many African countries: only used by foreigners for selfish, external interests, with no interest in the people, let alone improving the lot of the Chadian people themselves.

Thus contextualized, I would like to focus on one of my main interests: African music. Interestingly, I can also relate it to what I learned thus far – throughout my life, partly reflected on this blog and on my music – about African music, and music in general.

BORDERS

As mentioned already, like most other African countries at present, the borders of Chad are externally imposed – according to foreign interests - , explaining the wide variety of ethnic groups, not sharing so much before – or even in conflict -, cultures and livelihood/economic choices, and variety in landscapes and natural conditions.

Of course, this can also be found in European countries, but the borders of countries like Spain or France were decided by internal elites, rather than foreign ones: kings with kingdoms joining forces, royal intermarriages, and so on, or at times belated “nationalist” movements uniting smaller states (Germany, Italy), based on some sense of a common identity.

This “common identity” was at the start absent in the case of Chad, though also in some “elite-constructed” European countries this should not be exaggerated (peoples like Frysians or Basques crossing borders, internal regional differences in France, Spain, or Italy – many dialects – or Spain, Flemish and Welsh in Belgium, Muslims and Albanians in former Yugoslavia, etcetera) .

In the case of Chad – as it was even imposed by foreigners with no ties to it - it was even more artificial, and remained as such. The animist/Christian South of Chad, where the Sar(a) people live, are culturally a world apart from the Muslim North, despite political ‘streamlining” efforts, not unlike as happened in Nigeria, and continuing conflicts.

The nomadic peoples in Northern Chad still tend to cross borders (Fulani, Arabs, Toubou) with Niger, Sudan, Lybia, and other countries.

MUSICAL COMPARISONS

From a musical perspective, much of the knowledge I have acquired about African music, percussion, and musical culture in general, can also be applied to Chad. That’s the interesting thing about learning gradually and organically.

In a general sense, that is, with peculiarities in the case of Chad.

Anthropologists and musicologists like Robert Farris-Thompson and Ned Sublette made the useful distinction in categorizing African music, also in relation to the African diaspora (slave trade of Africans to the Americas). “Sahel or Griot” Africa, with Islamic influences (string instruments, more mono-rhythmic, less drums, the “swing” principle), and “clave” or “forest” Africa, with “clave”-based (key) rhythms, polyrhythmic structures (several rhythms at the same time), and in general more percussion and drums.

“Griot Africa” influenced Blues and Jazz, “forest Africa” Afro-Cuban/Latin music, to put it in a simplified manner (in Afro-Jamaican Reggae you find both, for instance).

This can easily be applied to Chad as well, having a desert in the North, arid steppe (Sahel) in central parts, and a more fertile, wooded (in fact: Savanna) part in the South. The Griot and Sahel influence can be found in central parts, among the Fulani and others, with string instruments like the zither or lute being more dominant with some drums (mostly mono-rhythmic, but meandering), and the use of melisma (stretching a note over several vowels) vocally, a bit in line with the “meandering” instrumental patterns. Less straight or multiple rhythms as in the South. These are in part adapted North African and Arab influences.

In a general sense this applies, but in the details are more peculiarities, and own ways in which the various ethnic groups in Chad shape their own cultures, often with interesting, creative and unique aspects. Culture is after all not just expressing heritage, but also personal creativity, albeit in the African context often mediated socially, rather than in the detached, ego-driven “stardom” idea, more common in the Western world.

The polyrhythms in southern Chad are partly provided by the common use of Balafons (types of Xylophones, with calabash resonators) combined with several drums (some with steady rhythms, other varying, as elsewhere in Africa), harps and flutes. Crucially, the balafons, whistles, add rhythmic layers and patterns - interacting with the drums - rather than leading melodies, as would be more the case in other musical cultures.

What some people in Europe seemed to have forgotten, is that this music is also meant to dance to, in line with its inherent “rhythmicality”. In the South of Chad, this is more exuberant (shaking the whole body), also for women, while in the North this is limited due to Islamic norms of (erotic and female, public) restraint. To a degree, as dancing is nonetheless also common in the North and Centre of Chad.

There, where nomadic people live, there are some interesting, “flexible” cultural, musical aspects, somewhat countering the “serious” Islamic or conservative norms, with joyful festivities, clapping and dancing, reminding somewhat of Gypsy, Roma music in Europe, or elsewhere, with lively, merry expressions, found in e.g. Flamenco as well. The mostly non-fundamentalist, musical minded Sufi interpretation of Islam in Chad, also helps. While not as rhythmically advanced as music from Chad’s South, it still has interesting rhythmic syncopations and flows, as also found among the Griot or Jeli (with e.g. the Kora lute/harp) musicians, also travelers and nomadic, in Guinea, and other Mande-speaking areas of West Africa. This thus connects with that Griot culture in “Sahel” Africa, to repeat the anthropological categorization of Farris-Thompson and others.

Still rhythmically interesting, but more subtly, than more to the South (“forest”, Central Africa), to which southern Chad (with the Sara people) connects more. The rhythms of these arid and Sahara areas interestingly seem to mimic the camel’s cadence, in a “groovy” way. This has similarities with modernized Tuareg music (with Mali/Mande influences), such as from the well-known Saharan (Algerian) band Tinariwen.

CONCLUDING

When one reads the English Wikipedia article on Chad, one notices the problematic aspects: extreme poverty, underdevelopment, lack of democracy, and political violence, plaguing Chad up to today. A counterpoint – or response – to it is the interesting culture , with certainly room for “joy”, among all ethnic groups, mixing influences from African animism with Christianity in the South, and Islam in the North.

Culture is what you get when people are left to their own devices, undisturbed, seeking love, connection, and beauty. Politics is disturbance, limitation, greed, corruption, and power.

There seem to exist “political animals” among humans, actually liking the dynamics of such political power games, the spectacular fight for power, political parties in competition, etcetera.. I am not one of those. Like Jamaican Reggae singer Peter Tosh, who said “I am not a politician, I only face the consequences of politics”, I only feel the need to address politics when hindered by it, and bothered in my human, cultural efforts.

My fascination with Chad, even as a child starting to read, always was about curiosity in its landscapes (Sahara and South of it), how people lived there, their ethnicity, their culture, and their music. “Anthropological”, one might say, “exoticism”, perhaps, but at least more “kosher” (pure) than exploiters and economic and political powers historically and presently, taking mere mercenary or geopolitical interests in a country like Chad, betraying themselves as predatory, materialistic “money sharks” and/or political animals.

Focussing on humanity and culture, I thus found out that Chad is not a “dead heart”, neither the “dead heart of Africa”, albeit with a low population density (as all desert and arid areas on this world).

Finally, - to bring my point home that Chad is not a “dead heart” - I can recommend two ways to study that oneself, through the Internet. One is an interesting documentary from 1989 to be found online (on YouTube) about one nomadic ethnic Fulani group in Western Chad (also living in Niger) and a cultural, “mating” festivity (men dancing and showing charm to women who choose them.. all playfully, and kind of “cute”, without macho nonsense). It is called ‘Wodaabe: herdsmen of the sun’, and is made by famous German filmmaker Werner Herzog, surprising his followers with this “ethnographic” change of documentary repertoire.

The other one is an extensive and educational playlist of folk music videos and recordings someone (a Steven White) made on YouTube, combining examples of recorded and filmed music from all parts and most ethnic groups of Chad (there are over 200): the polyrhythmic, “Central African” South, and the Islamic/Saharan North, and in-between. Several interesting musical examples, showing also representative instruments and dances.

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.