The islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe, with French Guiana the South American mainland are former French colonies incorporated into the French nation in 1946 as overseas départements. Colonized in the early 1600s, Martinique and Guadeloupe quickly became two of France’s most lucrative possessions. Slavery ended in the 1840s, but until the end of World War II the islands retained a primarily agricultural economy based on the labour of a largely African-descended population. Since becoming départements in 1946, the islands have seen rapid urbanization plus large-scale migration to metropolitan France.
In each department a full range of internationally circulating music exists, from Western classical to rock, jazz, rap and Caribbean popular styles such as salsa and reggae. This article discusses only the major indigenous genres; musical terms are in Creole, the language of the majority of people (French is the official language).
JULIAN GERSTIN
In Martinique (as elsewhere in the Caribbean) slaves were allowed their own dances outdoors on Saturday afternoons and nights, after Mass on Sundays and on holidays. Music also accompanied koud’min (Fr. coups de main) work parties, typically for farming and house-building. Early slave dances of the French Antilles and other islands were frequently (and perhaps indiscriminately) labelled kalenda, bamboula, djouba or chica in colonial literature. Descriptions of each of these varied; one common theme involved drums laid on the ground with the drummer straddling the drum and using one heel to change the pitch, often with a second percussionist striking the side of the drum with a pair of sticks. These practices suggest a Central African (Congolese) derivation. Choreography included solo dances and group circle dances; however, slaves soon adapted slaveowners’ choreography. In the early 1700s French contredanse, with the basic pattern of two facing lines, became popular; a 1722 account by Labat of a dance he saw in Martinique and called kalenda (but which closely resembles today’s mabelo) described this choreography. Quadrille (kwadril) became popular in France about 1780 and spread through the New World in the early 1800s. In Martinique at least two adaptations of quarille developed: bèlè (Fr. belair) from the North Atlantic region and haute taille (or réjane) from the mid-Atlantic.
After Abolition the most frequent rural dance events were secular entertainments known as swaré and held on weekend nights in large outdoor sheds (paillasse). Admission was charged and food and drink were sold. Until the 1980s, various dance styles remained strongly regional. Those of the North Atlantic region, around the town of Sainte-Marie, have enjoyed the greatest prestige due to the influence of roughly a dozen large families that for several generations have specialized in performance at a virtuoso level. North Atlantic dance genres include bèlè, lalin klé and kalenda. Bèlè includes bidjin bèlè, bèlia, gran bèlè, bèlè pitché and bèlè marin; all use kwadril format, but with their own movements, songs and drum patterns. The main type of performance is swaré bèlè and is held on weekend nights; theoretically, it is open to all, but participation as a dancer, drummer or lead singer is limited to knowledgeable performers who perform sets of five or six dances and then yield the floor to others. In contrast, lalin klé (‘full moon’) dances are loosely choreographed, with the lead singer acting as konmandé (caller), and are open to all. Formerly held on nights of a full moon, lalin klé are now danced at swaré bèlè as opportunities for everyone to participate. They include ting bang and woulé mango, both circle dances, and bènèzwél, kanigwé and mabelo, line dances derived from contredanse. Swaré bèlè are also the setting for kalenda, a dance for successive soloists (formerly male, but now also female).
After World War II, modernization temporarily disrupted rural performance. The specialist performing families of Sainte-Marie found work in the folkloric troupes that emerged in the 1950s, but were largely ignored by urban audiences. In the 1980s, younger urban dwellers began reviving interest in traditional music; many were nationalists and viewed bèlè as an emblem of their ethnic heritage. They turned mainly to the Sainte-Marie performers for knowledge and inspiration, so that the Sainte-Marie dances are now the best known of Martinique’s regional traditions, danced at swaré bèlè sponsored by non-profit cultural organizations, cultural centres, towns or quartiers on the occasion of their annual fête patronale and by restaurant or cockfighting pit owners. Tourist shows at hotels provide non-participatory contexts.
Other regional traditions include the above-mentioned haute taille (réjane) and bèlè du sud, a complex of dances from the south with movements and music similar to Sainte-Marie bèlè but danced by an unspecified number of couples. Certain regional work musics are still remembered but no longer used for work: the North Atlantic fouyté and the Northern caribbean lasoté, both of which probably accompanied communal planting; and lavwa bèf, songs encouraging oxen to work.
Danmyé (or ladjia), traditionally performed throughout the island (including the cities) and recently revived along with bèlè, is similar to the Brazilian capoiera in its combination of dance and combat.
Sainte-Marie bèlè, kalenda and danmyé are all accompanied on the tanbou bèlè drum (also called ka by older musicians). The lone drummer plays both steady rhythmic patterns and improvisations marking choreographic changes. The drum is single-headed, open at one end and about 65 cm high with a goatskin head about 30 cm in diameter. The transverse playing style allows not only heel control, which is found on several other Caribbean islands (e.g. Jamaican kumina and Haitian djouba), but also a lateral twisting of the left forearm and wrist that creates a continuous roll with the left fingers and sustains the stronger notes struck by the right hand. This technique is similar to that of many frame drums (e.g. Brazilian pandeiro and Puerto Rican pandereta).
A second musician plays a steady ostinato on the side of the drum with tibwa (Fr. petit bois), a pair of sticks about 40 cm long and 1·5 cm thick. Sometimes tibwa are played on a length of bamboo mounted on a stand. Often a chacha (single-cylinder metal rattle) or two are added to the ensemble, but are considered extra. In practice more than one drummer may accompany a dance, but taking turns. Two tibwa players often play simultaneously. In lalin klé and bèlè du sud, however, two or three drummers play in near-unison.
The tibwa patterns are considered the basic rhythm of the dance; ex.1 illustrates the two most frequent patterns. Call-and-response singing completes the ensemble, with the lead singers choosing the sequence of dances through their selection of songs. All songs are in Creole and concern relations between the sexes, local gossip and current politics.
The mid-Atlantic quadrille dances are usually accompanied by accordion, violin, chacha and tanbou di bas, a frame drum played by both striking and rubbing. One player acts as konmandé, directing the dancers. In common with other quadrille adaptations throughout the Caribbean, quadrilles from Martinique involve a ‘set’ of dances, each with its own choreography and music. In the mid-1990s only one quadrille group was active.
Carnival is found in both urban centres and towns. It has had a complex history, waxing and waning with economic and demographic changes. During the 20th century (until World War II) musique Créole bands (see §3) riding on carts or trucks played a fast style of biguine known as biguine vidé, or simply vidé. Carnival declined during the war and did not fully resurge until the 1980s, when groups à pied, marching bands of 50 or more percussionists and brass players, plus costumed dancers, became popular. In most vidé songs the band acts as the song leader while onlookers shout the responses. Percussion consists of drumkit components, homemade drums built from plastic plumbing and food containers, tanbou débonda, gwoka, chacha, tibwa and various struck bells.
Groups à pied are organized mainly as cultural associations, identified with specific neighbourhoods. In Carnival they perform alongside other forms of music and display, including theme-costumed groups, traditional individual masqueraders, spontaneous vidés of friends and hangers-on, biguine song contests, costume contests, decorated cars and floats, and paid-admission parties (zouks).
Chanté Noël is a fairly recent tradition, consisting of lively biguines and mazouks (mazurkas) on Christmas themes, sung informally at Christmas parties. Chouval bwa (‘wooden horse’) was originally played for hand-pushed carousels, of which only one remains. The repertory consists of musique Créole; instrumentation includes accordion, clarinet, saxophone, bamboo flute, tibwa (played on bamboo), tanbou débonda (‘two-buttocks drum’, a two-headed cylindrical drum played horizontally with sticks) and assorted percussion.
Guadeloupean gwoka drumming (§2) became popular with urban youth in the 1960s and has been indigenized; in fact, gwoka is better known in Martinique than bèlè. Although the initial interest in gwoka arose from the nationalist-ethnic movement retour aux sources (inspired by the négritude of political leader Aimé Césaire), this specific meaning has largely been lost.
Documentation of slave music is better for Guadeloupe than for Martinique. In the 1600s and 1700s rural slaves’ free-time musical dances were known as bamboula or gwotambou (Fr. gros tanbou); there were also koud’min. In towns, sociétés (mutual aid societies) developed in order to raise funds to purchase slaves’ freedom, to pay for funerals and for entertainment. Their organization was often elaborate, with hierarchical ‘royal courts’. They sponsored regularly occurring music and dance events, with entrance fees and, in some cases, written invitations. This form of organization spread into the countryside, so that after Abolition (if not sooner) these societies existed for both balakadri (quadrille balls) and bamboulas.
Guadeloupean balakadri persisted into the 20th century and, despite disruption after World War II, made a comeback in the 1980s. The Guadeloupean-administered island of Marie-Galante has also had a vital and well-documented balakadri tradition. As in Martinique (and the Creole-speaking island of St Lucia), kwadril dances are in sets consisting of proper quadrilles, plus creolized versions of 19th-century couple dances: biguines, mazouks and valses Créoles. Instrumentation consists of variable combinations of accordion, guitar, violin, tanbou dibas, chacha (either a single metal cylinder as in Martinique, or a spherical calabash without a handle, held in both hands), malakach (maracas), triangle, bwa (tibwa) and syak, a bamboo rasp one metre long, grooved on both top and bottom, held with one end on the belly and the other on a door or wall and scraped with both hands. A konmandé completes the ensemble.
By the 20th century bamboula dances became known as swaréléwòz (Fr. soirées la rose) or simply léwòz, after the La Rose société (various La Rose associations with differing purposes, but usually incorporating music, are found in St Lucia, French Guiana and elsewhere). After 1946 formal drum sociétés lapsed, but the drumming tradition was revitalized by urban youth during the 1960s; as in Martinique, the revival incorporated nationalist politics. The revitalized tradition is often termed gwoka after the drums used, while dance events are swaréléwòz, kout tanbou (‘drum stroke’) or kout mizik (‘music stroke’).
The term gwoka may derive from gros ka (‘big drum’), or from Bantu ngoma (drum). A gwoka ensemble consists of from two to five boula, drums built very much like the tanbou bèlè of Martinique and played transversely (occasionally with heel technique) plus one makyé (Fr. marqueur), a smaller, higher-pitched drum held upright between the legs. The boula play in near-unison while the makyé matches the rhythm and energy of the dancers. One or more calabash chacha may be added, as well as tibwa played on bamboo (some musicians state that tibwa has only recently been adopted from Martinique).
The seven traditional rhythms are léwòz, graj, woulé, toumblak, padjanbèl, menndé and kaladja. Dancing is largely improvised (though some defined steps exist) by successive soloists (male and female). Songs are in call-and-response form, in Creole, and concern relations between the sexes and topical matters.
Funeral wakes have two contrasting traditions. Outside the house, men perform bouladjèl (‘mouth drum’), a call-and-response, competitive percussive vocalization. Song leaders change frequently as singers challenge one another. Inside, women sing kantikamò (Fr. cantiques à la mort), also in call-and-response form. The men arrive on their own to support the mourners while the women are invited and their songs dedicated to the dead and the spiritual world.
Martial arts dance forms also exist, known as mayolé, sovéyan and bènaden. Each is accompanied by gwoka ensemble and call-and-response singing.
Carnival music in Guadeloupe, mizik vidé, took a new turn in the 1980s, led by the group Akiyo, a large percussion-and-vocals ensemble featuring songs and costumes on strongly nationalist, anti-colonial themes. Percussion includes boula, makyé, tanbou bas (bass drums) with one and two heads, tanbou chan (a small high-pitched drum) and chacha.
Musique Créole (also musique traditionelle or patrimoine) refers to three song types dating from the 18th and 19th centuries: biguine, mazouk (mazurka) and valse Créole. Instrumentation varies, but typically includes some combination of clarinet, saxophone, trombone, accordion, bamboo flute, chacha, tibwa, drumkit, piano, bass and banjo. Biguine is the best-known of these styles outside the French Antilles, having been performed in Paris by emigrant musicians as early as the 1920s. Biguine is somewhat more associated with Guadeloupe and mazouk with Martinique. The ostinato patterns of tibwa form the rhythmic bass of both these styles.
Musique Créole continued to be popular through the 1950s and 60s in jazz big-band format, but by the late 60s audiences turned to foreign styles, first Haitian konpa dirèk (see Haiti, §II, 3(iii)) and then Dominican cadence. Not until the late 1970s did a new indigenous style, zouk, recapture the public. An invention of the group Kassav’, zouk featured singing in Creole, a rhythm section composed of musicians from both Guadeloupe and Martinique, a French horn section, multiple catchy melodies per song, tibwa-, gwoka- and vidé-based rhythms (laid over a base of konpa dirèk) and state-of-the-art production values. It appealed to Antilleans’ sense of both local identity and cosmopolitan modernity. Zouk has also had success in France, Francophone Africa and other Caribbean islands.
Certain more esoteric styles have also made an impact. During the 1970s and 80s singer and bamboo flautist Eugene Mona from Martinique recorded a series of intense, politically-charged songs based on an eclectic combination of biguine, gwoka, rock and reggae. The 1970s groups Falfrett, Difé and Pakatak mixed musique Créole and jazz with gwoka and other Afro-Caribbean percussion. Malavoi, an acoustic group led by pianist-composer Paul Rosine, boasted a four-violin front line and blended Martinican quadrille with jazz, adding zouk touches in the late 1980s. In Guadeloupe, guitarist-composer Gérard Lockel developed a jazz style based on the rhythms and modes of gwoka; although his experimental sound has been admired by musicians, it has not been widely popular, and the only Martinican bands to attempt a similar transformation (of bèlè) have been Bèlènou and Creativ’ Sim.
In the early 1990s Jamaican dancehall (a genre combining reggae with rapping) became popular among French Antillean youth, who responded with Ragga. While similar to dancehall, ragga is marked as French Antillean by rapping in Creole and the addition of a standard tibwa rhythm.
J.B. Labat: Nouveaux voyage aux isles de l’Amérique (Paris, 1722, 1972/R)
A. Bertrand: ‘Carnaval à la Martinique et à la Guadeloupe’, Parallèles, no.21 (1967), 4–15
A. Bertrand: ‘Notes par une définition du folklore antillais’, Parallèles, no.28 (1968), 5–19
M.-T. Julien-Lung Fou: Le carnaval aux Antilles (Fort-de-France, 1979)
J. Gabali: Diadyéé (Paris, 1980)
G. Lockel: Traité de gro ka moden: initiation à la musique guadeloupéenne (Guadeloupe, 1981)
M. Desroches: La musique traditionelle de la Martinique (Montreal, 1985)
M. Jallier and Y. Lassen: Musique aux Antilles/Mizik bô kay (Paris, 1985)
M.-C. Lafontaine, ed.: Les musiques guadeloupéennes dans le champ culturel afro-américain au sein des musiques du monde (Paris, 1986)
J. Rosemain: La musique dans la société antillaise, 1635–1902 (Paris, 1986)
J. Michalon: La ladjia: origine et practiques (Paris, 1987)
D. Cyrille: Quadrilles nègres: contribution à l’étude des musiques et danses introduites à la Martinique entre 1780 et 1840 (thesis, U. of Paris IV, 1989)
M. Desroches: Les instruments de musique traditionelle (Fort-de-France, 1989)
S. Cally-Lézin: Musiques et danses Afro-Caraïbes: Martinique (Gros Morne, Martinique, 1990)
M. Desroches: ‘La musique aux Antilles’, La grande encyclopédie de la Caraïbe, x, ed. D. Begot (n.p. [Italy], 1990), 178–93
A. and F. Uri: Musiques et musiciens de la Guadeloupe: le chant de Karukera (Paris, 1991)
Association Mi Mes Manmay Matnik: Notes techniques sur les instruments tibwa et tanbou dejanbe (Fort-de-France, 1992)
Association Mi Mes Manmay Matnik: Pour le renouveau du kalendda-bèlè (Fort-de-France, 1992)
E. Jean-Baptiste and M. Lechevalier: Mét’ Abèle, i (Fort-de-France, 1992)
J. Guilbault: Zouk: World Music in the West Indies (Chicago, 1993) [incl. E. Benoit: ‘Biguine, Popular Music of Guadeloupe (1940–1960)’, 53–67]
Association Mi Mes Manmay Matnik: Asou chimen danmyé (Fort-de-France, 1994)
J. Gerstin: Traditional Music in a New Social Movement: the Renewal of Bèlè in Martinique (French West Indies) (diss., U. of California, Berkeley, 1996)
Malavoi: La belle epoque, Hibiscus 082061 WM 302 (n.d.)
E. Mona: Eugene Mona, i: 1975–1978, Cocoround 88050-4; ii: 1981–1984, Cococound 88051–4 (n.d.)
Kassav’: Grands Succès, Sonodisc GDC10502 (1987)
E. Casérus: Ti Emile et son groupe folklorique de Ste-Marie of Martinique, Sully Cally SC93 (1993) [orig. issued 1971]
B. and P. Rastocle: Les Frères Rastocle, Sully Cally FRSC 94 (1994)
Akiyo: Dékatman, Déclic 50491 and 50492 (1995)
R. Grivalliers: Mi Bèlè-a, Auvidis Ethnic B 6828 (1996)
D. Murry, G. Lockel and others: Creole, Justin Time JUST 115–2 (1998)