Music

This section was gathered and edited by Cordell Thompson, local Exuma Historian and Director of the Pompey Center for Studies in Traditional Art, Music, Food and the Unresolved Mysteries. He credits The New York Times for much of his research.

Mr. Thompson served over 30 years with the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism. Among his many contributions, he concepted the long-running “It’s Better in the Bahamas” strategy and spearheaded development of The Bahamas Film Commission.

Bahamian Musical Traditions — From Goombay to the Music of Today

Bahamians embrace most musical forms, reggae, dancehall soca and worldbeat music heard from Capetown to New York to Port of Spain.

The traditional music of the Bahamas is Goombay and is related to that of the American mainland and the Caribbean, combining the musical traditions from Africa with that of the European colonial experience. Goombay is the Bantu word for “rhythm” and the name given to the particular type of drum used in the music.

Learn more about music of the Bahamas.

The Goatskin Drum & Junkanoo

Usually made from goatskin stretched tightly over a keg, the goatskin drum is the centerpiece of the gently rolling rhythm of all Bahamian music. The musical form of Junkanoo is derived from the traditions of Goombay, although since the 1960s, the musical form strayed from its more traditional style into a louder, more rapid and cacophonous sound that assumed the name of the festival and parade that celebrates Boxing Day, the day after Christmas, and again on New Year’s Day.

Junkanoo is now the most predominate musical form, and the Goombay traditions are preserved in the rake and scrape bands which hearken back to a simpler time in the islands when there were fewer resources. The typical rake and scrape band had a drum, a saw which was scraped with either a file or some other hard metal, a wash tub with a string through it and tied to a three-foot stick which served as a modified bass violin, maracas and rhythm guitars. But they cannot respectably call themselves rake and scrape without the saw and drums.

From the 1920s to the mid-1970s, basic rake and scrape bands were modified with either a piano, horns, or guitar and even banjos and were simply called Goombay bands. The musical form is also known in Bermuda.

Learn more – Ophie Webb Explains Bahamian Rake-n-Scrape Music.

Goombay is also still a popular musical form in Africa as noted by New York Times writer David Height in an October 20, 2000 article, headlined, “Dance Sustains the Spirit After Devastating War.” Height was covering the aftermath of the civil war in Guinea-Bissau when he recognized the impact music played in the recovery of that West African country.

Height observed that despite the ravages of an eleven-month ordeal the capital city was alive with discotheques.

“These discotheques wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the popularity of the local music, gumbe, as it is called, which is based on a traditional rhythm, in villages across the country, the women mostly dance it while he men tap the beat on a half of a giant gourd that floats upside down in a basin of water. The drum makes a gurgling sound somewhat like the word gumbe.”

We may spell it differently here, but we know where it came from.

Goombay has also influenced religious music heard outside established Anglican and Roman Catholic denominations. In Baptist churches, anthems were developed from hymns, which a leader would line off to the chorus. The rhyming spiritual is sung in three parts, led by a rhymer as well as a bass and an alto. Singing is an integral part of a religious shouting meeting, a setting up called a wake in other cultures, or a concert (where a particular kind of song is sung during the rush or rally).