t Woman in elaborate feathered carnival costume in Trinidad and Tobago
The melting pot of island cultures has made the Caribbean a major breeding ground for musical genres, and the love of music and dance is difficult to exaggerate. Music festivals and carnivals are a key aspect of the Caribbean heritage, drawing travelers the world over for calypso, reggae, and salsa.
t Woman in elaborate feathered carnival costume in Trinidad and Tobago
Islands around the Caribbean explode in a riot of color, music, motion, and fanciful costume for carnivals. The biggest of all is in Trinidad, but The Bahamas has its own variant called Junkanoo, Barbados has Crop Over, and Haiti hosts Defile Kanaval. The Caribbean concept of Carnival came about during the slave era. Colonial masters allowed their slaves to vent off steam in once-a-year parties. Their irreverent parodies of their masters’ pre-Lenten masquerade balls evolved into carnivals – the elaborate spectacles celebrated today in most of the Caribbean.
Calypso, or “steel pan,” is the very drumbeat, if not the heartbeat, of Trinidad and Tobago, where the unmistakably tropical sound of tin-drum bands, known as “pannists,” resonates through the islands. Faster, syncopated soca (which incorporates elements of funk, soul, and zouk) is the quintessential sound of carnival.
Visiting Cuba or Puerto Rico without dancing salsa is like visiting France without tasting the wine. To learn the moves and give your hips some attitude, sign up for a dance class and perfect your skills before painting Havana red, hitting the nightclubs of San Juan in Puerto Rico, or sampling the sizzling bars of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic.
These twin and twangy musical genres are the music of choice in the Dominican Republic, and like all Caribbean musical genres they have their own dances forms. The two-step beat of fast and lively merengue is ideal for dancing with a partner, while mournful bachata typically offers slow, plaintive odes to lost loves, although in recent years it has become more upbeat and sometimes incorporates electronic sounds.
Born in Jamaica, and forever associated with the spiritually inspired songs of Bob Marley, the island’s famous former resident, this is the defining music of the Caribbean. In its island birthplace, you are never far from its infectious syncopated, toe-tapping beat pulsing from buses, beaches, and bars.