African Americans or West Africans -cultural ties

[Sir X]

Nice gotta be some Latin influences on Jamaica ,what is rumba music,is it the instruement or the cuban influence ?

They sing about dancing the rumba and playing the rumba whats that about ?

[Sir X]

I just googled it up...The marímbula became quite popular in Jamaica in conjunction with guitars, drums, maracas, and vocals in the churches, where it was known as church and clap, in nightclubs where it was known as jazz jim, and among the various hotel performers, who played mento music. It can still be found in use by mento musicians such as The Jolly Boys.[citation needed]

[Peter R]

I think I would put Cesaria Evora in my top ten African (black) singers... I love the soothing quality of her voice.

[Mosiah]

Osibisa did the Coffee in Brazil song! Love it! Not familiar with their other stuff but I will check them out.

I thought they were American for some reason.

[Stonigut]

Yeah you are right, maybe not so remarkable as the dominant media machine is truly Anglo American dominated, thus in effect those cultures closest to that machine gets maximum exposure thus african American and English Afro Caribbean especially Jamaica as the dominant player in that mix.

[Stonigut]

I listened to a few of her songs , very interesting stuff, great voice, but it did not hold me like a Celia Cruz, Celia brought the whole package song, dance and a commanding presence.

[Stonigut]

I think the connection between Jamaican music and American music in the pre ska era is given way too much weight and talk and in truth it was merely a blip on the horizon, given more time and energy as someone was awake at that particular time looking at the horizon, the culture was very awake at that time due to the rapid changes post ww2 and pre independence movement.


I would call this era the emergence of the modern media, radio era, when lots of people gained some access to a non jamaican, outside the immediate region sound via radio in the fifties but prior to that it was mento,calypso, rumba, and a ton of Caribbean Spanish based sounds, remember Jamaicans were very mobile between panama, Honduras, Costa Rica, Cuba, dr and pr in the time of the drogers and there was a lot of sail/steam based travel for work during that time . The dancehall pre the sound system was truly a mento based band with those near regional influences plus classical african and European influences through dance based sounds of the 19th and 18th century such as quadrilles etc of which there are still remnants of that culture today.

[Stonigut]

Fully agree X, the mento, band style with fife, banjo even violin was prevalent in jamaican dance halls in the country up through the fifties. Sound system destroyed this movement. I was very surprised when I went to live in New York in the 80 and 90s the strong connection that Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Cubans, Colombians had with Afro based hand played music at their parties, they in some senses had a closer connection to Afro roots and culture in an organic way that we in jamaica especially those of us who grew up in the sound system/record culture.

[Islandman]

Don't disagree with much of that Stoni. The radio era is when black American music became a dominant force in Jamaica, and then the local sound system movement reinforced that.

[Sir X]

I believe that also, we have documented history of jazz clashes between Jamaicans in Jamaica and from Panama,I also found more documentation of a C. Rican with Jamaican roots telling the story of how he traded with Jamaicans on the pier for ska records,more documentary of a Mexican coming to Jamaica to learn to play ska,The skatalittes did a song latin goes ska,Carlos Malcolm was born in panama .

Mento was taken there obviously by migrant workers.Time changes things and no doubt more changes are on the way.Boso nova jazz from brazil has a place in my heart..melachony.The American influence is here to stay as for its commercial dominance time will tell,reggaeton is growing like crazy...