Gordon Barlow

There's not much here about the Caribbean countries as a whole. That's a pity, because this is a wonderfully varied part of the world.

There are very few full-blooded aboriginals alive today (Caribs, Lucayans, Arawaks). We're mostly ethnic Europeans, Africans, and a mixture of those two, plus some inter-mixture with Indians ("East Indians") and Chinese. Our languages reflect our heritage - English, French, Spanish and Dutch, plus a variety of creoles (patois) based on those languages.

Most of the countries are independent these days (at least on paper), but not all. Britain, France, Holland and the USA have colonies. Some of the islands are not even Caribbean, technically: Bahamas, Barbados and Turks & Caicos are outside the Caribbean Sea, and Bermuda is way up north. Some of them are international tax-havens and therefore rich; I've no idea why the rest of them aren't! This is just a bare introduction. More to come. Feel free to contribute.

Gordon Barlow

Here's an introduction to calypso music, for those who need an intro. She's been around for a long time now, but reportedly is still performing on stage. Below is a song of hers from forty years ago, but Google has a good long clip of her in 2019 at a German concert in Wurzburg. It starts off with an interview and then segues into the concert. She's showing her age, but that happens with all musical stars.

Gordon Barlow

And then there were singers like "The Mighty Sparrow" who satirised the old education system and the rubbish that we were burdened with. Here is Sparrow telling us about "Dan is the man in the van". We old codgers remember that!