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Home > Music of Turks and Caicos Islands


 

The Turks and Caicos Islands are an overseas dependency of the United Kingdom. They are most well known for ripsaw music.

British Caribbean Other Anglophone islands
Anguilla Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica
Bermuda Antigua and Barbuda
Montserrat Bahamas and Dominica
Turks and Caicos Barbados and St. Lucia
Caymans Grenada and St. Kitts and Nevis
Virgin Islands St. Vincent and the Grenadines
Timeline and Samples
Pop genres Bouyon - Calypso - Chutney - Dancehall - Dub - Junkanoo - Raggamuffin - Rapso - Reggae - Ripsaw - Rocksteady - Scratch - Ska - Soca - Spouge - Steelpan
Other islands
Aruba and the Dutch Antilles - Cuba - Dominican Republic - Haiti - Martinique and Guadeloupe - Puerto Rico

Ripsaw is accompanied by an array of instruments, including maracas, triangles, box guitar , conga drums , goat and cowski drums, accordion, concertina and, most prominently and uniquely, the carpenter saw .

The use of the saw (which is the origin of the term ripsaw) is of uncertain origin, but may be in imitation of the Dominican and Haitian guido or exiled slaves from the United States reproducing the shekere and djembe, traditional African instruments. Ripsaw is also known in the Bahamas, or at least a closely related style called rake and scrape . There, rake and scrape is closely associated with Cat Island, the home of many expatriate Turks and Caicos islanders who moved there looking for working the 1920s, 30s and 40s. Many Bahamanian musicians are from the islands, including The Cooling Waters , Sly Roker , Bradley Dean , Marvin Handfield , Perry Delancy , Leo Jones and Count Bernardino . Many of thes expatriates have since returned to Turks and Caicos, bringing with them Bahamanian junkanoo music.

Modern ripsaw pioneers include Lovey Forbes , who created a new style called combina in the early 1980s, using genres from across the Caribbean and the US as inspiration.

British music Caribbean musicThe music of the Caribbean is a diverse grouping of musical genres. They are each syntheses of African, European, Indian and native influences. Some of the styles to gain wide popularity outside of the Caribbean include reggae, zouk, salsa and calypso.

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