MUSIC: Indo-Caribbean music and what it tells us about diaspora histories

By Isobel John

How does the study of music deepen our understanding of transnational histories and industries?

Music is a large part of cultures worldwide, and the study of music helps us when trying to deepen our understanding of transnational histories and industries. Music provides an insight into migration, including how people from the British Empire migrated, as well as where slave labour was being utilised during the 19th Century. The circumstances of migration and transnational populated countries meant that music evolved and changed greatly, and many new styles of music have been curated in cultural fusions because of this. During the transportation of Indian labourers to the Caribbean, sea shanties became more and more popular. And, as a result of new culture being integrated into the Caribbean countries, a type of music known as “chutney” was developed between the numerous cultures residing in one area. It is important that we remember these fusion genres of music, as they are a way of detailing transnational histories, which helps deepen our understanding of this history. In this essay I will be discussing sea shanties and the diaspora of Indian labourers, and why sugar plantations are important when discussing the history of Indo-Caribbean music. Also, using a case study of chutney music, I will discuss that looking into such music is a great tool when studying transnational histories and industries. I will also briefly discuss the case study by Ramnarine, about Bollywood films such as Om Shanti Om and Dulha Mil Gaya.

One example of how music helps expand our understanding of transnational histories is the type of music known as a “sea shanty.” Sea shanties are “work songs sung aboard ships and boats” (Winick, 2021). Sung by the sailors on large clipper ships, shanties “helped sailors keep time during the day’s labor” and even “provided the evening’s entertainment” (Zacharias, 2021). In their thesis on 19th century sea shanties, Risko suggests that shanties grew in popularity in the early 1800s and that this increase was because, “crews became smaller and the manual work proportionately harder” (Bowen, 1936 cited in Risko, 1999). The sole reason that sea shanties became such a prominent part of working life on clipper ships in the 1800s was due to the demand of work on sugar plantations from the West. At this time, “sugar cane cultivation became an economic powerhouse, and the growing demand for sugar stimulated the colonization of the New World by European powers” (Hancock, 2021). As a result of the emancipation of African slaves at the time, the Western powers turned to recruiting and shipping Indian labourers to the Caribbean (specifically the West Indies). The importance of sugar plantations within the British Empire was large, with them relying on the labourers of the plantations so they could consume coffee, tea, and cocoa. On the ships used to transport the labourers from India to the Caribbean, the men working on the ship would sing sea shanties. The lyrics of sea shanties are often about work. For example, the shanty titled “Eki Dumah, comes from the hindi ek dom, meaning “one man” (Cadbury, 2010). Winick also suggests that a shanty “isn’t technically a shanty unless it’s performed during work” (Winick, 2021). The history of the diaspora of Indian labourers is embedded in the music produced and performed on ships at the time of the sea shanty’s popularity. Sea shanties help us to deepen our understanding of Indian diaspora, and the British Empire’s transportation of Indian labourers at the time. We can learn about when Indian and Caribbean fused cultures began, as well as where and how the major Indo-Caribbean populations resided and grew into a significant population.

Diaspora is the action of a group of people being involuntarily moved from their original communities. Because of the British Empire’s transporting of Indian labourers to Caribbean countries, otherwise known as the diaspora of Indian people, the population of Indo-Caribbean grew in countries like Trinidad with an estimated population of 670,376 followed by Guyana (315,000) and Jamaica (101,000) (Wilson, 2021). As a result of the growing Indo-Caribbean populations, among other traditions of the cultures, music was one tradition that evolved and began to create Indo-Caribbean fusion music. Chutney music is one type of music that was created because of the Indian diaspora. In Ramnarine’s paper, she explains that chutney is “named after the condiment because it is described as being spicy too”, and it is a “contemporary Indian-Caribbean musical genre which displays influences from diverse sources” (Ramnarine, 1996, p. 133). Today, chutney music is a popular music genre, and can easily be identified as Indo-Caribbean due to its “spelling "chutney" rather than “chatni"” claiming its “identification of the genre as Indian-Caribbean, not Indian” (Ramnarine, 1996, p. 134). The occurrence of chutney is said to be due to the women of the Indian-Caribbean populations. We can find out that earliest mentions of music like chutney are back when it was the tradition called “matkhor”, and was known as a woman’s private performance, when a celebration was to be called, such as a wedding. Whilst the quick tempo of chutney has similarities to calypso music, the instruments traditionally used in chutney music are both “traditional Indian and African instruments”, now being “fused with electronic instruments in modern times” (Garcia, 2022).

 Similar to chutney music is soca music, another genre of music which is related to calypso, with Trinidadian and Indian inspiration. Soca music is another example of how Indo-Caribbeans have created their own roots within Trinidad. “Chutney soca music is a crossover style of music incorporating soca and calypso elements” (Wikipedia, 2022a). Chutney soca music also uses the traditional Indian instruments including the dholak and dhantal. By studying chutney, soca, and chutney soca music, and by looking into the instrumentation included within all three genres, along with the similarities the genres have with calypso music, we can develop a deeper understanding of Indian traditions, and the transportation of Indians to the Caribbean and how and when Indo-Caribbean fusion culture and traditions began and continued to develop. It also helps us recognise how prominent transnational industries are, as chutney is such a popular genre of music.

Although chutney music has now completely evolved into typically, a solo female or male type of music, when the inspiration for chutney was taken from matkhor songs, it meant that the message behind the lyrics were also taken as a characteristic of chutney music. For example, mathkor songs were “rich in documentation about family lineage” (Wade, 1980) and chutney lyrics are also often based on family heritage and lineage. Sundar Popo was a chutney artist; he was from a Trinidadian and Tobagonian family. Popo was often credited the title of the “father of Chutney music” (Wikipedia, 2022b) with his first hit coming out in 1969. One example of a chutney song (by Sundar Popo) is the song Nana and Nani. The song is written about his family and is said to be a representation of a traditional Indo-Caribbean family. In the song, there are several lyrics including words “me nanee [maternal grandmother] and me nana [maternal grandfather]” (Ramnarine, 1996, p.144) The lyrics are in Hindi, and some lyrics in English include:

Nana drinking white rum
and Nani drinking wine

Nana smoking tobacco and
Nani cigarette
The rain started falling
the both of them get wet

(Hindustani, 2019)

This song includes Popo’s grandmother and grandfather consuming white rum, wine, and tobacco which all products of Caribbean origin, whilst singing in Hindi, an Indian language. Popo’s Indo-Caribbean heritage is present in many, if not all his songs. And his heritage is simply a microcosm of the population of Indo-Caribbeans as a whole. Sundar Popo has several songs which provide a “well-known account of Indian migration to Trinidad and the labourers' experiences on the plantations” (Ramnarine, 1996, p. 144). Similar to Nana and Nani, Indian Arrival is a song about the history of his heritage and how his family and culture came to be. The song “was released in the year when Indians were celebrating 150 years in Trinidad” (Ramnarine, 1996, p. 144). Sundar Popo’s songs are a vital example of what chutney music truly is, and why it is important to listen to it. By studying his music alone, the content of transnational histories of Indian migration to the Caribbean is largely present within his music.

One final example of transnational histories being present in music is another topic which Ramnarine has touched on, which is the presence of transnational histories within Bollywood films. Om Shanti Om is a Bollywood film about a character called Om, who is in love with a star from Bollywood in the 1970s called Shanti, but she is in love with a producer who decides greed is worth more than love, and when she gets in his way, he murders her. In Ramnarine’s paper, she explains that “the title track song in the film Om Shanti Om is explored in relation to Ras Shorty I’s soca song of the same title, converging diasporic histories and postcolonial social visions” (Ramnarine, 2011, p. 143) and says that “its soundtrack, like its dramatic plot, is relevant for thinking about music between diasporic history and modern media” (Ramnarine, 2011, p. 148). When looking into the soundtrack of the film, the title song Om Shanti Om by Ras Shorty I is a piece of transnational history itself. When he promoted the genre soca, or at the time ‘sokah’, “His aim was to combine ‘African’ and ‘Indian’ musical characteristics as a way of promoting social unity” (Ramnarine, 2011, p. 149). Eventually, ‘sokah’ changed to soca, and Ras Shorty I went from being a normal Trinidadian to a well-known calypso and soca musician. His songs often feature Indian instruments, and therefore reflect transnational histories on Indo-Caribbean fusion music. Ramnarine explains that when listening to Om Shant Om “we can hear this song as an example of Ras Shorty’s ‘conscious’ musical expression… informed by a confluence of those religious teachings he encountered, especially Rastafarian, Hindu, Judeo-Christian ideals of freedom, righteousness, spiritual awareness, and sacred transformation, and performed as an aspiration for peace and social unity” (Ramnarine, 2011, p. 151). Om Shanti Om is a song full of transnational history, between the instrumentation, rhythms and cultural ideals. Bollywood films like Om Shanti Om are pathways into finding histories of diaspora and cultural histories. “Through multiple recollections and remixes, this film explores ideas about memory and the past. Its soundtrack, like its dramatic plot, is relevant for thinking about music between diasporic history and modern media” (Ramnarine, 2011, p. 146). The film’s soundtrack is important when relating it to Indian and Caribbean histories. Bollywood film soundtracks are another way that we can reach music that can be studied and help us to understand transnational histories and industries better.

To conclude, music can be a prominent tool when exploring and trying to better understand transnational histories and industries, as well as when it comes to discussing the diaspora of a community. Case studies with chutney music, sea shanties and Bollywood soundtracks evidently prove how music is a way of exploring cultural histories across the world, and even within the British Empire and western world. Ramnarine’s papers show just how much we can deepen our understanding of transnational histories just from a song or an artist like Sundar Popo and his songs about his family heritage and lineage. Music genres and their histories can be a crucial part of discovery for people looking into specific cultures, such as Indo-Caribbean populated areas. Music gives us an insight into migration, slavery, and population changes within different countries. Furthermore, music drives the beginning of a bigger conversation within transnational histories and studying many cultures within ethnomusicology can be extremely useful when attempting to look at a larger topic of histories around the world.

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