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| Bouyon | |
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| Stylistic origins |
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| Cultural origins | Late 1980s,Roseau (Dominica) |
| Typical instruments |
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| Fusion genres | |
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| Music of Dominica | ||
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| Nationalistic and patriotic songs | ||
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Bouyon (pronunciation:boo-yoh) is a genre ofDominican music that originated inDominica in the late 1980s. Prominent bouyon groups includeWindward Caribbean Kulture (WCK); Roots, Stems and Branches (RSB); and First Serenade.[1]
"Hardcore bouyon", also called "Gwada-Bouyon," is another type of bouyon, different from the Dominican genre, which began through musical collaborations between citizens of Dominica and Guadeloupe, who both speakAntillean Creole. The termbouyon means something akin to "gumbo soup" or "coubouyon poisson" (a typical Caribbean dish) inAntillean Creole. Bouyon music is a mix of traditional and modern music,[2] and is popular across much of the Caribbean.
Bouyon blendsjing ping,cadence-lypso and traditional dances, namelybèlè,quadrille,chanté mas and lapo kabwit,mazurka,zouk and other styles ofCaribbean music.[3]
In 1987,Exile One recorded aChanté mas and Lapo Kabwit song, "L'hivernage", commonly referred to as the yo. The French Antilleans referred to the beat as "jump up music" because of its carnival style sound. This jump upbeat was later modified to become bouyon or modern soca music. (As printed on Exile One's album "creole attitude").[4]InGuadeloupe andMartinique, "Jump up" refers generally to bouyon music.
Bouyon soca is a fusion-genre that blends bouyon andsoca music.
A modern offshoot of bouyon isbouyon-muffin. It combines elements of Jamaicanraggamuffin music,hip hop, anddancehall. The most influential figure in the development of bouyon-muffin is "Skinny Banton" (now known as "Shadowflow") who from 1995 collaborated with the WCK band, usingragga influenced vocals tochant on top of bouyon rhythms. Songs like "party" ft Joanne with Bucktown sounds' DJ Cut gave the products of bouyon muffin likeBushtown clan, a further inspiration to incorporate more hip-hop and dancehall into the Bouyon-muffin genre to create "reketeng".[citation needed]
Rekenteng (also spelledreketeng) is a distinct subgenre or style ofBouyon music that originated inDominica. It is primarily characterized by its heavy reliance onsampling and the fusion of Bouyon elements with other international popular genres, notablyDancehall,R&B, andhip-hop.[5][6]
The core of Rekenteng involves creating instrumental remixes by sampling and significantly altering existing international recordings. Descriptions of the style emphasise remixing existing dancehall and hip-hop tracks over Bouyon-style rhythm sections and basslines, effectively replacing the original backing while retaining vocals or other melodic elements.[5][7] Similar to howdub music manipulates recordings, Rekenteng often strips down the source material to emphasise high-tempo drum programming and heavy bass, with the resulting backing track sometimes referred to in a Caribbean context as ariddim.[5]
The style, associated in particular withDJ Cut, marked a significant period of experimentation within themusic of Dominica. Writing about Bouyon, Nago Seck describes “reketeng” (or Bouyon-dancehall) as a sampling-based style created by DJ Cut that remixes dancehall and hip-hop recordings over Bouyon instrumentals, and notes that this experimentation encouraged Dominican DJs and producers to explore broader fusions between Bouyon and external genres.[5] This wave of remix-driven production is often cited as a precursor to what is now grouped under the umbrella of “New Bouyon”.[8]
Within Dominica, DJs and crews such asBushtown Clan,Klockerz Krew andNursery Krew Inc. have been associated with early Bouyon–hip-hop and Bouyon–dancehall hybrids that are now described as Rekenteng.[9][10] Online mixtapes and DJ sets explicitly market Bushtown Clan material as “reketeng” or “bouyon, reketeng”, indicating the close association between the crew and the style.[9][11] In a discussion of Bouyon substyles, Dominican media producer Jael Joseph similarly notes that “music by Bushtown clan or anything mixed in with heavy hip hop/rap would be under Rekenteng”, reflecting local usage of the term for Bouyon–rap hybrids.[12]
Producers linked to the wider Bouyon scene, such as Krishna “Dada” Lawrence, are credited with forming Nursery Krew Inc., whose mid-2000s releases combined Bouyon rhythm sections with dancehall and other urban styles and “took Dominica by storm”, according to Lawrence’s own biography.[10][13] Klockerz Krew are likewise documented as a Bouyon-connected rap collective active in the late 1990s and 2000s, collaborating with Bouyon-muffin vocalist Skinny Banton on tracks that already mixed Bouyon with hip-hop and dancehall elements.[14][15] These collaborations, together with DJ Cut’s sampling-based Bouyon experiments, are cited by writers and practitioners as part of the lineage that led to the codification of Rekenteng as a named Bouyon subgenre.[5][8]
The fusion-oriented approach of Rekenteng has continued to influence later Bouyon offshoots. Contemporary and Influential Dominican producerSmokiller markets his work explicitly under labels such as “Rekenteng (bouyon + rap + trap + drill + hip-hop)” and “RnBouyon (R&B + bouyon)”, framing these as modern Bouyon fusion styles that extend the sampling-heavy template pioneered in Dominica.[6][7][16] In his public profiles he describes himself as a “Rekenteng specialist”, further underscoring the continued use of the term for Bouyon–rap and Bouyon–R&B hybrids.[17]
This lineage of Bouyon fusion has also intersected with developments in the French Antilles and mainland France. French media outlets have highlighted singers such asFallon andDenden as part of a new wave of Bouyon-influenced pop and R&B. Konbini, for example, describes “Fallon et son RnBouyon, Denden et ses titres insolents et sensuels, Theodora et sa BAD BOY LOVESTORY”, situating them together within a contemporary Bouyon-derived scene.[18] A long-form article on the newsletter platform WAF WAF and subsequent interviews present Fallon as the creator of the style calledRnBouyon, explicitly blending R&B vocal approaches with Bouyon rhythms,[19][20] while playlists and promotional material group Denden’s tracks alongside “new bouyon” and “rnbouyon” artists, indicating that her work is heard within the same hybrid field.[21][22] Together, these sources illustrate how Rekenteng’s sampling-based Bouyon fusion has fed into newer hybrid labels such as RnBouyon and into the broader internationalisation of Bouyon-derived sounds.
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Due to the popularity of bouyon bands who toured theFrench Antilles, an offshoot of bouyon fromGuadeloupe is calledbouyon gwada.[23]
Music by bushtown clan or anything mixed in with heavy hip hop/ rap would be under Reketeng.