First of all, it is “Dom-in-EEK-a” and you really can’t miss it; it has a parrot on the flag.
Like anybody needs a reason to escape to the Caribbean, but Dominica is offering up something special from October 25 – 27, the island’s 17th annual World Creole Music Festival. As must-dos, this one is up there, if only because it is one of the only truly indigenous music events in Dominica and, for that matter, the Eastern Caribbean.
Creole music, whose very vague origins most likely sprang from early slave songs, is actually one of the more historic “modern” New World musical traditions, being attested all the back to 1867 (jazz didn’t show up until the 20thcentury—who says you don’t learn something in “On the Go?”). However, it got all but swamped not only by jazz, but also by johnny-come-latelies like reggae, calypso, and rock. Eager to keep the torch burning, Dominica took Creole music as its own, and the World Creole Music Festival is the best of its kind, and gives a genuine window into a musical culture as distinct and proud as any other. And the allure of Creole goes much further in Dominica that just a yearly music fest; while officially speaking English, the local dialect is called Kwéyòl, a French-based language whose name is itself a corruption of the word “creole.”
“Dominica attracts some of the most renowned musical groups and soloists from the Creole-speaking world,” Nikima Royer Jno Baptiste of the Discover Dominica Authority tells me. “The festival offers a multitude of Creole music, with headline acts including Jamaican dancehall artist Busy Signal, the legends of zouk, Kassav, and Trinidadian soca artist Machel Montano.”
And it is just one of the gems in Dominica’s crown; others include Boiling Lake, the world’s second largest hot spring and a rainforest largely intact to the point species that died out elsewhere in the Caribbean are alive and kicking on the island the native Caribs call “Wai‘tu kubuli.” Dominica regularly lands on the top ten scuba diving sites list, and considering the waters offshore teem with whales — and whale-watchers — it’s safe to say you can’t go wrong on land or sea. The island itself is actually fairly rocky, and in one of those perfect ironies, that turned out to be a blessing in disguise; Dominica isn’t overrun with urban sprawl.
So think of the World Creole Music Festival as the perfect excuse to go. The capital of Roseau is a bundle of energy, and the island has the only Carib Indian reservation in the region named for them (and is worth the visit). It makes sense to put it all to music. Allow Steele Luxury Travel to plan your next trip to Dominica, visit www.SteeleTravel.comfor more information.