“Music With a Caribbean Beat”: 'A Discriminatory Distortion'

By Dennis A Minott, PhD (I Praise God for Overseas, Multicultural, Polyglot Education)

A conceptual illustration of a vintage radio dial labelled “Caribbean Beat.” The dial is stuck on one narrow frequency (calypso/soca), while the other labelled stations—“reggae,” “zouk,” “compas,” “bachata,” “rara,” “bomba,” “ska”—are dimmed or muted.

A Narrow Frequency Masquerading as Caribbean

Each weekday morning, many Jamaicans tune into a radio segment confidently titled “Music with a Caribbean Beat.” On the surface, the RJR label promises a generous survey of the region’s astonishing musical variety. One might reasonably expect to hear a cross-section of the rhythms that have emerged from our archipelago and its far-flung diaspora: Cuba’s son and rumba, Haiti’s compas and rara, Guadeloupe’s zouk, Dominica’s cadence-lypso, the Dominican Republic’s merengue and bachata, Puerto Rico’s bomba, plena, and reggaetón. Add Jamaica’s own mento, ska, rocksteady, reggae, dub, and dancehall—music that has moved the world.

Yet, week after week, what is actually broadcast under that sweeping title is little more than a diet of Trinidadian calypso and its modern cousin soca. The result is not harmless; it is profoundly misleading. It diminishes other traditions, erases their place in the Caribbean imagination, and entrenches a discriminatory ignorance that our media ought to dismantle, not perpetuate. What is practised here is cultural malpractice: silencing the region’s rich polyphony in favour of a single dominant note.

Yet, UWI Mona a still deh snore.

The True Origins of a Caribbean Beat

To correct this distortion, we must return to the roots of the music itself. The Caribbean has never been a monoculture. It is a region built on forced and voluntary migrations: the Indigenous, Africans, Europeans, Indians, Chinese, and Middle Easterners. Its rhythms are living archives of this brutal history, tempered by four centuries of resilience and creativity.

In Cuba, the clave rhythm—two sticks striking a syncopated pattern—anchors son, rumba, mambo, salsa, and timba. This Afro-Cuban innovation now pulses through Latin jazz and global dance floors. To deny it a Caribbean identity is absurd and offensive. 

Sin embargo, la UWI Mona sigue roncando.

In Haiti, compas emerged in the mid-20th century, a graceful fusion of European ballroom cadence with African percussion and Creole lyrics. Alongside it marches rara, a thundering Easter procession of bamboo horns and drums, preserving enslaved Africans’ spiritual memory. These are not curiosities on the margins; they are pillars of Caribbean expression.

Men, UWI Mona ap ronfle toujou.

The Dominican Republic contributes merengue and bachata. Merengue, with its accordion drive and two-step whirl, has long been the national dance. Bachata, once dismissed as “poor people’s music,” is today a global staple of Latin popular culture.

Puerto Rico offers bomba and plena, folk forms with African roots, as well as reggaetón, now a worldwide commercial juggernaut born of a marriage between Jamaican dancehall, hip-hop, and Latin rhythm.

Sin embargo, la UWI Mona sigue dormida.

From the French Antilles comes zouk, pioneered by Kassav’ of Guadeloupe and Martinique, which conquered dance floors across Africa and Europe. Dominica gave us cadence-lypso and later bouyon, both innovative fusions with Haitian and calypso ancestry. Barbados contributed spouge, a lively blend of ska and calypso. Trinidad and Tobago, of course, have blessed the world with calypso, soca, parang, rapso, and the steelpan—the only acoustic instrument invented in the 20th century.

Mé, UWI Mona ka ronflé toujou.

And Jamaica? From mento through ska, rocksteady, reggae, dub, and dancehall, our island has exported seismic cultural forces, influencing not only the Caribbean but entire global genres.

To speak honestly, then, of “music with a Caribbean beat” is to acknowledge a constellation of forms, each rooted in a particular island yet sharing a sensibility forged in the crucible of slavery, colonialism, migration, and resistance.

A painting of a dancehall event by Lennox Coke, 2016

The Discrimination of Reduction

Why then does Jamaican broadcasting persist in equating the Caribbean beat with calypso alone? Some will argue it is habit: calypso, associated with carnival and festivity, once served as a convenient regional shorthand. Others point to laziness-based inertia in programming—producers know calypso, so they recycle it. But such excuses no longer suffice. In 2025, the musical wealth of the Caribbean is too well documented and too widely accessible to justify such myopia.

This reduction is not a trivial slip. It actively discriminates against the majority of Caribbean peoples and their contributions. It tells Haitians, Cubans, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Bajans, and indeed Jamaicans themselves that their rhythms do not count. It presents a false curriculum to Jamaican youth, who may grow up believing that bachata, zouk, or rara are alien rather than intimately theirs. In narrowing horizons, it impoverishes identity. 

Worse still, it indulges a cruel parochialism unworthy of Jamaica. Our island has long been outward-looking in music: reggae reshaped British popular culture, dancehall fed into reggaetón, ska inspired punk. For our own media to retreat into a one-note caricature of Caribbean identity is an abdication of responsibility, leadership, and imagination.

Towards Honest and Inclusive Programming

What would authentic, non-discriminatory programming sound like? First, it would acknowledge plurality. A daily “Music with a Caribbean Beat” show ought to rotate through genres—Haitian rara one week, Cuban timba the next, Dominican merengue after that, Puerto Rican bomba another—always alongside soca, calypso, and reggae.

Second, it would educate as well as entertain. Listeners could learn how ska shaped Britain’s 2-Tone movement, how compas influenced Dominica’s cadence-lypso, how Cuban son evolved into salsa in New York, how soca blended with Indian chutney in Trinidad. Scholars and musicians alike could contextualise these exchanges.

Finally, such programming would dignify all Caribbean peoples by making plain that their music is not marginal but central. The Caribbean is not an afterthought; it is a creative engine. Its full orchestra must be heard.

Conclusion: A Call for Media Responsibility

The phrase “music with a Caribbean beat” should invite breadth, not prescribe narrowness. Jamaican media houses must abandon the discriminatory practice of equating the Caribbean with calypso alone. To persist in this error is to deny the region’s geography, history, and demography. It is to mis-educate the next generation.

The Caribbean is not one rhythm but many—clave, riddim, compas, zouk, merengue, bomba, reggae. To pretend otherwise is a betrayal of our heritage. Let us demand better from our broadcasters. When we say “Caribbean beat,” let us hear the full symphony of islands, not merely the drum of one.

September 11, 2025