Popular Music of Saint Lucia

Lucian renowned music is traced back to the 1940s, when calypso became a part of the Lucian musical culture. Calypso is a poetic Trinidadian genre, linked to several patterns seen over all Antillean music regions. Music student like Jocelyne Guibault has called the calypso the main way current Lucians express social comment. Couple with calypso, Lucia has also imported from Trinidadian steelpan and soca customs.

source of picture: www.mtvhive.com

Some of the Lucian calypsonians documented in the 80s, mainly on 45-RPM discs which remain vastly inaccessible today. The Lucian music company is quite small scale, due to the population of the people market, the island lack recording studios and record producers, the well-known bootlegging of cassettes, and the general inaccessibility of funding for musical industries. Saint Lucia is a place for several radio stations which include the Radio St. Lucia and Radio Caribbean International, which play a type of renowned music since the year 1989; St. Lucian radio stations have played a rapid number of programs about the Lucian culture and also the indigenous Creole language.

The current Saint Lucia has released a few renowned artists in different patterns, but is very closely related with the calypso music. Renowned Lucian artists include Rameau Poleon, Tru Tones, Prolifik, Aimran Simmons and Disturbing Joan. Marie Seliha Sesenne Descartes (which is known as Sesenne) was called Dame Commander of the Order of the British Territory for her composition known as chantwelle and in the popularization of Saint Lucian folk culture and music. Saint Lucian traditional dance and theatre comprises the flower dances, the Papa event and masquerades; different types of music are related with these festivities.