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Music of Antigua and Barbuda

Antigua and Barbuda is a Caribbean nation in the Lesser Antilles chain. Antigua is the cultural center for the nation, as well as the population base.

The country is a second home for many of the pan-Caribbean genres of popular music, and has produced stars in calypso, soca, steeldrum, zouk and reggae. Of these, steeldrum is likely the most integral part of the Antiguan scene. Though developed in Trinidad by musicians who replaced calypso's bamboo percussive instrumentation with steel pans. The steeldrum also known as the steel pan comes in many different forms, and put together is called a steel orchestra. Antigua has many steel orchestra,some can be found in the church and others around different villages of the island. Every carnival there is a competition to dub the best band of the island. Antigua's largest and oldest steel orchestra still competes Hell's Gate steel orchestra. Antigua had a tradition of iron bands at Christmas time which made the new genre easy to import.Iron bands traditionally are made up of old pieces of metal example old irons, tire rims, steel pipes etc. The iron band can still be heard at the annual summer festival carnival. In terms of other genres of music Antigua is best known for oldest and most successful soca band the Burning Flames, who have claimed the road march title for many years, most recently 2004.In which they took the top three positions.

Last updated: 08-30-2005 19:32:46