By Eddy Pomare Bowden; Musician, music teacher, jingle writer and singer and TV Host.

E-mail: Esta dirección de correo electrónico está siendo protegida contra los robots de spam. Necesita tener JavaScript habilitado para poder verlo.

Edgar Antonio Pomare Bowden[1] (Eddie) a Raizal musician (vocal and composer, jingle writer and singer and audio creative).  As a child, I used to listen to music without restrictions.  The sense, the style, the knowledge, the meaning!

My contact with music, according to my remembrances, began the same time my brain woke up to colors, texture, beats and sounds. Music took me over and became a very important part of my life. In the beginning of the 90’s, there was lot of positive development to my musical sense and as way of understanding life. Perhaps it taught me and showed me how Raizal music would be in a near future.  It also helped me to observe and understand the process of “Looking back” at our music in the Archipelago.   

The sound systems called pickups and the TV and radio station programs; opened up big doors for the Raizal people and musicians to all national and international multicultural masses, basically from the Caribbean. In first place,  artists like: Tiger, Lovindeer, Stichie the Governor, Erick Donaldson, Erick Brouta, Kassav, Coupe Cloe, Tabu Combo, Burning Flames, Mario Chicot, Malatinni, and many more, were artists that introduced the Raizal people to all different  Afro Caribbean musical genres, such as: Reggae, Zouk, Zoukouss, Socca, Calipso, Kadance-Lypso and others.  That was our natural background and contact with the source of many musical inspirations.

On the other hand, the Raizal people had a very interesting ancestral contact with country music artists like: Jim Reeves, Freddy Fender, Charlie Pride and others.  Listening to country music was a heritage forms our forefathers. We can’t forget our contact with all Christian Gospel that identifies the Raizal spirituality. Finally, all the richness of Raizal´s traditional “String Music” and secular music singers was part of the musical collage and fundamental combination in the construction of Raizal People’s Musical Culture.

Why is it a regression for me? 

The fact, to make it short, I would say that our lack of vision makes us turn out in to copycats of what we were seeing and listening to at the moment. Music comes around in Spanish, and then we do music in Spanish. This is because it is a trend, and it is a secret to no one, that this tendency is what rules our youth’s behavior nowadays. In fact, whatever comes around you must be part of it, along with the smart but evil move of the national governmental plan to manipulate our brain trying for us to forget our philosophy and eventually restrict our sense of originality on the creation of our music in that moment, and even today.

On the other hand, music that once was buildup from our innocent living on the day by day in every aspect of the island’s life and also used to express our feelings, ideas, doubts and concept, was dropped to second and third place unconsciously. This unfortunate reality on the evolution of Raizal music is nothing more than a result of the false sense of progress that was imposed on the People.

Now, with the changing of the TV and radio programs on the island, the cultural environment changed also. But more, with the change of the educational system from English to Spanish, the mentality of Raizal “young starts” was modified in silence. To be honest, I didn't see it coming. Probably because I was too innocent and lacked the wisdom to understand that all what we were considering sophisticated and modern, was going to become what I openly call:  the cancer that eats and is eating the body of the internal culture, not only musically speaking but in all the aspects of our local lifestyle.  

Please don't misunderstand me. My intention is not to insult, or sub-estimate the culture, music is the language of no one, apart from English or Creole. I respect it and I look up to the beautiful structure of so many genres and melodies in Spanish, German, Italian or Indian; whatever language it may be. But really it is not part of us or of our culture, and even when a lot of different music and languages comes around, only one interrupts the continuity of our language, customs and culture in a very drastic way, the healthy development of our history and sense of conservation. 

Looking back at Raizal Music Regression, honestly I blame our lack of vision to understand that what we had as culture,  was so rich and beautiful that we didn't need to try to reach out to no other concept, and neither  to  allow it to  overcome us to this extreme. But given that we didn’t have an option because of the imposition, we were literally just sheep going to the stall. Nowadays, we can see the consequences of our lack of vision; add on to the smart but evil move of those who had their plan well set and executed. Of course it's a fact that music leads our heart and thinking; and we have been led ever.

[1] Kyo Group vocalist 1998-2017. Tour experience: Colombia, Argentina, Paraguay, Brasil, Panamá, USA, Chile, México, Puerto Rico…