ABSTRACT
The popular notion of Afro-Caribbean people is one of fragmentation, discontinuity of history and culture, and assimilation into Euro-American culture; a product of no historical links, and like Vic Reid’s mulatto in The Leopard, one who hates himself and is self-destructive. A body of research has elucidated the presence of the African, in a position of great influence, in the Caribbean and the Americas, before the arrival of Columbus or the first European. Many colonial Europeans in the slavery, colonial and neo-colonial contexts have attempted to interpret and define African music from the perspective of their own music traditions. In historical and contemporary times there has been a battle to define the differences between oral and literate cultures. Cultural transfer is complex but evident in all areas of popular Afro-Caribbean life, whether food, dress or a penchant for bright colours, speech, music and other arts, as well as religion which has also maintained intact original African languages in some areas.
