Willie Green

Bahamian folk is the traditional music of The Bahamas, rooted in West African rhythms and call-and-response singing, blended with British hymnody, sea shanties, and other Atlantic maritime repertoires. It features distinctive local forms such as rhyming spirituals, goombay drumming, and rake-and-scrape dance music (often with saw, accordion, and goatskin drum). Melodies are typically diatonic with blues inflections; harmony is usually simple (I–IV–V), supporting communal, participatory singing. Lyrics draw on Bahamian Creole English, everyday island life, seafaring, Christian devotion, storytelling, humor, and dance.