Cassandra's Discoveries

Trinidad and Tobago are two islands in the south-eastern Caribbean that have cultural and ethnic influences from West Africa, France, Britain, India, and more. These combined cultures helped form what is now their most important form of music: Calypso. After gaining popularity in the early 1900s, Calypso has influenced so many parts of the world and although it is not as popular today, its impact still stands.  Origins:  Calypso originated from mostly West African culture after slaves were brought over to Trinidad and Tobago by European colonizers. The slaves were forbidden from communicating with one another, so they decided to use song as a form of communication instead. The songs were taken from the African folk genre called gayup, but were also heavily influenced by cultures from Spain, France, and Britain. After slavery has ended in the mid 1800s, the former slaves began to spread their newfound style through the islands during the French Carnival season. Calypso began t...

 After learning about this assignment, I immediately knew I was going to interview my mother. My mother was born in 1971, which meant that her childhood consisted of music from both the 70s and the 80s. I learned from her that these two completely different decades would take her through different phases in her life, but would also be the heart of what she still loves today.  I said hello to my mom as she showed up on my laptop's FaceTime camera. I told her that I was ready for the interview and pulled up my interview questions from my notes. I smiled as I prepared myself for the musical journey that was about to happen.  "First question," I said...... "How do you remember being first introduced to music? What type of music was it?" My mother, like most people, was introduced to music by her parents as a small child. In the early 70s, both of my grandparents were into hippie culture. My grandmother was really into folk artists like John Denver and Joan Biaz, as ...