Funky Nassau

Roots, Routes, and Representation in Bahamian Popular Music

Timothy Rommen author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:University of California Press

Published:14th Jun '11

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Funky Nassau cover

This book examines the role music has played in the formation of the political and national identity of the Bahamas. Timothy Rommen analyzes Bahamian musical life as it has been influenced and shaped by the islands' location between the United States and the rest of the Caribbean; tourism; and Bahamian colonial and postcolonial history. Focusing on popular music in the second half of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, in particular rake-n-scrape and Junkanoo, Rommen finds a Bahamian music that has remained culturally rooted in the local even as it has undergone major transformations. Highlighting the ways entertainers have represented themselves to Bahamians and to tourists, "Funky Nassau" illustrates the shifting terrain that musicians navigated during the rapid growth of tourism and in the aftermath of independence.

"[A] highly insightful book... Rommen here offers the most extensive publication to date on Bahamian music... [An] excellent study. -- Stephen Stuempfle Journal Of Anthropological Research "Funky Nassau gives an insider perspective on the complex routes and representations in Bahamian music before and after independence. Through many quotations from interviews and other sources the voice of Bahamian musicians and cultural activists is present ... Rommen reveals Bahamian roots in local popular music that cannot be discovered by an outsider." -- Krister Malm Popular Music "Rommen ... offers the most extensive publication to date on Bahamian music. It is a major contribution to Caribbean music scholarship." -- Stephen Stuempfle Journal Of Anthropological Research

ISBN: 9780520265691

Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 25mm

Weight: 454g

332 pages