Dominica
Elephant Man to be among performers at Dominica's Creole Music Festival
By Ellsworth Carter, Associated Press Writer
Sep 3, 2004, 22:21 UTC

ROSEAU (AP) - Jamaican reggae artist Elephant Man will be among 15 performers at the eighth annual Creole Music Festival in Dominica next month, an organizer said Friday.

Dominica's festival is one of the largest Creole music celebrations in the Caribbean. Thousands attended last year, many coming from surrounding islands with French Creole roots, including Guadeloupe and Martinique.

French Creole music is indigenous to the Congo, Haiti, Mauritius, Martinique, Guadeloupe, St. Lucia, Dominica and French Guiana.

Other bands and performers lined up for the Oct. 29-31 festival include Magnum, Dominik Coco, and Sweet Micky _ all from Haiti _ Canela Cuban Salsa from Cuba and Escale from Martinique, said Jeffery Brisbane, the festival's director.

Brisbane said he hoped to surpass the almost 2,300 foreigners who attended last year's festival. Visitors will also get to sample dishes like dasheen, yams and bananas prepared with exotic spices.

"We feel that the festival continues to grow year by year," Brisbane said.

Creole music has an African base mixed with Caribbean calypso and Latin beats and is built around drums, guitar and organs. It emerged during slavery when French Creole slaves would mark the end of the harvest singing songs and evolved to include more modern instruments.

Dominica, a Caribbean island of 70,000 people, was a French colony before the English established control in 1763. Today, English is the official language, but many islanders still speak Creole, a mixture of French and other languages spoken in various forms in former French possessions, including the U.S. state of Louisiana.

(ec-ao)