What does Barbados sound like?
That was the question posed at the Barbados Museum and Historical Society, Garrison, St Michael, yesterday as the museum and the National Cultural Foundation (NCF) officially launched BIM@60, a national campaign inviting Barbadians at home and in the diaspora to help choose the 60 songs that best capture six decades of Independence.
A panel, working with the museum and the NCF, has already curated a list of more than 200 culturally significant Barbadian songs spanning genres from spouge and calypso to reggae, ragga soca, hip-hop, ring bang and tuk. From that list, the public will vote online to select a final Top 60: Sixty Songs For Sixty Years, once the project’s website goes live.
“Our music is the most complete record we have of who we are: our humour, our struggles, our faith, our resilience, our hope and our joy,” chief executive officer of the NCF, Carol Roberts, said. “Every Barbadian has a song that is theirs.”
She urged the public to “stand up for that song” once voting opens.
On the NCF’s role, Roberts pledged: “We will nominate representatives to the expert panel and lend our institutional knowledge and archives to the curatorial process . . . . We will put the full weight of our platforms behind this project.”
Director of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society Alissandra Cummins placed the campaign within a larger transformation at the 93-year-old institution.
“Heritage lives in people. It lives in communities, traditions, creativity, language, memory and shared experience,” she said.
Looking ahead to the museum’s 2033 centenary, Cummins announced that next month, they will formally launch the Barbados Museum’s Capital Campaign, inviting individuals, businesses and partners to help shape its next century under the banner Our Stories, Our Museum.
Deputy director Kevin Farmer called the initiative a slight departure for the museum. He noted that while artefacts “behind glass” remain central to its work, “heritage is not only something that existed long ago . . . it is performed. It is heard. It is danced to”.
He pointed to songs such as Beautiful Barbados by the late Sir Emile Straker and The Merrymen,
John King’s How Many More and Spice and Company’s Congaline as part of the nation’s history.
Beyond the vote, organisers say BIM@60 will produce a permanent digital archive, curated playlists, a documentary, museum exhibitions and educational resources for schools.
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office with responsibility for Pan African Affairs and Heritage, Trevor Prescod, also addressed the launch, which included performances by Mr Blood and Mistah Dale. (DDS)
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