It’s Independence Day!
July 10, the date the Bahamas became its own free and sovereign nation — only in 1973
The islands get short shrift in western popular media, curricula, and cultural artifacts
More black erasure, no doubt
We know it was for centuries the principal haven for piracy, but think of the discrepancy between our disneyfied vision of caribbean pirates and the profound threat and promise they offered in challenging social orders (of gender, class, work, imperialism, the transatlantic slave trade, on and on)
Which reminds me: OakTree, I think you’ve still got my copy of The Many-Headed Hydra…
The communities established in the “refuge” of the Bahamian islands–of pirates, slave rebellions, deserting shiphands, indigenous alliances — and many combinations of all of the above!– were some of the most daringly imagined polities, whose radicality isn’t fully appreciated TO THIS DAY (insert meme)
Ok this is sounding a bit too pretentious-first-year-grad-student
But I mean, we all not ready for that conversation! ?
Check out this absolute horseshit article published at the time by the American paper of record:
https://www.nytimes.com/1973/07/08/archives/will-independence-spoil-the-bahamas-raising-a-new-flag.html
?
Anyway, we’re here for dope music
The compilation album “A Nation Is Born” was produced to mark the occasion, ambitiously subtitled “A Musical History of the Bahamas”
It wasn’t released on any label, though seems to have had some relation to Buddah records
Oh and guess who wrote the liner notes?
The islands’ favorite son, Sidney Poitier!
The LP includes The Beginning of the End’s Funky Nassau, which had been a hit in the US on Alston Records in 1971
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9K4113IFpE
But even that jammy jam is outdone in funk flavor by the song immediately succeeding it
“Independent Bahamas” from the obscure group Biosis Now
They never released anything else (there’s a 45, too, apparently), but left this towering groove monument for posterity
Oh yeah, peep the record cover
Breakdowns and solos stay deep in the pocket but still manage to stretch
Basslines and congas are rawer than an emotionally vulnerable Jiro Ono skinning his knee in a 90s WWE match
Bobby Smith’s New Day is Dawning is another hymn to the new nation’s potential with some sweet funky soul
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF1syGG38Bc
Sure, this stuff might be less distinctive than the singularly island sound like rake and scrape, say, but Bahamian funk takes a backseat to nobody
