BIGI POKU AND KASEKO

Abstract

This chapter discusses the features of the music and instrumentation of the two most popular forms of Afro-Surinamese music. It also gives portraits of key players up until 1990. Kaseko does not deviate all that much from such other African music styles such as highlife from Ghana and soukous from Congo, which in turn have been influenced by calypso, samba, and Cuban music. One explanation of the world kaseko is that it is a corruption of ‘kase le corp’, Patois for ‘break the body’ (Patois is the creolized French spoken in neighboring French Guiana). In general, dance music in that country—and in the Lawa region of eastern Suriname—is also referred to as kaseko. A third possibility is that the word derives from the African language (presumably Ashanti) ‘kaiso’, which means both ‘shake’ and ‘bravo’. In that case, kaseko would then share the same root of the name with calypso.