Zouk

French Antillean music genre

Zouk
Stylistic origins	Cadence rampa compas cadence-lypso bélé biguine gwo ka
Cultural origins	Early 1980s, French Antilles (esp. Guadeloupe and Martinique)
Typical instruments	Gwo ka tibwa shak shak brass synthesizer guitar bass guitar drum machine
Derivative forms	Zouk-love, Kizomba
Regional scenes
French West Indies Dominica Haiti Central Africa Brazil France

Zouk is a musical movement pioneered by the French Antillean band Kassav' in the early 1980s. It was originally characterized by a fast tempo (120–145 bpm), a percussion-driven rhythm, and a loud horn section.^[1] Musicians from Martinique and Guadeloupe eventually added MIDI instrumentation to their compas style, which developed into a genre called zouk-love.^[2]^[3] Zouk-love is effectively the French Lesser Antilles' compas,^[4] and it gradually became indistinguishable from compas.^[4]

Zouk béton

The original fast carnival style of zouk, best represented by the band Kassav', became known as "zouk béton", "zouk chiré", or "zouk hard".^[5] Zouk béton is considered a synthesis of various French Antillean dance music styles of the 20th century, including kadans, konpa, and biguine.^[6]

References

^ Torres, George (2013). Encyclopedia of Latin American Popular Music. ABC-CLIO. p. 453. ISBN 978-0-313-08794-3.
^ Occo, Jean-Claude (2019). The Codification of Zouk. BoD – Books on Demand. p. 10. ISBN 978-2-9567965-2-7.
^ Ellingham, Mark (1999). The Rough Guide to World Music. Rough Guides. p. 299. ISBN 978-1-85828-636-5.
^ ^a ^b Popular Musics of the Non Western World. Peter Manuel, New York Oxford University Press, 1988, p74
^ Guilbault, Jocelyne; Averill, Gage; Benoit, Edouard; Rabess, Gregory (1993). Zouk: World Music in the West Indies. University of Chicago Press. p. 135. ISBN 978-0-226-31042-8.
^ Manuel, Peter; Bilby, Kenneth; Largey, Michael (2012). Caribbean Currents: Caribbean Music from Rumba to Reggae. Temple University Press. p. 173. ISBN 978-1-59213-464-9.