Music of Antigua and Barbuda

Banjar

String instrument
Classification	String instrument (plucked.)
Hornbostel–Sachs classification	321.32 (Composite chordophone)
Playing range
(a standard tuned banjar)
Related instruments
Bowed and plucked string instruments

The music of Antigua and Barbuda is largely African in character, and has only felt a limited influence from European styles due to the population of Antigua and Barbuda descending mostly from West Africans who were brought to the Caribbean as slaves.

Antigua and Barbuda is a Caribbean nation in the Lesser Antilles island chain. The country is a second home for many of the pan-Caribbean genres of popular music, and has produced stars in calypso, soca, steeldrum, zouk and reggae. Of these, steeldrum and calypso are the most integral parts of modern Antiguan popular music; both styles are imported from the music of Trinidad and Tobago.

Little to no musical research has been undertaken on Antigua and Barbuda. As a result, much knowledge on the topic derives from novels, essays and other secondary sources.

Documented music in Antigua and Barbuda began only with the discovery of Antigua, then populated by Arawak and Caribs, by Christopher Columbus in 1493. The islands' early music, however, remains little studied. In the 1780s, documentation exists for African workers participating in outdoor dances accompanied by the banjar (later bangoe, perhaps related to the banjo) and toombah (later tum tum), a drum decorated with shell and tin jingles. By the 1840s, sophisticated subscription balls were common, held biweekly with European-derived quadrilles accompanied by fiddle, tambourine and triangle.