Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to Strictly Facts, a guide to Caribbean history and culture, hosted by me, alexandria Miller. Strictly Facts teaches the history, politics and activism of the Caribbean and connects these themes to contemporary music and popular culture. Hello everybody, wagwan pangwatagwan, welcome back to another episode of Strictly Facts, a guide to Caribbean history and culture, the place where we dig into Caribbean history, culture and the complex and beautiful ways we continue to shape who we are. I am your host, Alexandria Miller, and have been really working through questions just based off our last two episodes and really coming to understand who we are as a people and how we change right. And so in our recent episodes we looked into certain customs and things of who we are, touching on art, touching on junkanoo, touching on the front room, and how they've changed and, in some cases, how they faded. Today I sort of want us to sit with that a bit and just ask you all what does it mean to be Caribbean when the traditions we grew up with start to shift or disappear? And maybe, more importantly, how do we define ourselves when these customs change? Let's start with sort of what we know.

Speaker 1: 1:25

Culture is not frozen. It's not meant to be a frozen thing, and certainly for us as Caribbean people who are constantly moving and migrating and returning. Culture is never and has never been a still thing. It has always been dynamic, birth from struggled, layered with influence, molded by their need to survive, to resist, to belong. Junkanoo, for example, is not just a parade. It is a remnant of defiance, of African celebration and masquerade born under the weight of colonialism and slavery. It's a creative resistance. But it's also fun and messy and ours. When we see fewer junkanoo parades or when the festivals get commercialized and packaged for tourists, there's kind of a sort of grief we can really come to understand right, a worry that we're losing something, that something essential is slipping away. But here's the thing I don't think culture ever truly disappears. It just translates, it transforms. Just like our ancestors took European knowledge and instruments and things and really turned them into things that are ours, right Tools of rebellion, of rhythm and resistance, we've always taken what we've been given and made it something our own. So maybe the question isn't are we losing culture, but rather what are we doing with it?

Speaker 1: 2:55

Now I look around and you know, when I see and think of our Caribbean culture and customs, I still see that spirit of who we are in a lot of ways. I still see it in the music, whether it's soca, whether it's dancehall, whether it's a fusion of our genres, it really is still a mix of our roots with maybe global sounds, right? I see it in social media, where there are oftentimes satirical videos of, you know, what our mothers did and how our parents grew us up, right, and so just so much layered and layers of cultural references that only we can really intuitively understand. I see, in the costumes, you know, during mass, right, there are so many ways that these things translate. And you know, you know, though we may have not been a part of our grandparents or elders' generations and experienced some of their experiences, we still sort of understand the power of performance and the power of our culture. I also see in the small things, right in the slang, in the recipes that are passed down in the sound systems, in our experiences, down in the sound systems, in our experiences. I was brought to this also, in a sense of a way, through a recent podcast episode on style and vibes. So, big up to Michaela, you know we are a part of this beautiful Breadfruit Media family and she and our lovely producer, carrie Ann, had a just tremendous conversation about dance hall culture evolving and how we even come to understand it, depending on where you lean, as part of sort of the millennial gap. And now going into the Gen Z era, right, where are you? Are you an 80s or 90s dance hall person, or are you still jamming with what is now in our current 2025 state, right? And so all of these things, I think, are really helping to underscore how we understand these shifts, but it's still an important part of who we are and how we tell our stories. Right, one through TikTok, through YouTube.

Speaker 1: 5:09

Culture is living. It's not just always showing up in the same clothing, to make an analogy. And I think in a lot of ways, it's not just the younger generations that are changing things too, right? Our parents and our elders are getting hip to things, right? I'm sure a lot of you get the WhatsApp voice notes and you know stories from elder family members and in the group chats right there. They are also certainly a part of this evolving generation and this evolving culture that make up who we are. That's exactly sort of what I mean when I say translation or transformation. It's still us. It's just you know, under a different dialect of the culture that has changed.

Speaker 1: 5:53

I also want us to sit with identity for a second right. What would it mean for us to be Bahamas or Jamaica without Junkanoo, for instance? Right, who are we without certain festivals and storytelling traditions that we have regularly? Maybe the better way to ask this is what parts of us remain, no matter what the form looks like. I think you know, being a Caribbean person born in the diaspora, it's more than just a single tradition. It's the way we blend. It's our languages, the cuisines, the religions and our histories. It's why I started this podcast, right? It's the way we survive and celebrate in the same breath, the way we honor both roots and rhythm. I always want us to think back to the ways that our culture has never broken, right, it may brand, but it doesn't break, and that, I think, is something that's always been beautiful to me.

Speaker 1: 6:54

Now, none of this is to say that we shouldn't be worried about, you know, parts of our culture that we're losing. Of course, that's not what I mean. Preservation is certainly important. Archives matter, documenting our stories and our elders' experiences, supporting local artists, things like that all of these things deeply matter to who we are, because if we don't sort of intentionally carry these things forward. It can be erased, but I think we hold on to both of these truths at once, right? Both things can certainly be true at once. We can mourn what's fading and celebrate what's being born or reborn.

Speaker 1: 7:31

So maybe the questions and the sort of things that I'm trying to unpack here, it's that maybe it's not about who we used to be, but who we are still becoming, and that's exciting in a lot of ways. Right, it means that we have agency. It means that we're growing. Sometimes, you know, things don't look the same, but it does mean that we're evolving and we get to shape. Still a people of rhythm and resistance. We are still a people who turn struggle into song.

Speaker 1: 8:15

And so, when you're listening right now, I want to ask you what does being Caribbean mean to you?

Speaker 1: 8:20

When the old ways start to shift, do you see echoes of our tradition in new forms? Do you feel the same spirit, even if it's showing up on a smartphone screen or on Instagram? Tell us your thoughts. Send me an email, send us a DM, send us a voice note. We have a way for you guys to send us a voice note on the website, but let's build this conversation together and really help us to understand each other and how we see our beautiful culture evolving. Because, you know, this podcast is not just mine, it's ours. It's another way for us to tell our story of who we are, and the story is still being written. So with that I will close. I thank you all for listening to me rant a little bit and for you know, just being part of the Strictly Facts journey, I, as always, am your girl, alexandra Miller. Until next time, lookle more. Thanks for tuning in to Strictly Facts. Visit StrictlyFactsPodcastcom for more information from each episode. Follow us at Strictly Facts Pod on Instagram and Facebook and at Strictly Facts PD on Twitter.