15. Barbados — ‘Til Now’ by Gabby

Gabby (also known as Mighty Gabby, real name Anthony Carter) is one of Barbados’ most famous singers, a cultural ambassador for the island.

This album is a compilation of some of his most famous tracks. It did get me a while to get into it. At first, I was taken aback by the production, with arrangements that sounded repetitive and simple, and by the length of the tracks — several over five minutes long when it feels they could have been left at three minutes or less.

The interesting thing about Gabby’s music is the polarity between the music- upbeat, catchy, major harmonies — with the lyrics, which include very explicit comments on the government, politics, poverty, and other issues.

It almost gives the album a slightly sinister tone, when you feel like your body wants to dance to a track called ‘Cadavers’, a song that got him sued by the government as it criticized its decision to let the US store cadavers on the island (!?).

It’s not an album that I’ll probably be listening again to, and this compilation, at over an hour-long, feels too monotonous for a single sitting. Nevermind, like all the other countries’ music I’ve discovered, I’m glad to have had a taste of it.