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Inside Bouyon: How a Fusion of Local Folk Music & Digitized Instruments Gave Way to Dominica’s Fast-Spreading Homegrown Genre
For Black Music Month 2025, Billboard spoke with WCK Band's Cornell Phillip, Signal Band's Shelly and Asa Banta about Dominican bouyon music.
The term “bouyon” roughly translates to “soup,” and the pounding, syncopated percussion and high-octane tempos are normally paired with smooth crooners à la “Someone Else,” or brash chant-adjacent delivery, perfect for a never-ending fete. As he brought the bands to the family house to record them, another brother named Ashton was learning how to use his Synchronic Sound System, giving the boys access to speakers, a mixer and other production tools. WCK Band formally debuted with 1988’s One More Sway, but it was 1990’s Culture Shock, which housed early bouyon hits like “Dance Floor” and the title track, that proved its breakthrough moment.
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