Gwo ka

Gwo ka is the drum music of Guadeloupe, created by enslaved Africans and their descendants around seven fundamental ka rhythms played on barrel drums of two kinds: the boula, which holds the pattern, and the makè, which improvises. A lead singer and responding chorus perform in Guadeloupean Creole over the drums at gatherings called léwòz, at wakes, carnival and in protest. Long stigmatised as the music of the poor, it was theorised and modernised by guitarist *Gérard Lockel* as gwo ka modên, carried into jazz by *David Murray*'s Gwo-Ka Masters, and inscribed by UNESCO in 2014.