No one is certain where the term ‘Rake and Scrape’ emanated from but Charles Carter, the iconic voice and historian behind the “The Young Bahamian Radio Show” began referring to the music of the Family Islands, which uses authentic apparatus and instruments to make melodious music as such in the early 1970s. However Carter says the term had been around long before he borrowed it.
Bahamians beating the Goombay Drum a scrapping on a carpenter’s Saw and exploring new moods on the Concertina and harmonica and other homemade devices comprise the instruments of Rake N’ Scrape.
Much of the percussion sound which is still popular in the Family Islands can be drawn from our African past where Slaves uses similar instruments to duplicate the sound of the native instruments they enjoyed on the West Coast of Africa.
Similarly as Bahamians went on “The Contract” in the Southern United States as indentured fruit pickers at the end of World War 1, and returned home new indigenous instruments were added to Rake N’ Scrape.
The Quadrille or Heel and Toe dances are popular at Rake N’ Scrape events and virtuoso’s like Lazziedo and Boys refined it into a fine art form.
Cat Island remains the celebrated cradle of Rake N’ Scrape but just about every Family Island has their own