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Bouyon glossary: the words of the genre, explained

Published October 21, 2026

Bouyon speaks several languages at once: Dominica's Kweyol, the vocabulary of carnival, the words of producers and those of the genre's historians. This glossary explains, in plain language, the terms that return across this site: riddim, jing ping, lapo kabwit, chante mas, cadence-lypso and Wrecketeng, with a definition for each word that opened sources can verify.

Words of the roots: jing ping, lapo kabwit, chante mas

Jing ping is Dominica's traditional dance music, carried by the accordion, the lapo kabwit and the bamboo flute. When WCK created bouyon in Roseau in 1988, the band plugged that tradition into electronic keyboards: the accordion can still be heard in early bouyon tracks. The lapo kabwit is Dominica's goat skin drum, the drum of chante mas and of carnival: at Mas Domnik, whole groups parade behind its drummers.

Chante mas, the masquerade song, is the singing tradition of Dominican carnival, sung in a responsorial, call and response style. Its lyrics, almost all in French Creole, retell the gossip and scandals of the moment with humour, and they were traditionally led by women, the chantwel, while the instrumental accompaniment fell to men. Bouyon keeps that tradition's call and response energy in its fete vocals.

Words of the studio: riddim, bouyon soca, Wrecketeng

A riddim is the instrumental over which several artists record their voices. It is the central support of bouyon and dancehall production: one riddim can carry several tracks, and the great riddims become trademarks for producers, like Denmath's Tropical Riddim and Harley Riddim, both released in 2022. Bouyon soca is the fusion of Dominican bouyon with the festive codes of soca. According to the first-hand testimony of Sean "Smokiller" Francis, who was in the studios at the time, bouyon soca was started in Dominica by Dada in 2003, before Triple Kay and other bands popularized it.

Wrecketeng is the Dominican practice of rebuilding existing recordings over bouyon instrumentals, in the lineage of bouyon-muffin. Its official spelling, Wrecketeng, comes from DJ Cut, the pioneer of the style: the reketeng form, spread across the internet, is a misspelling, and this site writes it only to flag the error. Keeping the spelling matters, because it is what makes it possible to find the right sources and credit the right pioneers.

Words of carnival: Mas Domnik, J'ouvert, Kweyol

Mas Domnik is the name of Dominica carnival, known for its traditional costumes, its chante mas and, since the late 1980s, bouyon as its soundtrack. J'ouvert is its opening moment, in the early hours of the morning: bands, paint and bouyon and soca music in the streets of Roseau, before the main parades. Kweyol is Dominican Creole, the language of the island's traditional songs and of a large part of bouyon's choruses, alongside English and French depending on the artist.

Cadence-lypso completes this vocabulary base: it is the Dominican sound of the 1970s, born from the meeting of cadence and calypso, carried by bands like Exile One and the Grammacks. With jing ping, it is one of bouyon's two direct parents, and understanding the word helps explain why bouyon sounds both old and electronic.

How to use this glossary

Every word in this glossary points to detailed pages on this site: the jing ping page for the traditional root, the bouyon riddim page for the producers' work, the instruments of bouyon page for the lapo kabwit and the chakchak, and the Wrecketeng page for the full history of the practice and its spelling. The definitions stay deliberately short: a glossary gives the meaning, the linked pages give the history.

If a word is missing from this list, it is often because no reliable opened source yet makes it possible to define it properly. This site prefers a shorter, verified glossary to a long, invented dictionary, and the list will grow with verified research, like the rest of BouyonMusique.com.

Frequently asked questions

What does bouyon mean?

Bouyon means soup in Kweyol, in Antillean Creole: a slow cooked dish that blends its ingredients. The name sums up the genre, which blends jing ping, cadence-lypso, chante mas and electronic production since its creation by WCK in 1988.

What is a bouyon riddim?

The instrumental over which several artists record their voices. One bouyon riddim can carry several tracks, as in dancehall culture, and riddims often carry a name, for example Denmath's Tropical Riddim.

How is Wrecketeng spelled?

Wrecketeng, with that exact spelling. It comes from DJ Cut, the pioneer of the style, according to the spelling rule followed by this site. The reketeng form, spread across the internet, is an error.

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