Exuma, the Obeah Man

Hey guys, today I’m here to talk about an artist I really love, and one who is overlooked too often: Exuma.

Exuma, the Obeah Man (1970) album cover- original artwork by Tony McKay

Bahamian singer/songwriter Exuma released his eponymous debut album in May of 1970. The music is lightningstruck folk, a blend of rock, reggae, junkanoo, calypso, and African music. Before I go further into that, let’s talk a little about the man and the story behind the music.

Tony McKay was born on Cat Island, a small island in the Bahamas, but soon moved to Nassau with his mother. At age seventeen, he relocated again to New York City and quickly became involved in the famous Greenwich Village folk scene. After a few years of performing in clubs and cafes, he formed the group Exuma, taking the name from a Bahamian island. The music he made turned increasingly toward his homeland. By the time Exuma recorded a full-length album, McKay’s synthesis of American blues and folk with the musical traditions of the Bahamas had taken a powerful and distinct shape. 

Exuma, The Obeah Man is one of the most electrifying albums I’ve ever heard. While it draws from the hippie folk scene that McKay came out of, it’s also powerfully steeped in his Bahamian roots. Many of the lyrics refer to Obeah, a set of religious practices that came out of West Africa sometime during the eighteenth century as vastly diverse populations with their own spiritualities were forced into slavery under British colonial rule. 

I won’t go into much detail about Obeah and what it means to the people who practice it, because that would deserve more attention than I’m able to give it here. But it’s worth mentioning that, by the 1970s, Obeah was not commonly practiced in the Bahamas, and was largely considered taboo. Nevertheless, Tony McKay considered it an important part of his heritage, telling one interviewer, “Obeah was with my grandfather, with my grandmother, with my father, with my mother, with my uncles who taught me. It has been my religion in the vein that everyone has grown up with some sort of religion, a cult that was taught.”

Every song on Exuma is great. The titular track introduces McKay’s Obeah man character with a fiercely alive vocal performance and music to match. “Junkanoo” is a re-creation of the music McKay heard during festivals as a child in the Bahamas. “Dambala” reaches back to the brutal origins of Obeah, calling upon the great creator-spirit to punish the souls of slaveowners. “You Don’t Know What’s Going On” is just a great folk-rock song. The recordings are raw, but this just adds to the earthy, powerful, sometimes apocalyptic feel of the album.

I hope this blog will get somebody to check out Exuma. There’s really nobody else like him in music history, and his music deserves so much more attention than it gets. Thank you all for reading!

Exuma, The Obeah Man - Album by Exuma | Spotify