Krem Radio

Belize's best-known independent station and the most listened-to name on the national dial. KREM belongs to the Kremandala media group, which grew out of the Belizean nationalist movement, and its talk programming is politically engaged and frequently unrestrained — the call-in shows are a genuine national forum in a country where everyone knows the participants. Alongside the talk it carries punta and punta rock, the Garifuna music developed in Belize in the late 1970s and 1980s, plus brukdown, soca, reggae and gospel. The station's calendar peaks twice: through September, when Saint George's Caye Day and Independence Day combine into weeks of celebration, and on 19 November for Garifuna Settlement Day, when the arrival of the Garifuna on Belizean shores is re-enacted by dugout canoe at Dangriga and Punta Gorda and the drumming runs through the night. For the very large Belizean diaspora in Los Angeles, New York and Houston, it is the connection home.