The biguine was born of a crossroads of musical cultures in Martinique, in Saint-Pierre, then the capital of Martinique. Musicians combined it with the traditional bèlè and polka to develop three distinct styles of biguine: salon biguine, ballroom biguine and street biguine.
Martinique and Guadeloupe also saw the emergence of ballroom orchestras identical to the jazz orchestras of New Orleans. Made up of clarinets, drums and banjos, later combined with drums, these orchestras popularized the biguine in the 1920s.
The syncopated aspect of this music, the development of improvisation and harmonic research, made biguine and its musicians a success alongside jazz. Alexandre Stellio, an excellent clarinettist, brought biguine to Metropolitan France in the 1930s. As a result, several musicians travelled to Metropolitan France to popularize the music at the 1931 Colonial Exhibition. In Paris, several cabarets and nightclubs saw the glory of biguine and its musicians, especially from 1930 to 1940. Guadeloupean jazz musicians such as Robert Mavounzy and Sylvio Siobud also played a part in this success.several
Biguine has many features in common with New Orleans jazz, and may have influenced its development. This explains why, on their arrival in Paris, many West Indian musicians such as Ernest Léardé, Robert Mavounzy, Alexandre Stellio, Al Lirvat and Emilien Antile seamlessly integrated jazz into their repertoire.
This music was played in the same way as the biguine at the “bals Nègres” of the time. Biguine's popularity declined in the 1970s, with the arrival of Cuban and especially Haitian rhythms, such as the rampa cadenza and the compas.
Among the big names in biguine are Alexandre Stellio, Émilien Antile, Al Lirvat, Robert Mavounzy, Fernand Donatien, Barel Coppet, Marius Cultier, Paulo Rosine, Francisco, Maurice Jalier, Loulou Boislaville, Léona Gabriel, Lola Martin, Gertrude Seinin, Gisèle Baka, Malavoi and Max Ransay.