Music of Trinidad and Tobago - Soca

Soca

Soca is said to have been invented in 1963 (see 1963 in music) by Ras Shorty I's "Clock and Dagger" from Calypso music. Shorty added Indian instruments, including the dholak, tabla and dhantal and soon rivaled reggae as the most popular form of Caribbean music. A prolific musician, composer and innovator, Shorty experimented with fusing calypso and the East Indian rhythms of chutney music for nearly a decade before unleashing "the soul of calypso,"...soca music. Shorty had been in Dominica during an Exile One performance of cadence-lypso, and collaborated with Dominica's 1969 Calypso King, Lord Tokyo and two calypso lyricists, Chris Seraphine and Pat Aaron in the early 1970s, who wrote him some creole lyrics. Soon after Shorty released a song, "Ou Petit", with words like "Ou dee moin ou petit Shorty" (meaning "you told me you are small Shorty"), a combination of calypso, cadence and kwéyòl. Soca reached its modern form by the early 1970s under the influence of American soul, disco and funk music, which reached Trinidadian artists when they began recording in New York City; by this time, most of the Indian-derived elements had been removed from the genre. Shorty's 1974 Endless Vibrations and Soul of Calypso brought soca to its peak of international fame. Less lyrically revolutionary than traditional calypso, soca has remained mostly focused on good times throughout its history, though artists like Gypsy (whose 1986 "The Sinking Ship" helped remove the People's National Movement from the Trinidadian government) continued calypso's socially-aware traditions.
Soca's popularity grew through the 70s and early 1980s, finally becoming an international chart-topper after "Hot! Hot! Hot!", a 1983 release by Arrow, who hailed from Montserrat and not Trinidad. Arrow soon proved himself to be one of the most innovative soca artists of the 80s, incorporating zouk and other influences into a series of best-selling singles. Other artists of the 80s put new islands on the soca map, especially Shadow who was born in Tobago and most influential in the drum and bass sound of soca, as well as Antigua with (Swallow) and from Barbados, the band (Square One Band), and added influences from African spirituals (Superblue), gospel (Lord Shorty, under his new name Ras Shorty I), reggae (Byron Lee & the Dragonaires), Indian music (Mungal Patasar) and funk (Lord Nelson). An important fusion was ragga-soca, which combined Jamaican ragga with soca. Bunji Garlin, KMC, Maximus Dan and Machel Montano & Xtatik were the most popular of the soca acts of the 1990s. In the last decade, Montano broke away to form Machel Montano HD, while a crop of new acts have emerged and dominated at the Carnival Road March or been strong popular contenders: Faye-Ann Lyons Alvarez (daughter of Superblue), Destra Garcia, Blaxx, among others and now Soca is one of our popular music of Trinidad and Tobago