Music And Dance

Posts Tagged ‘Soca Music’

This material is mostly geared towards people who are new to this genre of music called Soca. As an artist who has been recording songs Soca for the past eight years and has won the Caribbean Soca wide contest, I will humbly attempt to present a comprehensive introduction to soca music. Soca music originated from the Caribbean island of Trinidad and Tobago. It is widely believed to have been created by Lord Shortly (born Garfield Blackman). He noticed that Calypso music was threatened by the most popular reggae music and endangered and tried to create a new hybrid that was more appealing to the masses. He fused Indian music with calypso music, and the result is a more energetic hybrid called Solkær, which later became known as the Soca. Lord Shortly introduced into the Soca world in 1973 with his song, Indrani.

Naturally, soca music of the seventies is very different from what exists today. Today, there are two main types, namely Power Soca and Groovy Soca. What is the main difference between the two? Power soca music is very fast, with times of around 160 beats per minute. The music is mostly for educational purposes. Soca artists thrive on motivating the public to respond to the instructions of his dancing. Power soca music is largely music to jump, wave and wine. Wine is derived from the word wind and is a type of dance is the movement of the hip). Trinidadian soca artist, Superglue was credited with starting the jump and wave craze. His success with this style of soca was so incredible that, given that most soca songs are written in response to the crowd present.

Today, the challenge for power soca songwriters is to write songs that can be moved, but not a regurgitation of the jump and wave theme. This is not an easy task due to the nature of the festival that soca music is centered around. Soca is largely carnival music. Since Carnival is all about jumping and waving, the music behind it should be able to generate such activity. Increasingly, artists are able to write songs that are not necessarily based on jump and wave or waving rags flags. In an attempt to stay away from the monotony, themes like love, peace and solidarity have been very frequent.