Soca refers to a kind of dance music, stemming from the Tobago and Trinidad Islands and calypso music. Originally, it brought together the melodic and lilting calypso sound with steady percussion that is oftentimes electronic within modern music, as well as local chutney music. Soca music has gone far within the past two decades, mainly by various musicians from Anglophone Caribbean countries, such as Guyana, Trinidad, Grenada, Barbados, Saint Lucia, Barbuda and Antigua, The Bahamas, Jamaica, Belize and Dominica.
The national football team of Tobago and Trinidad, know was the Soca Warriors, got its nickname from referring to this particular genre of music.
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History
The known soca father is Lord Shorty from Trinidad and Tobago, whose “Indrani” recording in 1973 began the trend. Within the 1970’s, he began to write calypso based songs for various young calypsonians such as Maestro and Baron who had hits like “Severe Licking”, which Shorty produced. Trinidad is famous for its amazing carnivals, the steel pan and calypso origins. A prolific innovator, musician and composer, Ras Shorty experimented with the mixture of African-derived Calypso and rhythms from East India. Shorty worked with 1969 Dominica’s Calypso King, as well as Lord Tokyo with two other calypso lyricists, Pat Aaron and Chris Seraphine within the earlier 1970s while visiting Dominica.
Lord Kitchener would be the one who started the accredited and noticeable transition. A pioneer of the soca and calypso music promotion, Kitch was great with Kaiso and anything he ever composed turned into instant hits. Byron Lee and the Dragonaires turned soca into a social wave in West India; however, Kevin Lyttle, the Baha Men, Burning Flames, Machel Montano, Rupee Walker and Krosfyah and many more within today’s century brought recognition to America.
As with calypso, soca was put to use for risqué humour and social based commentary, although the first soca wave acts eschewed those of calypso. Within the 1990’s, the brand new century, soca evolved into a mixture of various musical styles. Collaborations between Machel Montano and Jamaican musicians like Beenie Man and Red Rat, American musicians such as Walker Hornung, musicians from Panama Lans and Karamel, as well as artists from Japan pushed modern soca boundaries. Machel Montano was the very first mainstream artist of soca to actually sell out venues worldwide, even Madison Square Garden’s Theater.
Similar genres
Soca music progressed like other kinds of music through the years, as Calypsonians experimented with various rhythms, like the following:
- Rapso is a form of hip-hop with dialect from the Eastern Caribbean with bold lyrics and the smooth melodies of calypso.
- Chutney Soca is traditional soca performed with more Chutney styles and primarily executed by Chutney artists.
- Ragga Soca is a mixture of Soca and Jamaican Dancehall; therefore, it pertains to modern calypso and dance hall, an up-tempo beat of calypso with electronic instruments and moderate bass. It is also a Trinidadian way to perform dancehall reggae.
- Parang Soca is a fusion of soca, Latino music and calypso. Originating from Venezuela, it is mostly sung in the Spanish language.
- Steelband Soca is played with steel pans, which are oftentimes put to use in calypso and soca music. It became very well-known that it turned into its personal genre of music called steelband. Their steel pans were bowl-like, hand-made drums of metal which were crafted in a way that various parts of these drums created various notes if hit. Steelbands refer to musician groups that play their songs completely on those steel drums. A lot of various kinds of steel pans exist, every one with a personal one-of-a-kind pitch set.
Soca was also used to experiment in Bollywood movies, Punjabi pop and Bhangra.
Instruments:
The music of soca is based on strong rhythmic parts done by drum sets. The percussion and drums are oftentimes loud within this music genre and sometimes, they are the only instruments that do back up for the vocals. Soca is definitely defined through its quick and loud beats of percussion. Synthesizers are oftentimes put to use within modern soca, replacing the old usual horn sections in smaller shows. Bass and electric guitars are oftentimes found and are constantly found within live bands of soca. Horn sections are sometimes found within live bands of soca, especially for bigger shows. It normally comes with a trombone and two trumpets with saxophones as a portion of this section every once in a while.
