Soca music
Soca's development as a musical genre included its fusion with calypso, kaiso, chutney, reggae, zouk, Latin, cadence, and traditional West African rhythms.
[citation needed] Some of the early songs recorded in 1972 at the KH Studios which benefited from this project were "Indrani" by Lord Shorty and "Calypso Zest" by Sensational Roots.
In 1976, "Savage" by Maestro and "Trinidad Boogie" by Last Supper (composed by Robin Imamshah) also benefited from the improving multi-track recording technology at KH Studios.
Bollywood films, bhangra, the new Punjabi pop, and disco music in the United States have also experimented with soca.
The "father" of soca was a Trinidadian named Garfield Blackman, who rose to fame as Lord Shorty[12] with his 1964 hit "Cloak and Dagger".
Soca was originally spelled "sokah", with the "kah" part being the first letter in the Sanskrit alphabet, and representing the power of movement as well as the East Indian rhythmic influence that helped to inspire the new beat.
Shorty stated in a number of interviews[18] that the idea for the new soca beat originated with the fusion of calypso with East Indian rhythms that he used in his 1972 hit "Indrani".
Soca solidified its position as the popular new beat adopted by most Trinidadian calypso musicians by the time Shorty recorded his crossover hit "Endless Vibrations" in 1974.
During the subsequent promotional tour, Shorty stopped at the isle of Dominica and saw the top band there, Exile One, perform at the Fort Young Hotel.
Modern calypso, however, began in the 19th century, a fusion of disparate elements ranging from the masquerade song lavway, French Creole belair and the calinda stick-fighting chantwell.
Calypso's early rise was closely connected with the adoption of Carnival by Trinidadian slaves, including canboulay drumming and the music masquerade processions.
Cadence-lypso is a fusion of cadence rampa from Haiti and calypso from Trinidad & Tobago that has also spread to other English speaking countries of the Caribbean.
Originated in the 1970s by the Dominican band Exile One on the island of Guadeloupe, it spread and became popular in the dance clubs around the Creole world and Africa as well as the French Antilles.
Together and under the influence of well-known Dominican, Haitian and Guadeloupean kadans or compas bands like Experience 7, Grammacks, Exile One, Les Aiglons, Tabou Combo, Les Freres Dejean, etc., they decided to make Guadeloupean carnival music recording it in a more fully orchestrated yet modern and polished style.
The best-known band in the genre is Windward Caribbean Kulture (WCK), who originated the style in 1988 by experimenting with a fusion of cadence-lypso and jing ping.
They began using native drum rhythms such as lapo kabwit and elements of the music of jing ping bands, as well as ragga-style vocals.
Hit songs featuring bouyon flavored rhythms and sounds and familiar soca attributes include "Famalay" and "Conch Shell".
Afrosoca songs typically have a similar tempo to Groovy Soca (110 to 135 BPM), often with West African-influenced melodies.
Originally just singing over existing kuduro beats, artists began to build their own rhythms from scratch and that's what created the foundation of the genre.
In the late 2010s, Dennery segment artists such as Freezy, Mighty, and Motto incorporated more English into their lyrics and that led to a boom in popularity throughout the Caribbean and raised the genre's international profile.
This fast-paced version of Soca music tends to appeal more to the younger generation of party-goers and those who love working out in the gyms getting fit for the Carnival season and playing mas.
Nearly every important calypsonian/soca singer of the era recorded on one or more of these Brooklyn labels, resulting in a significant expansion of the music's international reach.
Others, including Chalkdust, Lord Kitchener, Explainer, Swallow, and Shadow, cycled between the Caribbean and Brooklyn to record and perform.
