The Soul of Calypso

Soca is another style of music typically played/performed during the Notting Hill Carnival. It is known as “the soul of calypso,” also a genre of Caribbean music that originated in Trinidad and Tobago in the late 1970s. It further developed into a multitude of styles in the 80s and onward, continuously evolving and transforming with various cultural influences, a lot of which come form cadence, funk, and soul.

The “godfather” of soca was a Trinidadian man named Garfield Blackman, who was famously known as Lord Shorty with his first hit in 1963 called “Cloak and Dagger.” He began writing and performing songs in the genre of calypso, but then began to experiment with different sounds, blending calypso with elements of Indo-Caribbean music. It took nearly a decade for soca music to become a popular genre. Shorty was the first to give soca music a definition, and it was primarily with his song “Indrani” in 1973 and his album “Endless Vibration” in 1975.

In “Indrani,” Shorty demonstrates the style of soca with the fusion of calypso, cadence, and Indian musical instruments, mainly the dholak, tabla, and dhantal. And soca has since grown to incorporate all kinds of musical elements and has been experimented with in Bollywood films, Bhangra, new Punjabi pop, and American disco all as well as being a popular tradition of Notting Hill Carnival music.

"Indrani" - Lord Shorty

"Ducking" - Fadda Fox (soca music today)

Calypso

Calypso is a type of music that arose in the 17^th century in Trinidad and Tobago. In its earliest stages it was a way of communication between African slaves working on French sugar plantations in the Caribbean. They were not allowed to talk to each other, so they used calypso to communicate and mock their masters instead. Most of these calypsos were sung in French Creole by a groit. These were individuals who were responsible for keeping an oral history of their tribe or village.

However, now there is a more modern version of calypso that began in the 19^th century as a mix of contrasting elements such as the masquerade song lavway, French Creole belair and the calinda stick-fighting chantwell. And its increasing popularity was heavily connected to the adoption of Carnival by the slaves, including canboulay drumming and the music masquerade processions.

Calypso is an Afro-Caribbean style of music that is very rhythmic and uses a lot of various percussion instruments and even banjos and guitars. Typically, the lyrics of a calypso are highly political but in a very careful and structured way due to strict censorship.

Below is a recording of calypso music which, along with steel-pan bands, is the kind of music traditionally exhibited during the Notting Hill Carnival.