Party Calypsos
And there are other types within this music genre. There is soca, or what many Trinidadians refer to as ‘party calypsos’ or ‘jump and wine’ music. These are deliberately composed for marketing to a younger audience (similar in purpose to rap music), and focus on the celebratory or party mood in its lyrics, free of all the trappings of social and political mores, enticing the listener not to examine his or her moral state or political persuasion, but to jump up, fete, have a good time. Soca music is often performed at very fast tempos of over 150 beats per minute, feeding the frenzy of the masses for the annual two-day carnival celebrations which precedes Lent. This type of festive calypso is often used as background music for advertisements, luring tourists to the Caribbean, for it conjures images of partying on the streets, basking on sandy beaches in places where the temperature seldom varies below 80 degrees Farenheit.
Some of the more popular soca recordings include: "Soca Baptist" ( Superblue, 1980), "Meh Lover" (Lord Nelson, 1983), "Nani Wine" (Crazy, 1989), "Dollar Wine" (Colin Lucas, 1991), "Jump an’ wave" (Preacher, 1994), "The River" (Sanelle Dempster,1999), "Pump it up" (Superblue, 2000), "Stranger" (Mighty Shadow 2001), "Display" (Faye Ann Lyons, 2003).
In his 2001 composition "Stranger", the Mighty Shadow (Winston Bailey) pays tribute to the female tourist who makes the annual pilgrimage to Trinidad and Tobago to revel in the two-day carnival celebrations. Lured by the music and festive atmosphere this "pretty gyal is in a trance, wanting to play mass (masquerade), dance in the streets." Shadow counsels her, offering tongue-in-cheek advice as to how this can be done. One must "Buy ah little rag ( hanky) or buy ah little flag . . . Find yourself ah band and find ah good position . . . When de music blast, you’ll find out how to play mass . . . When dey say rag, pull yuh rag . . . Wave it, wave it, wave it, wave it." Shadow's "Stranger" exemplifies the structure of a typical party calypso stripped of social or political trappings, its purpose, strictly festive.7
Trinidadian musicologist Gordon Rohlehr considers party songs as indigenous and traditional as any other form of calypso. He comments: "Carnival, so often presented in calypsos as 'the culture of Trinidad,' could not exist without them, and it may well be that these songs, whose function is to preserve the fervor of the festival, are the life-force without which the masquerade itself, and even the more serious music that resonates at its periphery or beneath its mask of gaiety, would cease to exist."8
The movement north- marketing calypso music
As a musical genre, calypso has been successfully packaged and exported to markets in the US and other parts of the world. This movement north has been positive, as the genre has been able to retain its distinctive Caribbean flavor. A good example of this is the Andrews Sisters version of Lord Invader's calypso "Rum and Coca Cola" in 1944.9
In 1956, Harry Belafonte recorded his Calypso album featuring the famous "Banana Boat Song" ("Day-O") - probably the most internationally well known calypso. His Calypso album also became the first album to sell over one million copies.
Calypsos from Trinidad and Tobago have shaped similar song traditions in other islands in the Caribbean: Antigua, Barbados, British Guiana (Guyana), Grenada, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Party calypsos are regularly performed in tourist hotels in the Bahamas, Jamaica, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. Calypsonians are regularly invited to perform in Labor Day celebrations in New York, at the annual Caribana festival in Toronto and Notting Hill Carnival in Great Britain.
Next page: Hybrid forms, and the future
