IslandMix - Soca, Reggae, Zouk and Caribbean Entertainment

Dancehall thrives on riddims
BY LAURA DOWRICH

During the Carnival controversy over Wanskie’s “chi chi man” song, critics lamented the wholesale importation of dancehall slang into our culture.

But listen to some of the more popular hits this Carnival, and you realise the influence of Jamaican dancehall on soca is not just limited to the lingo.

“The whole syndrome of the soca market is that it is beginning to resemble the Jamaican format,” said Machel Montano.

Montano said the Jamaican influence can be seen in artistes’ style—how they dress, the words they write, the way they apply their lyrics, how they perform.

Maximus Dan and KMC are just two of the wildly popular soca acts whose sounds conjure up dancehall images. It should be no surprise to anyone, therefore, that they both tried to make it in the dancehall market before turning to soca.

“When dancehall broke, songs like Lovindeer’s ‘What Police Can Do,’ that set off the trend. I use to go to school singing songs from Supercat, Daddy Lizard and them,” said Maximus Dan in a telephone interview.

Maximus, who favours the more conscious form of dancehall, said a year after he joined the hugely popular Kiskadee Karavan and recorded a song with Precious called “Slow Wine”, he went to Jamaica at the age of 18 to make his name on the dancehall circuit.

“I did a song called ‘Do You See What I see’ on the Filthy riddim; General Degree had a song on that riddim called ‘Traffic Blocking’,” he said. “I wanted to be an entertainer. Dancehall was my strong area.”

He expected his career to take off, but when it didn’t, he decided to concentrate on developing himself locally. The growth of a new genre of soca dubbed ragga soca provided the opportunity for him to do what he liked.

Maximus, who was honoured at this year’s Youth Fest and appointed a spokesman for NADAPP, said he does not listen to soca to write soca. His vibe, he said, is predominantly dancehall.

Not so any more with Ken Marlon Charles, more popularly known as KMC.

“Before you used to hear plenty dancehall influence in me, but I cross up my music plenty with hip hop and dancehall and Latin music,” he said.

KMC, who smashed into the soca scene with his 1998 hit “Bashment to Carnival”, was involved in dancehall long before he started doing soca.

“Dancehall used to play on radio here and everything was about dancehall, it was a big influence,” he said.

Like Maximus, KMC tried to forge a career in dancehall.

“We try and try with the dancehall and nothing happen, a man like me try with soca and I realise it work, since then I into soca,” he said.

This year, with his songs “Carnival Rags”, “Rough Wine”, “I Don’t Want To Know (If I Getting Horn)”, “Sticking” and “Flopping Up”, KMC can actually be heard singing, a departure from the chanting which dominated his previous hits.

This, KMC, said is part of his attempt to make his music more local. “I trying to use Trinidad slang, and Trinidad dialect,” he said.

Regardless of KMC’s attempts to be more local, his generation will probably continue to churn out soca tunes with heavy dancehall influences. This, explained calypso expert Prof Gordon Rohlehr, is because dancehall is more their music than calypso.

“Dancehall has had an impact in Trinidad for the last 15 years or more,” Rohlehr said. “We were discussing the maxi dub for example around 1985. This entire generation has grown up with dancehall, so it is very natural that they should be integrating the two sets of music and trying to produce some type of hybrid form.”

“In the 1920s, there was a Venezuelan dance called paseo: we recorded quite a number of calypsoes under paseo. If you check Sparrow, he had the calypso twist and boogaloo, Kitchener had the soul train.

“This simply means that calypso has always had to contend with other popular music. One of the responses of calypsonians was to meet the other music halfway and make a blend,” Rohlehr said.

One definite impact of dancehall on soca, Rohlehr acknowledged, was the increasing use of rhythms, or riddims, as it’s pronounced by Jamaicans.

Dancehall thrives on riddims, which are usually instrumentals over which deejays add their vocals. Artistes sing different songs on the same riddims, which are usually named.

Montano’s The Collectors Riddim is the most recent to emerge on the soca scene. Over ten artistes have recorded songs on that riddim.

“When you are doing this type of thing with large numbers of sound, we are producing five or six hundred a songs a year. You are producing it under factory conditions, it saves you a lot of money if you can digitise the thing and lay down the tracks, but it loses the individuality,” he said.

I will ask for permission to speak on this piece,because this is something I will give different views on.

U need permission tuh run yuh mout?

miss baje you know these people banning for breeding hard around here so I have to ask

am in a pissy mood today.. so i might say something that will get me ban... i ain't care one rats ass..

But I think this is something everybody knows already, its been going on for years now, and they finally decided to write something about it. I will comment shortly.

I NEED TO TALK TO YOU :

Basically you are losing the essence of Soca with the rise of the riddim... Soca was never based on Reggae music. What is happening is that the soca artists are looking for ways to cross over and become mainstream. An example is Machel he brought Shaggy on Mad bull to get that crossover appeal as well as he does walker for the rock and roll appeal. With the prominace of digitized tracks you loose the horn section with makes soca distinct.

This is why you are getting alot of better soca music coming from the other islands. The artist are keeping true to the soca essence. You have to give respect tomasters like supablue for keeping the true essence in his music...

i have more .. it coming soon

I want to comment, but I have alot to say and not enough time with these macco people looking over my shoulder. I will get back to this later.

I'm not crazy about this "riddim" driven soca myself. My cousin just made a cd for me before I left Trinidad and most of the songs are on one type of riddim or another. Is it really necessary to have 10 songs on one riddim? 2 or 3 OK but TEN?

Another question I have is why Trini artists have to look to Jamaica to bring soca to the world or build up the soca music to make it marketable? Don't they think that they could loose what's distincly Trinidadian. If they need to look to Jamiaca for anything it should be the marketing aspects of the industry. Not the lingo and the riddims.

Just my humble opinion.

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I don't mind a few riddims...but this year seemed out of control. Back when I heard Pigtail, I thought it was interesting, but the songs sounded nice. Alison, Destra, Onika, Edwin, & even Capleton all had nice tunes. If you make a riddim, be sure it sounds good. Laundry had a couple more in 2000 that sounded good. 2001, the Barnyard was cool, but then it didn't have too many artists on it. Everyone liked Fete is Fete, right? The Pelau riddim had a couple, but it wasn't spectacular. KMC had some other ones too, but Panic was the only song I can really remember. Somewhere in between those years, the Work riddim had a couple songs, but overall the CD had some tunes I would never want to hear. Monstapiece out of Barbados made the Red riddim(Jack up the World, The Wrecker), the one w/ Insomnia & Good & Bad...Oh yes, and the Action riddim w/ Tik Tock. 2002 we got to hear the Best riddim, which had some nice tunes...Rhumba riddim wasn't bad either. For the summer of 2002, we got Grippa, Desperado, & Envy riddims.

All of which were cool, and not too many people on them. Dougla was nice to hear during Miami Carnival since it was new. So if I only had to keep up w/ 2 or 3 riddims per Trini Carnival or Barbados Cropover, I'd be happy. But goodness! Having to hear Dougla, Collectors, Bionic, Lime Juice, Party Alliance, Couldn't Believe, Soca Diwali. Arghhhhhhhh! enough! Trim it to 3 or wait until after carnival. It gives people a chance for exposure, but how many of the songs do you really listen to? I have a hard time w/ dancehall & greensleeves seems to think 40 songs on a riddim is fine. Puuuuhleeeeeeeze don't let soca get like that. I started listening to soca because it was different that dancehall. Some of these riddims sound like they could be played w/ the regular dancehall. If that's what they're aiming for, well fine & good luck. I just hope soca will not evolve completely in that direction. I understand change happens over time, but I don't think this kind of change is completely neccessary. Originality will always be tops for me.

Girl I argree with you 110%.....but i just want to give everyone something to think about. Has any trinidadian won a grammy? The Jamaican artistes who did win grammys did they every put it in their mind to put soca in their riddims to let dancehall become "mainstream" or should i say out there.....trinidadians fail to realize they're helping dancehall blow up and doing more harm than good to soca in the process....it's just something to think about....

While I do like the songs on the riddims, another part of me is like, dang how much riddims we gonna have, just the other day my husband was like this is the lime juice riddim, what another one, its getting too much to keep track of.

But how do we expect to keep the music from "going" dancehall when especially in Trinidad that's all up and coming artist are hearing?

...wah allyuh so worried about, the past few years it was raise yuh flag, rag, finger whatever in de air, this year is riddims, next couple years it will be somethin else....

Let it all come out soca is being destroyed by this trend. These are singers some talented others not that could not make it in the dancehall world and realize they can score some easy money in the soca business they want to do everything reggae. Sound like them put soca on riddims like them and just pollute the whole culture. Let me tackle a subject that alot of people like to justify the ragga with. They say it is just like the time when soca came out the older people say that it was messing up the culture. Well for that I say soca is something that originated in Trinidad we didnt go elsewhere to get a part of it it was created in we land Ragga now is someboby else way of music put over our soca beats(sometimes)other times its just plain old reggae. There is no originality in it and they want to take that mainstream. Its a joke. Soca is not in their bellies they just here to get the money and done. Not caring about the culture itself. Since when does soca have bad boy and you will feel slugs in it. Get rid of that garbage and let we jump and wave and wine and have a good time. We are the only ones who have this if you are going to change soca change it with something original not with slugs and tugs and fire and bad boy that has been done mainstream, stream, river, ocean, spring. It has all been done so keep the violence out of we ting and all man wine up on a women all women wine on yuh man man. Or signal signal signal MORE SUPERBLUE PLEASE. Please no more ragga riddims and han in ah di air. Let we get all yuh hand and keep we ting pure. Dont infect it