Sweet soca for the road
It has been a memorable Carnival, I find, and what made it so was the finest of the music. Mark down 2006 as the year in which soca road music finally emerged at the hands of a new, more or less, generation of soca singers either as individuals or in collaboration with others, the caveat being that I am too far removed from the international pop scene to know which of the melodies are original or simply disguised pastiches of said originals.
TUCO, which has reminded us about its ruling re sampling of other people’s records will no doubt tell us although I don’t see how the likes of the organisation’s president, Protector, can be close to the international pop scene either. Given that I was the first to put him on stage (he sang “The Mosquito Really Sexy” at the then dilapidated and now long defunct “Rio” cinema in Laventille) when we were both young men, he continues to be a contemporary which means he must have some younger ears (Resistance, perhaps?) listening for him with respect to this illegal “sampling” business.