Notting Hill Carnival is amazing in many respects. The pan, the kaiso and the amazing costumes filling the streets in riotous colour. One aspect that many would find grating however, is the fact that the soundtrack to Europe's biggest street festival is undoubtedly the soundtrack of the islands with no interjection whatsoever from the United Kingdon. The UK soca music scene, if not dead is on its very last legs. UK originating songs do not make it on the playlists of UK based DJs- to obtain validation, artists need to do a Kerwin Dubois- go down to Trinidad and make it big- only then will they obtain some semblance of credibility. Songs produced in the UK often sound mediocre, belying that they have been assembled in someone's front room.
This is an absolute shame, because we do we have some class acts in the UK. Scrappy, the Monsterratian sensation, with his megatune "Start to Bounce" totally demolished Poison's Wet Fete last year- his music is rhythmic, his tunes are original and his voice rivals Bunji any day any how. On the female side, Ms Desire and Chardonnay are two big female soca artists with equally as big voices who would purr their hearts into groovy soca. Our own Brown Sugar and Helena B are bona fide soca gurus. However gone are the days when fetes featured local artists such as Kerwin Dubois (at the time), when Tudor Rose featured artists like Grenadian Ronnie and when UK artists had their own niche and their own corner of the market.
It is such a crying shame that I applaud the decision of Soca News to create a UK Soca Monarch competition. I hope that this competition will resuscitate the soca industry in the UK. I have a feeling that the breakthrough will happen here- the UK musical industry is at the intersection between rock, indie and rnb and all of these genres could do with a soca injection.
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ReplyDeleteWhen someone listens to a song, what leaves a lasting impression are lyrics. Even soca should have lyrics, an unending chorus does not hold ones attention. There are some great artists out there, that can do something for this genre, but they don't get played. And you are asking why soca is dying or no one in commercial radio wants to play the music, come on!!
ReplyDeleteI actually think lyrics is not the greatest hamper to the development of soca music, but rather, the absence of musicality and the whole "wukkup wukkup wukkup" break out music that sometimes is badly formulated and even more terribly executed. It's okay to jump up and play ah mas, but you dont want that "ponging" in your head. The way ahead for soca is groovy- power soca needs to take a cue from house music- house is successful and there are no lyrics.
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