Chutney soca / soca chutney
(=popular music of the Indo-Caribbean community of Trinidad and Tobago.)
JanuaryinGermany is OTM about bhangra (Punjabi/Sikh/North Indian) and indentured servants in the West Indies (who mainly came from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Bengal and the Madras area/Hindu/Western + Southern India). The early influences for what would later be called chutney soca were Bhajans (devotional songs, sung in Creolized Hindi), Bollywood (filmi) songs/melodies and ghazals (non-devotional 'light entertainment' songs), although the instrumentation is quite similar to bhangra (dhols, dholaks, tablas, tassa drums, sitars, harmoniums, etc.) A good article on the history of chutney music
here.
If you want to hear what chutney soca sounds like, check
here. Slightly dated tracks from the 1998 Chutney Soca Monarch competition, but what the heck.
The ruling Chutney Soca Monarch is Heeralal Rampartap (full listing of Carnival 2005 winners
here.)
A very good compilation (budget, too!) is
Hot and Spicy Chutney (1998?) on the (now defunct?) Nascente label. Well worth scouring the bargain bins for.
If you drop reggaeton, desi bhangra, vallenato/merengue/bachata and/or (obv.) soca, this kind of stuff works great.
Apart from chutney soca, Trini soca (itself the 'pop' form of calypso/kaiso) has produced some amazing fusions.
Rapso (Rap/soca), e.g. Brother Resistance (who, incidentially, is a devout Rastafarian)
Parang soca (Mix of soca with native Indian guitar-based parang, mostly Spanish lyrics), e.g. Crazy "Parang Soca"
Jamoo (soca with less bacchanal, more spiritual feel)
Off topic, apologies.