Underwater Dancehall

N

nomadologist

Guest
awesome, thanks for the explanations. where do you buy this stuff? i was basically AWOL from life for two-three years so I'm really dumb about these things, have patience :)
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
Brit colonials took Indians with them everywhere giving us delicious hybrid mixtures of music. Also Jamaican curry.
And the chilli was introduced to India by Portugese missionaries or european sailors who got hooked on them in South America. Indeed do many things come to pass.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
don't know about chutney (other than the spices indians put on everything) but soca is trinidad dancehall. usually very bright and sunny, just the happiest music ever :D most of it is actually too happy for even me :slanted: but there is this superb kinda moody track offa Soca Rebels which goes "Africa is burning... and the black man here... is doing the freak". WICKED. I'll dig it up for you tomorrow.
And Soca was a big influence on Horsepower Productions, godfathers of (you guessed it) dubstep. Indeed do many things come to pass.
 

redcrescent

Well-known member
Never heard of soca or chutney--what are these?

Gavin OTM about soca

(taken from an old thread)

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.

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, cumbia 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 (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)
 

Gavin

booty bass intellectual
awesome, thanks for the explanations. where do you buy this stuff? i was basically AWOL from life for two-three years so I'm really dumb about these things, have patience :)

There are yearly comps just like dancehall... Soca Gold, Soca Vol. 101, (is there a Soca Soca Soca?) etc. Any shop with decent black music should have it. Names to look for: Wayne Wonder, Jamesy... I'm like Zhao, it's mostly too upbeat for me, so I am limited in my knowledge.
 

redcrescent

Well-known member
awesome, thanks for the explanations. where do you buy this stuff? i was basically AWOL from life for two-three years so I'm really dumb about these things, have patience :)

From what I've gathered you live in NYC, right? Lucky you, because you probably have the highest concentration of roti shops and steel pan orchestras outside T&T!

Ali's Roti Shop on Fulton Street in Brooklyn is just awesome, go there very, very hungry for a late afternoon snack and sample all the goodies. And it's very close to Coxsone's Music City where they should sort you out with some quality soca.
 

Gavin

booty bass intellectual
From what I've gathered you live in NYC, right? Lucky you, because you probably have the highest concentration of roti shops and steel pan orchestras outside T&T!

Ali's Roti Shop on Fulton Street in Brooklyn is just awesome, go there very, very hungry for a late afternoon snack and sample all the goodies. And it's very close to Coxsone's Music City where they should sort you out with some quality soca.

Damn, nice advice! Any hope for Chicago? I know a Jamaican CD shop that's bound to have some soca, but I want the whole T&T experience!

And now that this thread's been totally derailed... does anyone know a Trini MC named Mr. Lee G? I think he is in Montreal now, did a track with Ghislain Poirier that's a chopped version of The Whisper Song -- that was one of my mixtape killers! I could never find much info on him though.
 

redcrescent

Well-known member
For Gavin: Café Trinidad and Mr Lee G.

Slothrop said:
And Soca was a big influence on Horsepower Productions, godfathers of (you guessed it) dubstep. Indeed do many things come to pass.
This makes complete sense to me now that you mention it. I'd definitely like to see more soca/dubstep cross-pollination!
Last Bug (Kevin Martin) gig I went to he dropped two or three heavyweight soca bits which nearly took some heads off, but it wasn't a radical departure from the rest of the set.
 
N

nomadologist

Guest
From what I've gathered you live in NYC, right? Lucky you, because you probably have the highest concentration of roti shops and steel pan orchestras outside T&T!

Ali's Roti Shop on Fulton Street in Brooklyn is just awesome, go there very, very hungry for a late afternoon snack and sample all the goodies. And it's very close to Coxsone's Music City where they should sort you out with some quality soca.

Ahhh, "downtown"...I always get those jamaican patties in my neighborhood but this sounds pretty amazing. Ever been to Crown Heights for the festival?
 

zhao

there are no accidents
is Wayne Wonder from Trinidad? but surely what he makes is dancehall proper...

any suggestions on shops in berlin Mr. Crescent? :) for soca and other "world" music (forgive me)...
 

Blackdown

nexKeysound
My only experience of soca-chutney was at a anglo-sri lankan wedding. After all of the usual shite UK wedding music on comes the soca-chutney and suddenly all the aunties are leading a conga around the room.

To add to the scene, in the centre of the hall was case full of ceremonial truncheons that belonged to the police regiment that had repressed the Irish over the years. We all conga-ed around that to this upbeat cheerful music. Surreal!
 

zhao

there are no accidents
Indian / Sri Lankan weddings are the best... fucking crazy. i was supposed to dj at one where the guest list was 800 strong, and that's modest compared to some of the 5000 people week long parties that happen.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
Re: "fetishizing ethnic other" or whatever the fuck:

this video says it all and more.

imagine if you went to that highschool...
 

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
Re: "fetishizing ethnic other" or whatever the fuck:

this video says it all and more.

imagine if you went to that highschool...

you just know that they're actually listening to Britney Spears instead of whatever's been dubbed over that. Is that what happens in playgrounds now? Fuckin hell. That first tune is wicked if anyone knows what it is.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
whatever's been dubbed over that.

i thought it was a dub over too at first, but if you pay attention it's actually the music playing in the school yard. the fade in and outs must be done by the (out of frame) dj.

anyhow pretty inconceivable for Punjabis who are mostly devout Sikhs to be playing Western pop in a public school. and all the young Indians I've ever met are just crazy about their own music - Bhangra. not hard to see or hear why, surely?

Bhangra parties are by far the most outrageoius dance parties i have EVER been to. the moves are so high energy I'm sweating after 20 minutes and by the end just soaked.
 
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