SOCA Tankalanka! Part 1

SOCA Music -"The Good, Bad and Indifferent"

The Good: We have the music and it is wonderful - Soca!
The Bad: There is too much misinformation regarding the start of this music genre - Soca!
Indifferent: Almost everyone accepts the stories told and really don't care much about any wrongs that have taken place regarding the contributions of others!

Almost everywhere you search the subject "Soca" you will come across articles that state emphatically that "Lord Shorty" created the new music genre but is this a bullet proof statement to make? No, I don't think so but no one can fault you for stating that he named the genre Sokah that was erroneously reported in the Sunday Punch by Ivor Ferreira as Soca.  It can also be stated that his ideas  impacted this new music  in the formative years.  Now you may be wondering where I am taking this conversation and before you finish reading this brief statement you may want to wring my neck. Sacrilegious to come here and make statements that go against the grain but in the end I believe that you will sympathize with most of the parties involved in the discussion.  After all it is important that justice and fair play take place and just due is given to the people who deserve the accolades for their creative genius.


Recently King Wellington went on Wack Radio and stated emphatically that Shorty did not create Soca music. However, he was putting forward a case for his style of music during that period that was called Ruso Funk.  Ruso Funk, the name never stuck and was incorporated under the umbrella of Soca. He is still upset and is supported in his claim by one Dimitri Subotsky, the owner of the Calypso Archives (the only known archive in existence). King Wellington's claim is noted here because his music, most people will tell you, is the music that most resembles Soca as we know it from the early days.


I will not go into the claims made by Shorty about how he came up with the music because those claims are  well documented all over the web ; there is also the 1995 G.B.TV interview available for viewing on YouTube an this blog entitled "Dougla Rhythm? Sokah? We now call it Soca"

However, I will quote from an interview done by Trinisoca.com with Winsford Devine, the great song writer. Please read and re-read the excerpt from the interview in quotation marks...
Recorded: on July 19, 2007
Posted: September 12, 2007
Edited: September 14, 2007

MR. DOUGLAS: 
Just after the Soca started to get accepted, Ed Watson to me was the man in the forefront of the musical arrangements.

WINSFORD DEVINE: 
He did a lot of things for 'Merchant' and them. Hear what happened to that song. Ed Watson and 'Shorty' were in the studio doing the song and their ideas clashed and they quarreled and so on. I went to visit Arthur De Coteau a morning; Arthur used to live upper Bournes Road, St. James, in a little street close to the cemetery. 'Shorty' bust in the door by Arthur and started to talk about how he and Ed Watson fall out last night and is Arthur who finished the song for him and so on. The song was called "Endless Vibrations". The next album 'Shorty' made had a lot of quarrel over it too. He went in the studio with the people and them without music. That was sweet music, "Om Shanti". He had no music written for the song. They sat down there and arrange the song with their mouths for him. When the LP came out there was no mention of them on it. Roy Cape always talks about that. He took all the credit. He put himself as the arranger, but if you don't know music, how could you arrange? Now these things happen."
http://www.trinisoca.com/devine/120911.html

Now, I was in two heated discussions in Islandmix.com/backchat regarding Soca and Shorty's role in the creation of the music.  I even created a thread named 'Shorty is the creator of Soca' to counter the other thread that insisted Shorty did not. This was my final post to that thread:
"Shorty did name the music "Sokah" that was changed to "Soca" - no one could dispute that fact. The music arrangements that made the songs unique and by extension Sokah was heavily influenced by the people who in conjunction with Shorty arranged the music... we are talking about great music arrangers - 1. ED WATSON and 2. ARTHUR DE COURTEAU and 3.ROY CAPE (they all had input into the original music and maybe more-so than Shorty (on a technical level). However, we have to keep in mind that the music was his idea (i.e. Lord Shorty) and it was his LP (Shorty) and because of the latter fact we have the confusion today regarding who created the music. Now, did someone purposely leave out the credits  for the others who added their creative genius with this original work?  We don't know and it is too late in the game to get the truth - to be honest  we are only spitting in the air with all the speculations.


It is unfortunate that today one person gets credit for it all however, we can say that Shorty's ideas led to the development of the music that all of these guys were a part of during the formative years of Sokah aka Soca.


This is how I now look at the big picture. Today that music does not exist as it was originally conceived and created anymore (only in recordings). This is very interesting because all new music with this fast pace  from all over the Caribbean is now labeled Soca." 

Final Thoughts:
To conclude I will say this: If Shorty did not try to change the music, if he did not persevere and stick to his guns we would not have the music that is known as Soca today.  The fact that he had a disagreement regarding the arrangement of the music with Ed Watson shows how passionate about what he wanted the music to sound like. He started the movement and he branded it Sokah; now give him the credit he deserves regardless of who helped with innovations to the music. 


Think about this...Microsoft corporation was recently ordered to stop selling their product Microsoft Office (the leader in word processing software) because of copyright infringement.  Just think about it, a short script brought this huge body of work to a screeching stop (of course they will work out a deal). What do you think that Shorty's contribution to the music we call Soca today  is worth?  Can I now put this to rest...

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