Caribbean Beat — March/April 2019 (#156)

playlist
Keshav & Rakka present
Badang! Riddim
Various artists (Badang! Records/Monk Music Co.)
Trinidad Carnival is here, and the sounds of
Carnival are at their peak. A notable feature this
year is the predominance of the riddim — one
musical bed for multiple singers to exploit with
unique songs or lyrics — as the driver of the frenzy.
Another feature is the globalisation of soca, with
the introduction of producers from outside the
Caribbean exploring this music and distributing
it for other Carnivals worldwide. DJ Rakka from
Belgium has teamed up with UK-based Trinidadian
producer Keshav Chandradathsingh to create a
skeletal drum-centric riddim that allows for the
words of a number of major soca artists to “ride.”
Rhythm more than harmony drives this music,
prosody more than melodic variation is the key
to hooking audiences. The stars are all out on
this EP: superstar Machel Montano, chart topper
Kevin Lyttle, lyrical geniuses Chromatics and MX
Prime, and hot steppers Olatunji and Ricardo Drue
make up the cast.
The Complete Cuban Jam
Sessions
Various artists (Craft Recordings)
Between 1956 and 1964, the major Cuban record
label Panart captured the sounds and descargas
— improvised musical jam sessions — of the most
innovative native musicians on the island. With
the freedom of jazz and the soul of Cuba, this is
“a stylistic and historic panorama of Cuban music,
from big band son montuno to Afro-Cuban rumba,
mambo, cha-cha-chá, and country acoustic guajira
music,” as described by compilation label Craft
Recordings. This bit of history is here remastered
for a new generation and collected in a five-LP box
set (five CDs are another option), offering a unique
glimpse of the zeitgeist of the nation during and
after the Cuban Revolution, which nationalised
Cuban culture and record companies. Legends
of Cuban music recorded in that loose setting
include mambo co-creators (and brothers) bassist
Israel “Cachao” and pianist Orestes “Macho” López,
alongside jazz drummer Guillermo Barreto and
other pioneers. A keepsake for the ages.
Single Spotlight
Rag Storm
Super Blue, featuring 3 Canal (Chinese
Laundry Music)
The music of Trinidad Carnival changed forever in
1991, when Austin Lyons — known to the world
as Super Blue — instructed masqueraders to “get
something and wave.” The energy and focus of the
Road March tune — of which Super Blue already
had three — became anthemic signals to abandon
one’s inhibitions and “mash up the place.” Since
1980, when he won his first Road March, until the
present, his is the template followed by just about
every soca singer trying to get the attention of the
masses. In 2019, alongside seminal rapso group
3 Canal, Super Blue is describing what will be the
inevitable outcome when ears hear this jam: “Jump
and jump up / Jump and rag up / Is mas’ and tempo
/ When Super leh go.” In other words, this music will
have bodies defying gravity while enthusiastically
twirling bandanas. The world welcomes the rebirth
of Super Blue, who in the early 2000s descended
into “hell,” with the battle scars of a vocal rasp as a
reminder that he is forever the party soca king.
XtraOrdinary
Triple Kay International (self-released)
Dominica’s Carnival, or Mas Domnik, is a pre-
Lenten festival like Trinidad and Tobago’s, and
in 2019 the music of local favourites Triple
Kay International is the soundtrack for revelry.
The band, which performs zouk, compas,
reggae, cadence, dancehall, and — in this case
— Dominica’s native bouyon music, squares
up against any naysayers who think they could
outrank it. “Who’s coming with me / On this epic
journey / To build a legacy / To be extraordinary?
/ We bigger than, better than, better than any
competition / Competition flat!” Confidence
indeed, but when a sample from Queen’s “We
Are the Champions” invades the chorus —
not once, but twice — you know this is not
arrogance, but a tongue-in-cheek retort to
everyone that you have to come good to even
be on the same page. As a musical mélange of
creole fiddle, saxophone, and drums alongside
modern drums and keyboards, the sound
resonates like a Trinidad power soca — but with
that instrumentation, you know Dominica’s
originality is ever present.
Reviews by Nigel A. Campbell
42 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM