Frequently in popular culture yesterday becomes the forgotten man.
Here is a video clip from Bajan pop culture past as calypsonian and I guess Soca singer, Bumba, destroys the party.
Seeing this now it is hard to imagine that guys actually played Soca without Mac Book pros and drum machines
but THEY SURE DID…
It is also hard to imagine a Soca song such as this causing such HYPE
but IT SURE DID….
Congaline 94!
A throwback if there ever was one!
#RIPpartyinglikethis.
Crop Over, Barbados’ major festival, has not been a place of musical surprises for some time now.
However, 2016 has produced a big one for me in the complete re-definition of the Bashment Soca genre.
In a previous blog post, I identified the common use of the term in Barbadian music circles and gave musical examples for the uninitiated. For those who missed it the link is below.
https://stefanwalcott.com/2014/05/23/what-is-bashment-soca-crop-over-blog-1/
Here also is soca artist Gorg speaking on Bashment Soca back in 2011.
The conversation is about the song below.
From the interview, we can hear Gorg reference Bashment throughout as this was the common term used to talk about the variant of Soca heard above.
However, this is not so anymore.
This year, a Bashment Soca competition has started which has music not sounding like the above, but as below.
And below
The examples above I considered to be Bajan Dub, a genre that I posted about with a Top 10.
https://stefanwalcott.com/2014/02/05/top-10-bajan-dub-dancehall-records-for-beginners/
Bajan Dub has its routes/roots planted in the early 80s and had a resurgence post 2010. But this year it seems that is ALL now BASHMENT SOCA!
What the Bashment Soca/Bajan Dub has shown therefore is that genre is a very FLUID thing. Despite what many think, one cannot proclaim a genre and expect it to stay the same. It also shows that the creation of a genre comes from different places including sponsors!!! So despite what I say here, the fact that a lucrative competition has come about means that those that said Bajan Dub before will definitely be singing Bashment Soca now.
So to answer the title:
Question: Just so Bajan Dub become Bashment Soca???!!!!
Answer: YES!!!!???!!!!!
Happy New Year again!!
I know it might be a bit late, but I came across this great article on social media.
It is from the great Wynton Marsalis and it will help all musicians and want to be musicians sort out their new year practice resolutions.
Enjoy and work hard.
From the Caribbean music man!
A big part of what I do is lead the 1688 Collective.
The collective is a musical ensemble based in the Caribbean that is dedicated to keeping music#aLive in Barbados and throughout the English-speaking Caribbean.
Check the video below as I speak to how the group works and what I do in it.
Enjoy!
Singing, as most of my friends and family will say, is not a strong suit of mine.
Singing was also not an activity I was particularly interested in either.
However, as this blog generally poses questions to accepted norms, it is only fitting that I ask, am I really that bad a singer?
Actually, I think I am not a good singer but definitely not a bad one. Here is why.
To start us off here is a clip of me singing.
It is obvious that I am not a technically gifted and by that I mean I don’t have the natural ability where my voice apparatus, vocal muscles etc, creates sound that matches pitches. Of course this was no big deal before the modern recording age. In fact, many communities before modernity were communal and their music activity was centred around participation, think Amazonian or West African village life, so no matter your voice, you sang!
What modernity did though was create the professional singer. And the recording of the professional singer gave value to a certain kind of singing which in some ways eroded how people considered singers globally, this ultimately made singers like me…
BECOME BAD!
Listen to the following clips, first up is Wendy Moten then Beyonce.
These songs are damn fricking hard to sing.They also have a certain history and tradition behind them that many people globally were not a part of. So for example, if a Tuvan tried to sing these, he might not succeed, even though he might be an excellent throat singer.
In other words, Wendy Moten and Beyonce are not only PROFESSIONALl singers, they are also showing a CERTAIN TYPE of good singing based on the values of their music culture. It does not make the Tuvan a bad singer. If you are unsure what Tuvan throat singing is let us reverse this now and take a listen to some Tuvan throat singing.
Here is a clip from American Idol where this guy was dismissed.
The judges and audience thought he was crap but was he? They were just using the value system from their music culture which was totally inappropriate to judge Tuvan throat singing. If I used the Tuvan method, Beyonce and Wendy Moten were rubbish because they only produced one pitch, in fact where was the drone Queen Bee!!!???
In short, there are no universal values when it comes to singing. Singing is dependent like all value systems on who makes the rules. So if I someone calls you a bad singer, just ask them if they understand the discourse of power at work in aesthetics. If the look at you blankly, continue singing just like I will now…
* This post does not condone karaoke. Any suggestion that it does is just a coincidence. 🙂
I teach Music History II at the Barbados Community College in the Associate Degree Programme in Music.
Music History II is an overview of the music of United States from the work song to jazz to popular music types like rock and rap.
Due to financial constraints, the content from the course has been published online on my Slideshare!
The link for my Slideshare is always posted here but you can follow the link below.
http://www.slideshare.net/StefanWalcott
Enjoy!
Hello guys and Happy New Year,
I love transparency and here I am being transparent.
Here are my global stats for 2014. Thanks to all those who came through to check out something over the last year. Please come back because I have some more stuff to talk about. I will also be including a new drop-down menu where you will hear my voice!
See you all in 2015!
Love
Caribbean MusicMan
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 6,900 times in 2014. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 6 trips to carry that many people.
Below is a link to an interview I did with Barbados Today, the online Barbadian newspaper.
Here I speak to some of my projects and views on music.
Enjoy.
http://www.barbadostoday.bb/2014/12/17/stefan-music-for-a-better-place/
This blog has just passed 6000 views!!!!
Thanks for your interest in Caribbean music and culture.
I really value every comment and view so keep stopping by.
Respect
Stefan ‘Caribbean Music Man’ Walcott
At the Barbados Community College I teach Caribbean music. In class, in keeping with my creative-centric approach, which like the Americans I have give a name, creativincism, I try to get the students to write in the styles taught. Given the fact that Soca has become confined to such a limited range of compositional choices, I provide my students with the necessary ones and see what they come up with. Of course this stuff is graded, how else would they participate? First up are two groups composing in the style of Destra circa early 2000s. I call this Power Soca (which of course puts me in contradiction with others but I grade the papers right?).
Here is another one. By the way, Lennox seen here is not a Soca/Calypso practitioner by any stretch of the imagination.
In my view, even though the audio and video are quite rough, they manage to at least provide you with a good understanding of the style the students are working with. The same could also be said of the next two videos which are written in the Bashment Soca style.
I have chosen the last two guys, Kevin and David, because they are as far removed from this music in terms of what they do regularly as any two musicians could be. However, given the guidelines and the space, they too managed to create something that is cool.
To end, I think that creativity lies in many humans. It just shows that once given the boundaries within style and a bit of space, what can be accomplished. It also shows that Soca can have new writers, just that the closed nature of the Caribbean media limit this.
Anyway, let me end with Lennox, “your Rum is my Rum, and my Rum…”
stefanwalcott.com 