SOCA REPRESENTS JOY, happiness, celebration, fun and unity. A soca artiste has to become a blazing ball of positive energy when he steps in front of an audience, “even if he got chikungunya”.
All performing artistes have to move the audience in some way. In the soca arena a performer can’t just move them. She has to lift them up in the air, cause them to convulse like an epileptic and leave them floating. Anything less than that is just okay.
It is something else to witness Mikey backstage at Headliners tent, barely able to lift his head because of some random illness, transform just as he goes on stage, in to some kind of hard-wining super soca hero. Where he pulls the energy from is hard to say, but he finds it and beams it straight to the audience. Once he is done, he slumps backstage again to resume nursing his illness.
It is reminiscent of Michael Jordan’s 1997 NBA finals game 5 performance against the Utah Jazz. Suffering with flu-like symptoms, Jordan was barely able to stand during breaks and the Jazz took a 16-point lead. Somehow his airness summoned the strength, by the blood of Jesus or the power of Grayskull or something, to lead the bulls to victory.
But in soca this is what it is. This is the fighting spirit a soca artiste must have. Especially since the much of the money to be made in the genre comes from competition. Unlike most other professional performers, the soca artiste’s fee is often not set in stone. How much he is paid can depend on his ability to impress selected judges according to a set criteria, while still flattening the crowd. Sometimes the crowd and the judges may be looking for totally different things and the soca artiste has to please all.
The good thing about that is that it protects soca from the flavour of the month syndrome in modern music today. You don’t just get up and become a soca success overnight. A record label can’t manufacture a soca star so easily. The soca artiste gotta know craft.
The General, Edwin Yearwood, leads a charge of soca artistes who are master craftsmen. Veterans like him, TC, MrBlood, Adrian Clarke, and Mr Dale can prevail even if they don’t have the biggest songs. Their mastery of the craft makes them terrors on a competition stage. They know how to juggle all the requirements of the art form in a way that will please judges and still satisfy the crowd’s appetite for energy. On a stage you really see their experience at work.
Redefining
This makes the success of young artists like Kirk Browne, Imani, Hypasounds, Marvay, Nikita, Sanctuary and others even more impressive. They have broken through a guard wall of politics, and a net of relationships to emerge at the head of a young crop of soca artistes who are redefining the Barbadian sound.
And they are consistent. Understand how amazing it is for Lead Pipe and Saddis/Porgie and Murdah to still be riding high given the seasonal and fickle nature of Soca. You can have a huge hit one year and be totally forgotten the next. It’s like you have to start fresh every year. Talent, hard work and perseverance me seh.
So when you see Rupee, still drawing a crowd, RPB with hit after hit and Lil Rick maintaining icon status, realise they are not doing it by the grace of a marketing machine like many international artistes. They continually have to go directly to the people for their stripes. The love they receive is genuine.
In a small society it can be difficult putting yourself in the spotlight. The envy, negativity and bad mind that can arise, doesn’t shoot from long distance. Snipers just have to peep over your paling. An artiste has to have skin like an alligator and focus like a hawk. If you are not strong the pulling down will pull you down.
With all this, just imagine the fortitude it must have taken Ian Webster to step back into the arena after such a long break, reinvent himself as Iweb and make himself a force to be reckoned with again. Imagine the barriers King Bubba, a member of an ethnic minority, is breaking to become a bona fide star. Imagine the cross over stars like Biggie Irie and Peter Ram, and what it must take to be rulers of two genres.
These people are putting in work. Not to mention the back to back to back to belly performances in season.
Remember the work that goes into the making of a soca artiste when you are partying. We jump and wave and cheer when our favourite soca artistes touch down and mash up de place. Despite the appreciation when they hit the stage, it is hard for the average fan to understand how taxing it must be to reach Soca Royale.
Adrian Green is a creative communications specialist . Email [email protected]
