Spouge and Soca: the Music of Barbados

The Caribbean is a positive hotbed of music. In fact, if you look pretty closely at the ridiculously wide variety of styles, genres and artists on offer in the region you could make a pretty decent case for the Caribbean being one of the most musical places on the planet. Where else can you find ska, calypso and  jazz all sharing a stage – or at least a postcode – with R&B, soca and the almost forgotten sounds of spouge? The music of Barbados mixes all of these styles and more, many of which get their own festivals each year.

Calypso – The Caribbean has had quite a few masters down through the years. The British, the Spanish and the French have all laid claim to one of the world’s splendidly sunny locations and it’s the latter who can say they were the catalyst for calypso music. The syncopated offbeat sounds emerged in the early part of the 20th century as a way of spreading news around Trinidad. Then the British decided that censorship was the best way to control this rampant form of informative native self-expression and thus more creative ways of getting news around the island were thrown around, thus the signature of calypso was born; the double entendre. The music gained briefly found international fame in the 50s through artists like Mighty Sparrow and the legendary Lord Kitchener and is still one of the preeminent forms of musical music in the Caribbean and has informed and inspired many different genres of tuneful songsmiths down through the years.

Soca – Barbados soca music like soca music in the rest of the Caribbean has been banging around now since 1963 and like a lot of Caribbean music has its roots in Calypso. Its creator Lord Shorty described it as the soul of calypso and thus combined soul with calypso to form the word soca. Today the music has developed to feature synth based drum sounds rather than the original authentic steel sounds which means it’s managed to stay wholly contemporary if a lot less listenable, to the more discerning listener at least.

Spouge – Calypso has been one of the most subdivided genres in the history of music. You’ve got ska, rocksteady, dancehall and a whole heap of other sorts of things that have sprouted out of this bastard son of Fats Domino, one of them is spouge. The big difference here is the backbeat being that bit more even thus making the music a touch more soulful than your regular reggae. It was created by Barbadian Jackie Opel in the 60s as a sort of answer to the emerging ska beat in Trinidad. Initially, it proved far more popular than it’s more aggressive rival, then Opel died and with it did the popularity of spouge, though it is still occasionally played in its creator’s homeland.

Jazz – Jazz first reached Barbados sometime back in the 20s and took off pretty quickly from there. Initially its popularity had a lot to do with its association with bebop and social activism and Afrocentrism in the US.  The music has gone through a dip, a double dip and the occasional recession but is still played regularly in Barbados and even has its own festival the appropriately named Barbados Jazz Festival which is held every year in January, although it has struggled in recent years due to budgetary constraints.