soca

soca, Trinidadian popular music that developed in the 1970s and is closely related to calypso. Used for dancing at Carnival and at fetes, soca emphasizes rhythmic energy and studio production—including synthesized sounds and electronically mixed ensemble effects—over storytelling, a quality more typical of calypso songs, which are performed for seated audiences. The term soca (initially spelled sokah) was coined in the 1970s by Trinidadian musician Lord Shorty (Garfield Blackman), who sang calypso, a type of...