BODY BEAT: SOCA-DUB AND ELECTRONIC CALYPSO (1979-98) (VINYL)

17 obscure Soca B-side versions, dubs, instrumentals and edits as
well as vocal tracks influenced by disco, boogie, house-music,
soul and the more conscious lyrics of roots reggae. Owing as
much to New York, Toronto and London as to the Caribbean
cities of Port of Spain, Bridgetown and Kingstown this compilation
traces the genre from its explosion in the late 1970s right up to
the period just before contemporary soca became established
around the end of the 1990s.
Compiled by Soundway Records label founder Miles Cleret
and DJ/collector Jeremy Spellacey, Body Beat, as with many
compilations on the label, explores the fringes of this often
maligned (by outsiders) genre. Boiled down to the bare bones of
the matter though: soca is party music.
Soca was originally a re-invention of Calypso music; a genre that
in the 1970s was fast becoming usurped around the Caribbean
by Jamaican reggae and American soul, funk and later disco. The
originator of soca (or sokah as he called it), the calypsonian Lord
Shorty, began experimenting and modernising on the formulation
of calypso in the early 1970s. His first album featured a strong
emphasis on East African rhythms and a punchier recording style
that emphasised the beat, and introduced arrangements that often
owed as much to American funk and soul as to calypso.
So here you go - seventeen slabs of soca crossover, rapso,
electronic calypso, and Caribbean 'soca-soul' for your
enjoyment - and bound to fit well into modern, open-minded DJ
sets alongside the resurgence of burger-highlife, digi-reggae,
soukous and zouk.