Soca – The Soul of Calypso
Zumba includes music that comes from various dance styles like Salsa, Merengue, Cumbia, Reggaeton, Mambo, Flamenco, Cha-cha-cha, Soca, Samba, Hip-hop and Tango. Of these, Soca is one of my favourites. It’s a high intensity dance fitness form and the choreographies are very easy to follow and at the same time full of fun.
Soca music was developed in Trinidad and Tobago during the 1970s by Lord Shorty as a modern evolution of calypso, a type of Afro – Trinidadian song style characterized by storytelling and verbal wit. In order to create a musical unity between his twin – island republic’s East Indian and African populations, Shorty inserted traditional Indian instruments like the dholak and dhantal into the Afro – Creole rhythms that evolved there decades earlier. He called his creation “The Soul of Calypso”, which was eventually called Soca.
Soca emphasizes rhythmic energy including synthesized sounds and electronically mixed ensemble effects, a quality more typical of calypso songs. It has evolved over the years which has now made it very different from calypso.