Soca's blend of soul and calypso is making a splash on radio, MTV

By Jacqueline Charles
Knight Ridder Newspapers

RICHARD PATTERSON / THE MIAMI HERALD Soca-music artist Kevin Lyttle performs at a club in Florida in June. His song "Turn Me On" has been popular on radio and MTV.

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Bikini-clad dancers in festive headgear gyrate across the TV screen while T-shirt-and-jeans-wearing revelers couple-up in a tight embrace, waving Caribbean flags.

One channel over, the streets of Barbados come alive as girls with bare midriffs and hot pants twist their bodies to the tempting sounds of the island's native son.

For soca artists Rupee and Kevin Lyttle, the party has finally moved from the carnival circuit to America's living rooms. Long popular among Caribbean fans, both are now making a splash on urban radio stations and video music programs on MTV and BET.

"It's amazing," said Rupee, speaking from his native Barbados. "Things are really starting to buzz."

Rupee and Lyttle have helped to start that buzz; their respective songs, "Tempted to Touch" and "Turn Me On," have been made popular by urban radio stations and nightclub DJs in the United States, Canada and Europe.

Almost overnight, both have gone from being relative unknowns among non-West Indians to hot stars. They have taken soca music from being the seasonal party music heard on underground Caribbean stations to recording executives looking to take soca music where dancehall took reggae: mainstream.

"Soca music is poised right now to take over the world," said Rupee, who has spent the past few months on promotional tours in Europe prepping new fans for his Atlantic label CD debut slated for January.

"Major record labels are paying attention in ways they never have before."

	"Soca music in itself has found its time," says Lyttle.

Indeed, and the reason can be summed up in two words: Kevin Lyttle.

In August, Lyttle's self-titled CD on the Atlantic label debuted at No. 8 on the Billboard charts. A month later, it was certified gold, earning Lyttle the distinction of having recorded the most successful soca album in history.

"Soca music in itself has found its time," Lyttle, a native of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, said during a visit to South Florida for the MTV Music Video Awards.

Lyttle's single, "Turn Me On," along with its carnival-inspired video, is helping both him — and soca music — find the kind of success that eluded the genre when "Hot, Hot, Hot" became a popular tune and "Who Let the Dogs Out" became a national hit and catch phrase. Both songs had a short shelf life despite their popularity on the party train.

Unlike those songs, "Tempted to Touch" and "Turn Me On" have been laced with touches of rhythm and blues while remaining fundamentally soca. The pulsating dance beat that helps distinguish soca from its reggae cousin is evident in both songs.

Both artists speak of their desire to evolve the music, which originated in Trinidad and Tobago from calypso — hence the name soca (soul-calypso).

"We have to make it something the whole world can understand, not just the local audience," said Lyttle, remarking that unlike Jamaica's reggae and dancehall, soca is universal to all of the Caribbean.

Despite how big these artists are getting, they won't forget their Caribbean audiences. After all, carnival is where their songs became popular years before they hit U.S. airwaves.

That is why Rupee found time in the middle of promotional tours for Atlantic to record a song for this year's Crop Over — Barbados' version of carnival — called "What Happens in the Party, Stays in the Party."

"At the end of the day, no matter how much I've succeeded, I can't overlook my carnival," said Rupee, 29, who has been on the soca circuit for nearly a decade and has recorded several independent CDs. "Crop Over is what made me. I exist because of Crop Over."

Now with his sultry single making its way up the Billboard charts and his CD,"1 ON 1," prepares to make its debut, Rupee summed it up like this: "It's amazing. It's a tremendous blessing.

"There are times when you feel like what you are doing is in vain," he said, "and moments like these that make you feel like what you are doing is worthwhile."

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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