The striking vocalist Brother Resistance, who died this month, started a politically powerful hybrid of hip-hop and soca that opened new possibilities in Caribbean music
You would expect a song called Dancing Shoes to celebrate the unfettered joy of a good boogie, but Network Rapso Riddum Band’s 1981 track did quite the opposite. Lead vocalist Brother Resistance – whose death on 13 July sent shockwaves through the Caribbean music community – used Dancing Shoes to castigate his fellow Trinidadians for embracing foreign forms such as disco, delivering caustic lyrics in a flow laden with preacherly indignation.
The song heralded the arrival of a new hybrid sound in Trinidad and Tobago – one that hasn’t had quite the global impact of dancehall, reggae or other Caribbean styles but which is the source of some of its most fascinating and political music, dubbed “rapso” for its melding of rap and soca.
