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Soca, Calypso and Dancehall Music

Genre roots from kaiso to dancehall, a year of soca and riddim seasons, playlists and live shows planned properly, and room to write, voice, produce or DJ the music yourself.

Free · Mac (Apple silicon) and Windows · v1.0.0 · Other platforms

Then open the Marketplace in the app, search for Soca, Calypso and Dancehall Music, and click Install. It goes into your own files, and works offline from then on.

What it installs.

1

Pillar

1

Area

50

Projects

200

Starter tasks

🌴 Caribbean Life & Diaspora

Soca, Calypso and Dancehall Music

Enjoying Caribbean music seriously: soca, calypso, dancehall, reggae and chutney, seasonal releases, live shows, playlists and the history behind the songs.

  1. Personal map of Caribbean genres you love
  2. Listening set-up for streaming and offline play
  3. Core playlists for each genre and mood
  4. Yearly calendar of Caribbean music seasons
  5. Follow list of artists, labels and producers
  6. Hearing protection for fetes and sound systems
  7. Yearly music budget for shows and purchases
  8. Radio stations, DJ mixes and selectors to follow
  9. Listening notebook for songs, credits and stories
  10. New-release Friday listening session
  11. Monthly playlist refresh and prune
  12. Soca season playlist from first releases to Carnival
  13. Dancehall and reggae riddim watch
  14. Summer festival season listening
  15. Live show watchlist and ticket alerts
  16. Classic album deep listen each month
  17. Song of the week for family across the water
  18. Year-end best-of list and season review
  19. Calypso history from kaiso to the tents
  20. How soca grew from Lord Shorty to today
  21. Jamaican music from mento to dancehall
  22. Roots reggae and the Rastafari message
  23. Riddims, versions and the art of the juggle
  24. Chutney and chutney soca roots
  25. Sounds from across the wider Caribbean
  26. Reading calypso for picong and double meaning
  27. Women who shaped calypso, soca and dancehall
  28. Streaming, downloads or vinyl as your main format
  29. Speakers or headphones for serious listening
  30. Buying music so the artists get paid
  31. Starting a Caribbean vinyl collection
  32. Tidying and backing up your digital music library
  33. Choosing one big music festival to travel for
  34. A night at a calypso tent
  35. Monarch competition final night
  36. Reggae or dancehall festival weekend
  37. Sound system session or street dance
  38. Hosting a Caribbean music listening party
  39. Seeing a favourite artist live abroad
  40. Caribbean music with young children at home
  41. Learning the songs your parents played
  42. New to Caribbean music through a partner or friends
  43. Coming back to the music after years away
  44. Older listener keeping up with new artists
  45. Writing your first calypso
  46. Voicing a song over a riddim
  47. Producing a riddim in a home studio
  48. DJing a soca and dancehall set
  49. Blog, podcast or radio show on Caribbean music
  50. Researching and archiving rare calypso and ska records

Where it starts.

Each project arrives with its purpose, milestones and first tasks written out. Here is how the first three read.

Personal map of Caribbean genres you love

Caribbean music is not one sound: a calypso from the 1950s, a groovy soca anthem, a chutney track with dholak drum and a hard dancehall tune share roots but very little else. Spending an afternoon listing what you already play, what you skip and what you have never heard gives every later playlist, show and purchase a starting point.

First tasks

  • List every Caribbean genre you can name in ten minutes
  • Mark each genre as love, like, unsure or unheard
  • Write three songs you already know beside each favourite genre
  • Pick two unheard genres to explore before the next season

Listening set-up for streaming and offline play

Plenty of soca and dancehall lives outside the big streaming catalogues: riddim albums (one instrumental voiced by many singers) on video sites, DJ mixes on mix platforms, and older calypso only on CD or vinyl. Setting up one main service plus the places the rest of the music lives, with offline downloads for the commute and the flight home, means you stop losing songs to a dead signal or a lapsed licence.

First tasks

  • Search your streaming service for ten favourite Caribbean artists and note the gaps
  • Create accounts on one or two platforms where DJs post mixes
  • Switch on offline downloads for your most-played playlists
  • List songs you cannot find on streaming and where they live instead

Core playlists for each genre and mood

Shuffling a library of thousands of songs gives you the same thirty tracks every time. Five or six core playlists, such as classic calypso, groovy soca, power soca, roots reggae, dancehall and chutney, each with a clear rule for what belongs, make it easy to put on the right sound for cooking, a workout, a long drive or a lime (a relaxed get-together) with friends.

First tasks

  • Decide the five or six playlists you would actually play each week
  • Write a one-line rule in each playlist's description
  • Fill each playlist with at least twenty songs from your library
  • Choose an opening track for each that sets the mood

Make it yours.

Install Soca, Calypso and Dancehall Music, then tell Aurum the date you're aiming for. It checks whether the plan fits the weeks you actually have.

Free · Mac (Apple silicon) and Windows · v1.0.0 · Other platforms

Blueprints are general information to help you organise your own work. They are not medical, financial, legal or other professional advice. See the Terms.