Ras Shorty I

Musical Artist

1941 – 2000

32

Who was Ras Shorty I?

Ras Shorty I was a soca musician, known as the Father of Soca and The Love Man.

He was born Garfield Blackman in Barrackpore, Trinidad and Tobago, and rose to fame as Lord Shorty with his 1963 hit "Cloak and Dagger" and took on the name Ras Shorty. A prolific musician, composer and innovator, Shorty experimented with fusing calypso and the other Indian inspired music including chutney music for nearly a decade before unleashing "the soul of calypso,"...soca music. Shorty had been in Dominica during an Exile One performance of cadence-lypso, and collaborated with Dominica's 1969 Calypso King, Lord Tokyo and two calypso lyricists, Chris Seraphine and Pat Aaron in the early 1970s, who wrote him some creole lyrics. Soon after Shorty released a song, "Ou Petit", with words like "Ou dee moin ou petit Shorty", a combination of calypso, cadence and kwéyòl. Shorty's 1974 Endless Vibrations and Soul of Calypso brought soca to its peak of international fame.

Soca’s development as a musical genre included its fusion with calypso, cadence, and Indian musical instruments—particularly the dholak, tabla and dhantal—as demonstrated in Lord Shorty's classic compositions "Ïndrani" and "Shanti Om". His fame continued to grow throughout the 1970s, and he became one of the country's top performers. He recorded tracks such as "Kim" and "Money Eh No Problem", which was a stinging political and social commentary based on the words of Trinidad's then Prime Minister, Eric Williams of the People's National Movement. "Money Eh No Problem" was used in a political advertising campaign in 2000 for the United National Congress.

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Born
Oct 6, 1941
Barrackpore
Also known as
  • Lord Shorty
Died
Jul 12, 2000

Submitted
on July 23, 2013

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