Lord Shorty

The rhythms of calypso and the drone-heavy music of East India were combined to create the energetic musical hybrid, soca, by Trinidad-born vocalist Lord Shorty (born Garfield Blackman). During a 1979 interview with Carnival Magazine, Lord Shorty recalled, "I was trying to find something new because the talk was that calypso was dying, and reggae was the thing....I felt it needed something brand new to hit everybody like a thunderbolt." Focusing on calypso in the early-'70s, Lord Shorty experimented with altering the rhythm until "introducing" soca with his hit song, "�ndr...