ABSTRACT
Since its beginnings in the 1780s, Trinidad’s carnival has functioned as an oratorical platform for extemporized song forms, from kalinda, kaiso, and calypso, to today’s more rhythmic and dance-oriented soca. These song styles have endured with popularity in Trinidad and other parts of the West Indies, thanks to the liberal use of comedic strategies such as satire, parody, and double entendre. Artists employ local humor that is familiar to audiences and provides a means to express social concerns, political commentary, and sexual mores of West Indian society. In this essay, I explore the past and present uses of humor within these musical forms, the value of these rhetorical strategies to both audiences and performers, and contemporary critical concerns of creativity within soca’s discourse.
