Soca Warrior: Bunji Garlin

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THE NATIONAL SOUND of today's Trinidad and Tobago is soca music, a high-energy, sexually charged blend of calypso and dancehall. It's primarily party music, geared for revelers during the Carnival season and in all-night dances.

Soca superstar Bunji Garlin has made plenty of joyous jams, which is why he's one of the music's biggest concert draws. His gruff voice is as rough as any dancehall deejay's, and his soca-ragga style is one reason why he's popular with fans of Jamaican music — even those who might dismiss the sound of young Trinidad as trite and hyperactive.

But with increasing frequency, the man who was born Ian Alvarez is stepping out of his role of Carnival dance monarch and bringing serious lyrical themes to soca, recalling some of the original spirit of calypso. Because even though calypso can be as ribald and raw as gangsta rap, it just as often acted like a musical newspaper, talking about political and social issues of the day.

Garlin's new CD, "Global" (VP Records), is still 80 percent for the party people, and it's an album that might break him to an audience outside of the West Indian music world. The disc's core is soca, with the opening track, "No Super Hero," being a sonic introduction to the singer: Garlin mentions his wife, singer Fay-Ann Lyons, who is also a huge soca star, as well as his father in law, Superblue, the T&T legend whose song "Get Something and Wave" is one of soca's most famous tunes.

But Garlin also mixes in R&B ("Hardcover Loving" and "Swing It," both featuring Chris Black), reggae ("One Family," with Freddie McGregor) and dancehall ("Get Up Stand Up" — not the Bob Marley tune — with T.O.K.).

The most outstanding track, however, is "Global's" first single, "Brrt," an angry anti-gunman tune that shows Garlin is a serious artist. Still, it's only in conversation that you really get a sense of Garlin's conviction, strength and intelligence. He's a fiercely independent man who has carved his way through the small but potentially treacherous Trinidad and Tobago music scene with his artistry and dignity intact.

We caught up with Garlin by telephone after he performed two concerts during last weekend's D.C. Carnival. It was almost noon when we called, and a groggy Garlin picked up the phone — but it didn't take long for him to wake up and blaze fire on the wicked.

» EXPRESS: How does D.C. Carnival compare with others you've been to?
» GARLIN: D.C. is original as far as Carnival is concerned; kinda unique. ... From what I see, the [D.C.] Carnival has something deeper about it compared to others outside of the Caribbean. They still have that natural essence, because of the way people live in D.C.

» EXPRESS: There are so many events happening that it's impossible to attend even a fraction of them.
» GARLIN: That originated from Trinidad, which is basically home of the Carnival. You have events starting in November and going through February. And when January hits, you have events every weekend. And then when Carnival comes, you have, like, 14 events in one night. Few artists have ever been successful in completing 12 events in one night. I did. So did Iwer George and Fay-Ann Lyons. That's a very difficult task.

The way the culture is built — the way you have to grind to find your food — the more events you're in per night, it states where your standpoint in the business is for that year, how big of an artist you are.

We culture is built kind of reverse to everyone else. It's kind of unique; it's kind of a challenge. But I hope one day it can change for the better.

» EXPRESS: You don't make money from selling your music, right? You make it from your performances?
» GARLIN: Years ago, before piracy became the new thing, calypso and soca records sold. Superblue, who was the artist who started "get something and jump and wave, jump and wave" — he became soca incarnate — and all the time records sold, too. But a few years later, because of the age of technology, where you can get your songs anywhere, without paying for it, we started to suffer from that. ... So that is why in Trinidad you see the artists trying to make all 12 events in one night. We're talking about points of the country that are an hour and half apart from each point, and they'll just quick and hurry to the next performance. And they're not guaranteed to get paid at all.

» EXPRESS: At least the music you play isn't high energy and you can conserve yourself. That's 12 aerobics workouts a night.
» GARLIN: [Laughs] We do it because, at least if it's not true love, it's something relative to true love. Because to do that year after year, it has to be true love — it has to be love. Because all the other music industry, an artist can make an album, release singles for the next two or three years, do one concert here and wait two or three months and do one concert there. We have to continuously perform throughout the whole year. That's life.

» EXPRESS: Tell me about the radio DJ and promoter Chinese Laundry and his controlling interests in soca. I read a news report that said you're not part of Chinese Laundry's crew, which means you have to work 10 times harder.
» GARLIN: Yeah, I'm glad somebody saw it on the outside. Because people have a tendency of playing blind. It not only happened to me, it happened to KMC. Even Iwer George is going through that.

Because soca is built on the old calypso days, and from the slavery days, where these artists would go and sing for some people who are better off in life. The artists, we were like the court jester. They used to go and sing for a glass of rum ... these kinds of payments. Until one day The Mighty Sparrow stood and said, "When we sing, we're singing to get paid — we get money."

Since then, you always have groups of people who want to be new kind of mafia and take control. The industry is small, but it's so strong that if they let it get out of their control, it might get too big. So the best thing for someone to stay in control is to do what? Try to oppress you as much as possible and just keep you right under their hand, so they will get all the power. They will control you. They will trick your eyes into thinking you're getting what you think you should, but it's not really so.

But the younger generation realized we're worth more than they think we're worth. Because we started on our own, and we tried to apply more pressure. And a lot of [the mafia types] are affiliated with radio stations, and own radio stations, so they have a tendency to tell you, "If you don't ride with my crew, or ride with my soca, you'll get no radio play." And the artists bow down to them, because three quarters of them in this industry, they're not really musically talented like that where they can go on stage with a new song that nobody heard and get the crowd involved. They have to depend on radio play.

Only people like myself, Maximus Dan, Fay-Ann, Iwer George, KMC, Denise Belfon — we have the ability to go on stage with something new that nobody never heard, and bow to the people and get good response. A lot of other people depend on radio play, so when the big boss says, "Join my soca — or you get nothing." They bow down and join the soca. And we, being the rebellious type and not joining that mafioso behavior, we have to work extra hard now to get we music out.

Complexion also plays a lot in the industry. Because of TV and, you know, a lot of people get forced into fearing and bowing to the person with the lighter color.

» EXPRESS: Do you have any fear of reprisals for being outspoken?
» GARLIN: I used to, but there's nothing to fear. I'm naturally outspoken. The whole mentality is changing right now with this generation. Young artists are coming into this business now with a certain strength behind them, because they're coming from the streets and the ghettos, and they already have it in their minds that they're going to find a way to make it in this business. Nobody is going to stop them.

» EXPRESS: Are soca artists getting more political as they get more independent?
» GARLIN: I'm so glad you asked that. Yes. Calypso came off the streets, but in the past years it started leaving the streets and started getting indoors and into the uptown crowd, and the downtown crowd lost our hold. But when you oppress people on one side, they will stand back up and take what is their's. ... Because everything went uptown this year, next year everything's going to go back to the streets — in terms of attitude, or the soca music mentality; the kind of songs the people are going to sing. A lot of the artists are angry right now, and they're going to put that in their music — and the streets have a way of relating to anger.

» EXPRESS: Let me ask you about a couple of songs on your new CD. I won't even attempt to say it ...
» GARLIN: "Brrt! Brrt! Brrt!" [Laughs]

» EXPRESS: You knew exactly what I was trying to say. What led you to write such a serious song?
» GARLIN: When Bobby Konders sent the riddim — the "March Out" riddim — the attitude for the song was in the beat already. From when I heard it the first time, it just called it forth. Music's supposed to be able to just call out something from you and make it sound almost readymade. The [topic] is something that's going on in the West Indian communities — some strange things going on. I feel compelled to talk about these things.

These youths, who are supposed to be presidents of the ghettos, and they will see someone walking down the street with nice gold chain, new clothes, sneakers, and they'll get up to rob that, but they wouldn't rob him their self — there will be seven or eight of them. On the same page, they'll hear the neighbor getting raped and everybody with sit down quiet. Nobody will get up and do nothing. Them things piss me off. They say the baddest things, sell all the weed on the block, sell all the cocaine on the block, rob this store, do whatever. But a child get molested right here and don't stand up for that?

» EXPRESS: Tell me about "Fire Fi Dem." It's on the "Wipe Out" riddim, which generally has very silly lyrics voiced over it since, you know, it's a surf-guitar tune. But your words form an enraged rant. Was your song aimed at anybody?
» GARLIN: No, not anyone — it was aimed at everyone in particular. [Laughs] That song is about people being like vampires, who wait to ride you like a bike. They watch how hard we work, and they just wait until you have all the rewards and then they want to saddle up on the bandwagon. Fire for all of that. Burn them out and their bad mind ways, backbiters. There is not one or two in the world; they're all over the world.

Photos courtesy VP Records