Lord Shorty

Ras Shorty I (6 October 1941 – 12 July 2000), born Garfield Blackman and also known as Lord Shorty, was a Trinidadian calypso and soca musician, known as the Father of Soca and The Love Man.

He was born Garfield Blackman in the town of Barrackpore, Trinidad, and rose to fame as "Lord Shorty" with his 1963 hit "Cloak and Dagger", subsequently taking 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 was the first to really define his music and with "Indrani" in 1973 and "Endless Vibration" (not just the song but the entire album) in 1975, calypso music really took off in another direction. On 30 August 1977 Shorty's friend and collaborator Maestro (Cecil Hume) died in an accident in Trinidad and his loss was felt by Shorty, who penned "Higher World" as a tribute.

In Dominica, Shorty had attended 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 such as "Ou dee moin ou petit Shorty" (meaning "you told me you are small 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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