On a steamy summer’s day, who doesn’t enjoy a bit of soca music? Well I do, but I’ll admit I don’t know much about it beyond what seems to have become the Notting Hill Carnival’s signature tune, Arrow’s infectious singalong tune Hot Hot Hot.

So here’s the very first soca tune by the chap who invented it: a Trinidadian with the nominatively determinant name of Garfield Blackman – better known, ever since his first single in 1963 – Cloak And Dagger – by his stage name of Lord Shorty.

He spent much of the next decade experimenting with various fusions, including a hybrid of soul and chutney music – itself a hybrid of calypso, brought over by African slaves on sugar plantations, and Indo-Caribbean music with English, Hindustani and ‘Hinglish’ words.

Initially, soca – SOul of CAlypso – was a fusion of calypso from Trinidad & Tobago and cadence rampa (aka kadans), a popular dance music from Haiti, with Indian instruments like the dholak, tabla and dhantal. But maybe that’s TMI for a fun tune like this.

Not only is this the very first official soca tune but Garfield/Shorty kindly explains how he came up with it in the song itself, creating a kind of DIY primer for any wannabe soca artists listening.

Shorty eventually fell out of love with soca, claiming it was being “used for the wrong reasons” and, having converted to Christianity, he moved to a remote forest region where he fathered an astounding 23 children and, ever the innovator, came up with yet another musical hybrid – this time of soca and Gospel – called Jamoo.