The Rounds: Soca Makes You Stupid!

Good Evening Soca Lovers,

I’m Nurse Karen and these are Dr. Jay’s Rounds! He’s Ba-ack!  You already know, your man Dr. Jay and the KOS Family have returned from Trinidad Carnival, and last night they gave Toronto a memorable souvenir in the form of Dr. Jay’s Return Fete.  The crowd was bazodee off with performances from Mastamind, Ricky T, Zan, TC and De Boss, Iwer George.  We may have lost an hour last night, but ah feel we found it this morning, cuz I didn’t get home till about 6 am.  So, go figure!

            Here’s a strange one...a college student from California just published a controversial albeit unscientific report on music that makes you dumb.  The study compares and contrasts the musical tastes of American students and their SAT scores.  And guess what: students who prefer soca music over and above all other genres, have the lowest SAT scores on average! I could hear allyuh sucking your teeth from here.  Don’t shoot the messenger!  If you want to see where other styles ranked, check the blog.

            Today is International Women’s Day.  Trinidad and Tobago is celebrating the occasion with events taking place throughout the country in schools and community organizations. In Port of Spain, they held a 5K walk run which wrapped up with a performance from some of the nation’s top female soca artistes and an all female section of the TCL Skiffle Bunch Steelband.

A date has been set for the 28^th annual International Reggae and World Music Awards.  On May 3^rd, a bevy of Caribbean artists will descend upon  Jamaica, New York at the York College Performing Arts Center.  Leading the nominations in 2009 is Mavado with 8 nods, then Elephant Man and Beres Hammond with seven.  But our thing is soca, and yes we’re represented too. Machel Montano, who was a big winner in 2008, is definitely back in the ranks.

            Now that the traditional carnival season has come to an end, next stop Jamaica. Alison Hinds kicked off the Bacchanal Jamaica mas camp fete calendar on Friday with a grand performance for an ecstatic crowd.  Bacchanal Jamaica Carnival was started in 1988 by Jamaican soca empresario Byron Lee, who died of cancer just last year. The festival climaxes easter weekend under the  2009 theme: Gone Hollywood!

I’m Nurse Karen and those were Dr. Jay’s Rounds.  For more information on anything you’ve heard tonight, check me out online at the Nurse Karen Etc blog at triple w dot mustard seeds dot net.  And get your weekly dose of Soca News by downloading the Rounds Podcast from Soca Therapy dot com.  Now, back to de docta!