Ragga Soca Burning the Moral Compass: An Analysis of "Hellfire" Lyrics in the Music of Bunji Garlin

Abstract

Ragga soca, a music indigenous to the twin island Caribbean nation Trinidad and Tobago, incorporates the freestyle aesthetics of hip-hop lyricists, the political critique and social commentary of calypso, the “chant down Babylon” demeanor and stagecraft of reggae and dancehall performers, and the spontaneous delivery of “biting” lyrics popular among Trinidadian extempo artists, another subgenre of calyspo. Typically, it can be loosely described as a fusion of soca and indigenous Jamaican musical forms, namely Jamaican dancehall and, to a lesser extent, reggae beats and soca rhythms. From my knowledge of the music industry in Trinidad, having been a member of several music networks during the years 2006–16, I posit that Bunji Garlin, who began his public career in 1999, is the singular most successful and widely known ragga soca artist performing the genre today. Bunji Garlin’s ragga soca “fire” songs produced between 2004 and 2011 make use of the “fire bun dem” theme. In these, we see Garlin’s direct use of biblical verses drawn from Revelation 21:8 (which describes how hellfire will be meted out to unrepentant wrongdoers). Further, his lyrics seek to adress the punishment to be delivered to those individuals involved in profane acts against society. In 2012, I began a project to review and analyze the lyrics of his songs in an attempt to chart to what extent his ragga soca lyrics have retained any of the political and social commentary “bite” and “sting” of its progenitor,