This new edition of "Best of The Beat" from volume 12 #2, 1993, accompanies and offers background for a new Afropop podcast, "Soundin' Like Weself," produced by Jake Hochberger, on the subject of the Caribbean music genre known as rapso, a close cousin of Jamaica's dub poetry. Rapso is a modern manifestation of the African-Caribbean oral tradition in the same way as dub poetry, but it also evidences the indigenous cultural development of Trinidad/Tobago. It is shango, calypso, pan, and highlights the original spirit of Carnival--resistance and cultural identity.
From 1993, we bring you two articles from The Beat magazine, one on the history of rapso: "Riddim Poetry From Trinidad/Tobago," by Chako Habekost, and an interview with one of rapso's major proponents, Trinidadian artist Brother Resistance: "The Voice of the People" by Ron Sakolsky.
Click HERE to go to the podcast.
Video clip of Brother Resistance's "Cyar Take That."
