Newsday
Trinidad Killa (Kern Joseph) faced a firestorm of public opinion and a legal challenge over his use of a music bed or “riddim” created by Full Blown Entertainment.
On January 16, he announced he would recreate the song, Eskimo, on new music.
“Riding a riddim,” using a produced music bed to build a new song with its interpretive elements, has been a part of Carnival ever since soca moved to digital production.
Many popular soca hits were crafted on top of a riddim, some alongside as many as five other interpretations.
Bunji Garlin’s 2023 Road March Hard Fete was built on the Mad Opera Riddim from the US Virgin Islands.
>
Bunji Garlin, Machel Montano, and Skinny Fabulous’s 2019 hit Famalay evolved from a Dominican bouyon riddim created by Krishna Lawrence.
The songs on a riddim are usually released as a collection to DJs and radio stations while participating artistes promote their songs to their fans.
It’s all part of a competitive effort to win a place on the frontline of seasonal attention, a top spot on fete playlists eventually to become a contender in the annual Road March competition. The stakes are high.
There is also the challenge of maintaining a TT stamp on our ever-evolving soca music as competition and influences become more global,
Full Blown Entertainment’s Big Links Riddim is influenced by the spare, lyric-driven, grassroots style of local zesser music, however, names like Kes and Montano feature as contributors willing to push deeper into a youth community that’s forging their own musical identity.
The breakout star on the Big Links Riddim is Young Bredda, whose song The Greatest Bend Over might be classified as a “groovy zesser.”
Mr Joseph jumped on the popularity of the riddim with Eskimo, a plaintive lament of soca fete cravings in a cold metropole.
Claiming universality in the beats used in zesser music, Mr Joseph further argued, in a particularly scrappy justification, that his work’s surge in popularity and the imagined similarities to his beats earned him a place on the riddim.
His creative enthusiasm, including creating a video for Eskimo raced far ahead of basic business principles and he crashed into a wall of disinterest.
>
Full Blown Entertainment’s cold shoulder was an unexpected outcome for Mr Joseph, as his contribution and the riddim are growing more popular.
He took advantage of the wide reach of YouTube to win an audience for his song.
However, while the online media distribution portal is open to creators, copyright rules and business procedures also apply there.
Mr Joseph’s experience should guide young artistes on the importance of managing the business of their creative output with the same diligence they give to their beats and lyrics.
