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Bouyon vs soca: what really sets them apart

Bouyon and soca are the two great carnival musics of the English-speaking and Creole-speaking Caribbean, and they are often confused. Yet they are born on two different islands, with two distinct histories and two distinct sounds.

Two islands, two births

Soca is born in Trinidad in the 1970s, from the fusion of calypso with Indian instruments and rhythms like the dholak. Bouyon is born in Dominica in the late 1980s, from the fusion of jing ping and cadence-lypso. Two parallel inventions, two islands, two identities.

Two sounds

Soca is built around the Trinidad party, with its own production and singing codes. Bouyon is faster, rawer, strongly marked by keyboard loops, lapo kabwit and Dominican Creole. At carnival, a Dominican audience tells the two apart within seconds.

So what about bouyon soca

The two genres met: bouyon soca is their fully owned fusion, popular in Saint Lucia, in Guadeloupe and in Martinique. But in Dominica, pure bouyon keeps its own style, and the purists hold on to it.

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