is sixty-five going on around twelve or so. Each and every Carnival season for Trinidad (and he gets to Grenada quite a bit also) this very short old man, who is my Father’s oldest brother, will absolutely lose whatever scruples he has hiding in his downright cavernous cranium and wild out for the entire time. I bring up my favourite uncle Vince because I speak a lot nowadays concerning how I’m getting older and my tastes are changing in respect to my aging (at least I hope that’s what it is and I’m not just becoming a codgy old bastard), but Vince is definitely an example of the fact that maybe we don’t ever have to really grow up at all. I’ll look through my collections and find album after album and tune after tune which just appeals to me in a way in which it didn’t previously (even going from BAD at one time, to GOOD not too long after, in some cases), but (THANKFULLY) there are exceptions. Like Vince’s the exception to my ‘growth’ has been and hopefully will always be Soca music which, when done at its best, at least should bring out the little kid in all who have ears for it. Now I could bring up names like Faye-Ann and Machel and Bunji and even Tizzy, Patrice or Skinny these days, but I’m thinking of going a little higher for this one, I’d like to take it to the source. The biggest source of my being a big grown ass man who feels absolutely no shame in acting like a misbehaving child (besides my daughter who I cannot in ANY WAY say ‘no’ to) is, of course, Destra Garcia. You’ll find people, like Machel, Lil’ Rick or Bunji at their best, who can go MADDER than Destra and you’ll find people like Alison Hinds who exude more CLASS in their music or even artists like Tizzy and, of course, the vocally LETHAL Claudette Peters who have more of a refined (traditionally speaking, but Peters’ voice is DEVASTATING) vocal style, but as far being the TOTAL and COMPLETE package, to my opinion, it’s Destra and then everyone else (although Hinds certainly isn’t very far away). I am, admittedly and shamelessly, partial because Destra was the first Soca artist to really catch my attentions and all these years later with so many new heads emerging, I still find that her music and especially her performances remain top notch and I’m not the only one who thinks so, as she place second in this year’s Road March race in Trinidad (and for my opinion, she’s the favourite going into next year). Despite not having the current ROLL of Faye-Ann or the years (at least it seems like such) of Alison Hinds, for me, Destra is the Queen of Soca and should she still be performing when she’s my uncle Vince’s age, she’ll still be.
However, right now I’m sure she has no complaints as just shy of her thirty-fourth birthday (which RIDICULOUSLY occurs only three days after the 10th installment of a very popular and familiar party in Toronto this year) and coming off what was probably her most successful season in recent years (and that’s saying A LOT), she may just be the single most popular female name in PURE Soca music these days. Destra’s 2009 season, highlighted by the aforementioned run for the Road March crown with what was probably the single biggest tune I heard in Soca 2009 altogether, ‘Bacchanal’. The year would also see a very nice album release for Hott and just what I thought was a GENERAL profile raising for the girl from Laventille. As usual, she was featured on the biggest stages, even taking the Monarch stage with a performance at half time which, were it entered in the main competition, would have earned her no less than second place in my opinion. Her season was GORGEOUS and you know what? It had to be. Why? Well Destra’s 2008 season wasn’t very bad either. As a matter of fact, her 2007 season was pretty good also now that I think of it. As a mark of her time in the business and seemingly refusing to take a step into the next phase of her career where she is quietly thought of as being a ‘has been’ (even though when that happens, people seem reticent to say such about an artist, so much so that I have the PERFECT example of such a person and I’m not going to mention his/her name (or their sex either apparently) AT ALL), Destra’s combined stretch of 2007-08 has to be considered one of the finest of her career (2008-0 wasn’t bad either). What a wonderful, wonderful coincidence it was that it was that Destra didn’t have an album for the 2007 season, so those tunes, in a sense, ‘carried over’ to the following year’s release, which means that WHATEVER it was that came out in 2008 with Destra’s name on it must have been a very good album, to say the very least. That album would have been her first since 2006’s Independent Lady and, again, MADNESS. The album was called Soca Or Die, which was very interesting because it shares a name with a VERY popular show in Toronto which I THINK was the first place I actually saw her perform in the early 2000’s and became HOOKED and where she is generally amongst the most anticipated attractions. The album had such an encompassing vibes and it really, in my opinion, went largely overlooked by the mainstream (which is a problem neither its predecessor, Independent Lady, nor Hott had), but it was arguably a DISTINCTLY better album than either of them. It also featured Destra alongside some very heavy hitters (in and out of Soca) and really just seemingly ‘toying’ with the music with which she has earned her name. The result was, in my opinion, probably her greatest album to date, although, again, very underappreciated. The album is definitely FUN and, although it lacks the SLEEK feel of Hott or the just all around insane feel of Independent Lady, is one which captures so many different sides of the artist who, for me, brought Soca from “that crazy music”, to one of the most JOYOUS and COLOURFUL vibes available on earth.
If you’ve been paying attention (and I have) the first thing you’ll probably notice about the album is the number of tracks. At seventeen in total it’s, FITTINGLY (because she missed a year), her most dense album to date and almost, again fittingly, like two album’s worth of vibes. Destra captures my thoughts EXACTLY with the opener of her 2008 album Soca Or Die, ‘Hooked’. It wasn’t until scrutinizing this song for the sake of this review that I realized something about: I LIKE IT! I hadn’t paid too much attention to the tune in the past, especially in the face of far more popular material on the album, but it’s very well done actually and with its pseudo old school style of approach, it manages to pull a VERY strong vibes for the kickoff. No such revelations were in order for the next tune, ‘We Luv Carnival’. This song, from 2007, was downright SPECTACULAR and had so many different colours and vibes going into it that it was really hard to call it anything in particular, besides amazing. You could call it a groovy tune or even a power tune, or an old school tune and there’s a pan somewhere lost in the madness also. It was just EVERYTHING you would need and it really showed Destra’s versatile range as simply NO ONE else in Soca (or any other genre) could have done We Luv Carnival justice as Ms. Garcia did here. BEAUTIFUL! Things go up an even higher notch with the DOMINATING vibes of what was probably Destra’s most popular offering from 2007 altogether and, it goes without saying, one of the best tunes on Soca Or Die (as is We Luv Carnival), ’I Dare You’. This one was far less indescribable than its predecessor on the album, but even more MASSIVE as it captured fans across the board and has arguably become one of Destra’s biggest tunes to date all around. From any type impartial side, I should probably call it the best tune on the album (but I’m not, because I’m not impartial). Yes. It was that good and it completed what was a more than “that good” start.
Joining Destra, amongst others, on Soca Or Die, is modern Dancehall royalty in the form of former sparring partners Mr. Vegas and the poster boy, Sean Paul. Vegas hops in on the very SMOOTH ‘On The Floor’ which is probably closer to a straight Dancehall tune actually. Of course, that’s Vegas’ world, but the star of the show more than holds her own. Sean Paul, for his part, helps on ‘Free It Up’. The tune was a definitive hit and it even spurred on some wonderful combination performances between the two. Oh. And it was ABSOLUTE MADNESS! As weird as it most certainly sounds, it’s probably the best tune I’ve heard Sean Paul on since the Trinity album! SOD also includes the road mix of Free It Up as well and it’s. . . everything you expect from a road mix. That being said, however, it’s the two Soca combinations on SOD which REALLY capture the light in my opinion. The first, ‘Last Lap’, is simply the biggest tune I hear on the album and it features Naya George from the big band Invazion. MADNESS! Madness on every street corner! Last Lap has definitely become one of my favourite Destra tunes of all time and I don’t think it received the attention it deserved, in retrospect, but I don’t really care either. This one didn’t even come close, I don’t believe, but it had ‘Road March’ written all over it. DAMN! On the other big Soca combination, Barry Chandler from Jabae joins Destra on a remix to his tune, ‘Flames’. I liked the original tune (which you can find on Jabae’s album (along with the remix) and on D’Soca Zone: The 7th Flag Up) for Flames, but the remix rendered it COMPLETELY useless to me at this point as Destra takes the already spectacular tune to even higher and more unbelievable levels for one of Soca Or Die’s most magic moments. Destra, back on her own, makes very good usage of Mr. Destra’s (Brian Morris) almost painfully addictive Banjo riddim, with the very popular tune ‘Saddle’, which I think is the only tune I can stand to listen to on that riddim. Another hit which follows Saddle, is the far more pedestrian and manageable ‘Wine It’. This song was BEAUTIFUL! A nice, kind of strangely paced, groovy tune was Wine It and it proved to be a VERY popular piece for the Soca Queen (and if you play this tune within earshot of a small child, be prepared to be BOMBARDED with “wine it, wine it, wine it” OVER AND OVER AGAIN for several hours, trust me, I know). The tune ‘High’ is a very interesting one, in terms of its delivery. The song features what might be sort of, kind of construed as a straight deejaying style from Destra and that’s A-OK with me (she does a good job) and it comes with a far less questionable and quite obvious edge to it as well, as it appears to be a kind of slap to the (DERANGED) critics she has. If that were the case then: Destra - 1/Critics - 0. ‘Signs’ is another tune which I feel didn’t get its just attention. It’s a bit more varied and definitely isn’t a straight forward tune by any stretch, but it‘s (whatever it is) MAGIC! This song comes through in a very sing-a-long type of ‘anthem’ style and it’s become one that depending on when I listen to it can generate a vibe as strong as any other on Soca Or Die for me. HUGE tune. Then there’s the title track for the album which is just BEAUTIFUL. The album has stronger tunes from almost every type and stronger tunes EXACTLY like the title track, but none are as FULLY encompassing as the vibes on the album and it’s absolutely no wonder why it was chosen as the title of the album. Soca Or Die comes to its conclusion in typical Destra fashion. She ALWAYS includes a couple of slow, ballad-like or gospel like pieces. This time around it’s a cover of Jody Watley’s ‘It All Begins With You’ and ‘His Eye Is On The Sparrow’. These type of tunes have never been my favourite, but you just come to expect them, like you come to expect Lady Saw and Bushman to do Country from time to time. It’s just her ‘thing‘, you’ll never hear me say a bad word about it and, as always, it goes to show her underrated ACTUAL vocal prowess to end the wonderful album.
Overall, what can I say? Soca Or Die is, in my opinion, Destra’s best work in a full album form to date. You could make the argument that albums like Hott and especially Independent Lady are more TOP HEAVY and they very well may be (Independent Lady was ridiculous with Outta Time, Colours Again, Aur Chale, Max It Up AND Jumpin’), but from beginning to end, I simply don’t think you’ll find a more solid Destra album. Soca Or Die. This one shows off EVERY facet of her style and shows it to either its absolute best, or very near it. It really also goes to show what I mean that she has some of the best values of so many different artists and what she is and what she has been is simply one of the most colourful and vibesy artists in Caribbean musical history. With accolades like that and calling this her finest release to date, you KNOW you should pick up Destra’s Soca Or Die. Of course, that’s just my opinion. Don’t believe me? Well, next time in you’re in Trinidad you can always track down my old ass uncle Vince and ask him what he thinks. Well done.
Rated 4.5/5
Krazi Music Records
2008
{note: BIG RESPECT AND CONGRADS TO DESTRA AND BRIAN MORRIS ON THEIR FORTH COMING CHILD}
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