Darrell G Baksh

This paper reflects on the ways in which female Indo-Caribbean bodies navigate the popular spaces of chutney soca as singers and dancers in Trinidad who reinvent feminine identity - as well as male Indo-Caribbean bodies who reimagine masculinities through chutney soca dance - in a process that disrupts, transgresses, and reshapes normative codes of Indian gender and sexuality in the Caribbean.

The final refrain of Trinidad and Tobago’s national anthem proclaims: “Here every creed and race find an equal place,” a valorization of the country’s multifaith and multiracial composition. Tropes such as “all ah we is one,” “rainbow nation” and “unity in diversity” validate a sense of multicultural pride despite a postcolonial history dominated by black political governance where Indo-Caribbean practices were, and continue to be, marginalized in favour of black cultural expressions – calypso, Carnival, and steelband – as foremost symbols of a nation in decolonization.
While Indo-Caribbean cuisine is celebrated and savoured by the Trinidadians of non-Indian descent who partake in it, Indo-Caribbean music does not enjoy the same privileges. Remembered and reconstructed by descendants of indentured labourers from Bhojpuri-speaking India, chutney – so called because of the 'heat' its timbres generate – remains a subsidiary sound despite its contemporary fusion with soca, Trinidad’s black popular party derivative of calypso.
In this paper, I address processes of inclusion and exclusion by examining the politics of musical un/belonging in chutney soca music. Using textual, content and discursive analyses, I show how and why these ideologies have shaped what is in/visible in the popular, mainstream spaces of radio, fêtes (parties), nightclubs, 'de road' (Carnival parade routes) and movie theatres in Trinidad and Toronto, home to a large Indo-Caribbean diasporic population. I consider the accompanying tensions, negotiations, and implications of un/belonging at a time when debates and conflicts over race and nationalism abound in Trinidad, in order to critique and disentangle the complexities of hybrid identity formation. I argue that chutney soca reveals a politics of un-belonging in Trinidad and its Canadian diaspora, in contrast to a Carnival rhetoric that celebrates national belonging, as Indo-Caribbean communities continue to find their “place in this world,” one that is never fully black nor fully 'Indian' but always in-between.

Situated in the southernmost Caribbean, Trinidad is home to a multiplicity of cultural expressions that have evolved out of the experiences of communities brought to the island from different parts of the world, predominantly under conditions of colonial oppression. The cultural contact and exchange between these disparate groups boasts, in particular, a rich musical landscape, of which chutney soca is a popular form. A 'hot and spicy' combination of Bhojpuri folk music traditions traced to Bihar, India and contemporary Afro-Caribbean Carnival music, it has become the preeminent Indo-Caribbean sound of the region. While worthy of celebration, this “cultural fusion,” as chutney soca artist Drupatee Ramgoonai musically described it in 2015, is also cause for contention because it raises questions about deeper socio-cultural concerns over constructs of Indianness, blackness, and what I call 'in-betweenness': a chaotic state of becoming that is never completely realized.

In this paper, I explore the politics of race and difference by examining recent developments in chutney soca music’s young evolution. In an effort to trouble and complicate 'neat' understandings of identity formation and un/belonging, I show how the music is caught up in discourses of hybridity through a cultural studies approach that uses textual and content analysis. By asking what it means to identify as hybrid, I consider the ways in which chutney soca 'sounds' the tensions and anxieties of race in Trinidad at a moment when Indo-Caribbean identity continues to navigate the shifting dynamics of tradition and modernity. As such, I argue that Indo-Caribbeanness is a negotiated exercise in a confusing fusion of Indianness and blackness; to identify as Indo-Caribbean ultimately signals the performance of a 'Bhojpuri blackness.'

Trinidad, the southernmost island of the Caribbean archipelago, is home to the English-speaking region’s most illustrious and colourful Carnival celebrations. Powering its bacchanal are the heartbeats of soca and chutney soca – remembered rhythms, brought to the island through historical patterns of African enslavement and Indian indenture, that were later reinvented and re-mixed – calling revellers to dance and party. As young forms of popular music, soca and chutney soca have developed quickly in a relatively short space of time, pushing boundaries with the adoption, appropriation, and fusion of foreign musical elements. When taken too far, however, these progressions require a return to more familiar musical territories. As such, this paper examines, through textual and content analyses, how the contemporary resurgence of older and traditional sounds and styles in soca and chutney soca attempts to revitalize Carnival music; re-energize community; and bridge generational gaps in Trinidad. It explains how these musical retreats symbolize a negotiation of collective identity politics that shifts between tradition and modernity, and how they play into the deep-seated temporal contexts of nostalgia and memory that are important to understanding the Trinidadian musical ethos.

As a form of Indo-Caribbean popular music produced primarily in Trinidad, chutney soca has been shaped by a variety of remembered and 're-membered' sonic and stylistic traditions. Among them have been Indian classical singing, performed mostly by men; Hindu songs of worship (bhajans); Bhojpuri folksongs, especially those performed by women in the private, Hindu matikoor (pre-nuptial) and maaro (marriage) spaces; Caribbean Carnival music; and the songs of twentieth-century Hindi cinema. In this paper, I explore the importance of the latter and consider its implications on (re)constructions and deconstructions of Indianness. By illustrating the ways in which Bollywood—as it is colloquially known—has persistently informed the audio-visual Indo-Caribbean imaginary and performance aesthetic over time, I contend that its endurance in the Caribbean can be attributed to purist anxieties over the threat of identity loss in an effort to protect Indianness from ethnocultural invisibility within the larger creole nationalist framework that has historically characterized postcolonial Caribbean societies. As such, this paper contributes to critical dialogues on the politics of hybrid identity and difference in Caribbean contexts, strengthening the limited body of scholarly research on Indo-Caribbean popular culture, that is part of my larger dissertation project which investigates the evolution of chutney soca music as a transgressive platform through which to examine the tensions and negotiations around identity formation in Trinidad.

In Trinidad, the southernmost of Caribbean islands, chutney is the name ascribed to remembered and 're-membered' Bhojpuri folk music traditions still practiced by descendants of mid-nineteenth to early-twentieth century sugarcane workers from India. Initially performed in private settings, it evolved into chutney soca, a public fusion shaped by Trinidad’s Carnival music, in the mid-1990s. Within a decade, this sound embarked upon dynamic changes, including the introduction of melodic influences from Hindi film songs; the replacement of musical instruments; a decrement in tempo; and a lyrical shift from Bhojpuri to Trinidadian English Creole. By 2012, a growing clamour for a return to "ole-time chutney" resulted in a revival of retro aesthetics, revamped with contemporary sounds and assisted by modern technologies. As such, this paper investigates three ongoing projects—the "Chatak Matak Invasion," "The Revolution," and the "Return of the Traditional Chutney Legends"—to show how Indo-Caribbean popular music attempts to re-mix traditional and modern temporal contexts by making 're-cycled' folk sounds relevant to a modern generation; to illustrate how these musical concessions similarly reflect constant negotiations of 'Indianness' in the Caribbean context; and to reveal how popular music practice and identity formation within the Indo-Caribbean community is both complex and contradictory.

Chutney soca is the name ascribed to the popular fusion of chutney, remembered and 're-membered' Bhojpuri folk music traditions, and soca, the contemporary sound of Trinidad Carnival. While quickly developing into a thriving popular music industry in Trinidad since its public inception there in 1996, chutney soca has – because of a shared history of Indian indentureship that has fostered much cultural contact and exchange – also become popular amongst the community of Indian descent in Guyana. Despite histories of Afro-Caribbean political domination in both nations, under which Indian cultural expressions – including music – were perceived as 'alien', chutney soca has become very much representative of a popular Indo-Caribbean sound.

Yet, this sonic evolution has also involved the display of Indian imagery, dating to the birth of chutney out of the secrecy of Hindu pre-nuptial matikoor rituals and the female dance traditions that accompanied them. Having always facilitated these interactions, chutney soca offers interesting insights into the ways that sounds and images intersect to form particular representations of identity. This process has been fittingly supported by the rise of the chutney soca music video.

Accordingly, this paper seeks to examine portrayals of Indo-Caribbeanness in two chutney soca music videos by comparing visual representations of Indian ethnicity, femininity, and sexuality from an Indo-Caribbean and non-Indo-Caribbean perspective, in an effort to consider how they simultaneously shape and complicate notions of identity formation. It aims to illustrate how chutney soca music videos inform the ways that Indo-Caribbeanness is '(re-)framed' in order to highlight the politics of identity negotiation and representation with which the Trinidadian and Guyanese communities of Indian descent constantly grapple, and to understand how these representations challenge ideas of chutney soca and Indo-Caribbean identity as an 'audio-visible minority' in societies that have been traditionally constructed as Afro-Caribbean.

In Trinidad, the southernmost of Caribbean islands, the production of popular music derived heavily from West African antecedents has been fundamentally tied to the distinctive Carnival festivities that take place there each year. While the island may be best known internationally for calypso music, soca—a re-invention of calypso—has dominated the scene in recent decades to become the official soundtrack to the revelry; it is highly considered to be the contemporary 'mainstream' sound of Trinidadian popular music.

Yet, Bhojpuri folk music brought to the island by mid-nineteenth to early-twentieth century indentured labourers from India has also thrived in the same geographical space. Known as chutney, it emerged from the private, domestic settings of Hindu wedding and childbirth celebrations in the mid-1990s to hit public, national spaces as chutney soca, a more commercially-viable fusion of remembered North Indian folk sounds and soca aesthetics. While traditionally performed and consumed by Trinidadians of Indian descent, chutney soca reception has widened in recent years because of its proximity to the Carnival ethos. This attraction has facilitated a re-arrangement of musical 'texts'—lyrics, themes, sounds, images and performance aesthetics—in ways that challenge the construction of identity.

Accordingly, this paper asks: to what extent, and how, does the 're-mix' of chutney soca 'texts' re-inscribe multiple meanings and boundaries—musical, social, racial, religious, symbolic and ideological—of 'Indianness' and 'Trinidadianness' within the geographical and cultural spaces of Trinidad? It seeks to consider the importance of the chutney soca evolution in processes of bonding and bridging Indian and non-Indian group identities, while exploring the consequences of expanding definitions of nationality at the expense of crossing the confines of ethnicity.

Through content and discourse analyses, this paper applies a cultural studies approach to remix theory in an attempt to show how Indian cultural representation in Trinidad is shaped through perpetuated yet constantly changing musical traditions; how these re-imagined and re-invented traditions foster the persistence of a re-mixed music culture; and how this culture creates a sense of belonging, even as it defies purist ideology, amongst Trinidadians of Indian descent. As such, it aims to shed light on 'sound' bounds in Trinidadian popular music which, in turn, reveals the complex and contradictory nature of identity negotiation from a Caribbean context as a chaotic quest that is continuously in a state of becoming.

For South Asian diasporic communities, music remains a vital medium through which fragments of 'South Asianness' can be accessed in order to reproduce, reconstruct and reconnect with South Asian culture that consequently establishes dynamic cultural manifestations in those new environments.

In Trinidad, where there exists a large South Asian community descended from nineteenth and twentieth century indentured sugarcane labourers, a musical style known as chutney has popularly emerged out of private South Asian folk practices and evolved into a commercial form. While its various developments in sound, sight and style have continuously challenged and contested delineations of cultural spaces in the island, chutney – at its core – represents a Caribbean 're-cycling' of South Asian traditions.

By exploring several intriguing facets of the musical genre, this paper seeks to show how and understand why definitions of what it means to be 'South Asian' in the Caribbean space and context are reinscribed and, by extension, considers what that signifies in terms of struggles over 'Caribbeanness' as it relates to the South Asian diaspora. By demonstrating how chutney acts as a fluid site for conceiving the constant grappling over identity and representation among Trinidadians of South Asian descent, this paper also investigates issues of negotiation and transformation in chutney to better understand the concept of belonging in the South Asian diaspora and the interrelationship between Trinidad, as a microcosm of the Caribbean, and South Asia.

Music possesses the ability to serve as an instrument of expression, remembrance, reconstruction and transformation and in the Caribbean island of Trinidad, the persistence of a vibrant ‘soundscape’ – the environment of sound - shaped by the presence of a dynamic Carnival tradition and a cosmopolitan demographic have resulted in the formation of ‘multi-cultures’, cultural pockets feeding into the wider thread of ‘Trinidadianness’, which are in constant redefinition and remix.

Chutney music, traced to the ‘Indo’ pocket, has emerged out of South Asian folk tradition and within the last five years, it has embarked upon the navigation of cultural spaces through the remix of new musical developments in sound and in style. This has involved the reorganization of lyrical, thematic and acoustic texts, resulting in a transgressive and transformative type of remixed culture that is challenging notions of identity formation and representation.

As such, this paper, which is part of a larger body of work-in-progress, seeks to explore chutney as a developing cross-culture of remix within the contexts of Trinidadian culture, by analyzing its musical evolution in relation to aesthetic understandings and (re)inscriptions of ‘Indianness’ and ‘Trinidadianness’. It also seeks to tackle issues of cultural destruction and consequence raised by critics by considering the use of remix as a creative process of adaptation, appropriation and assimilation in chutney to (re)construct and ultimately communicate a culture of ‘sound’ identity in Trinidad through cross-cultural elements and transactions.

The power of musical practice lies in its ability to serve as a compelling agent for socio-cultural transformation within particular spaces, yet specific places can also greatly impact cultural meanings of music through social and musical fusions influenced, in particular, by travel. This paper sets out to explore the interrelationship between music and place by examining chutney, traditionally considered the South Asian folk music of Trinidad, which has developed into a commercially disseminated form of popular music in the island. Though a fairly protected and private genre among the exclusive, clannish enclaves of Indian communities in Trinidad, chutney has begun to traverse and transform cultural spaces in recent times, as a result of new musical trends in sound and in style. Among them is the preference for and prevalence of melodies inspired by songs of the Hindi film industry, familiarly known as Bollywood.
As such, this paper seeks to situate this increasingly dominant development within the contexts of Trinidadian culture, by exploring how it marks a significant shift, not only in the evolution of the chutney genre, but in understandings of 'Indoness', the 'Indo' aesthetic, and the 'Indo' space in Trinidad, and its role in reinscribing those definitions. It also seeks to consider the way in which place, in this case India, influences the construction of Indo identity and notions of representation in Trinidad, and how it operates within the global dynamics of travelling culture to generate what I term an 'Indo soundscape' fraught with inter-cultural and cross-cultural transactions.

This paper focuses on chutney, a form of popular music in Trinidad with roots in prepartitioned North India, as an intriguing genre through which, culturally, to analyze Trinidadian social dynamics. It concentrates on developments during the Trinidad Carnival of 2009 to illustrate how chutney interrogates and confronts a variety of interrelated struggles over multiple identities—musical, socio-cultural and racial—in a bid to reinscribe broader definitions of Trinidadianness and challenge traditional notions of Indianness. Through lyrical, timbral, thematic, and performative analyses, the paper explores three popular chutney recordings of 2009—“Rum & Roti,” “Radica,” and “Jep Sting Naina”—to uncover the discursive and often discrepant complexities of Trinidadian culture.