In what is a ma­jor break­through to­ward the recog­ni­tion of both ca­lyp­so and so­ca as gen­res in the in­ter­na­tion­al mu­sic mar­ket, US-based iTunes Mu­sic Store, a di­vi­sion of Ap­ple Inc, has an­nounced that both art forms have been des­ig­nat­ed as of­fi­cial mu­si­cal cat­e­gories on their in­ter­net mar­ket­place.Pre­vi­ous­ly, mu­sic tracks from these two T&T-root­ed gen­res were list­ed with­out for­mal cat­e­gori­sa­tion un­der a va­ri­ety of rubrics, in­clud­ing "reg­gae," "Latin" or "Caribbean.""This is a ma­jor step for­ward for ca­lyp­so and so­ca," said award-win­ning film-mak­er and best­selling au­thor Dr Ge­of­frey Dunn, who has ad­vanced an ini­tia­tive in the Unit­ed States to fa­cil­i­tate such des­ig­na­tions. "iTunes was very re­spon­sive to the re­quest and sen­si­tive to the cul­tur­al im­pli­ca­tions of such recog­ni­tion. I am very grate­ful for this de­ci­sion," Dunn said.

Trinidad-based mu­sic pub­lish­er and pro­mot­er Alvin Daniell, who is co-or­di­nat­ing a broad­er ini­tia­tive with Dunn, called the recog­ni­tion an "his­toric mo­ment" for mu­sic root­ed in the Caribbean. "This break­through will en­sure that, first and fore­most, our mu­sic will now be prop­er­ly cat­e­gorised," said Daniell. "When a par­tic­u­lar T&T artist had a hit song pri­or to this, our coun­try and our re­gion were nev­er giv­en due cred­it. Now, that has changed."Pri­or ef­forts over the past decade– in­clud­ing an In­ter­net pe­ti­tion–to gen­er­ate such recog­ni­tion met with no suc­cess. "Some­times a per­son­al ap­proach is more ef­fec­tive," said Dunn, who lives in North­ern Cal­i­for­nia, close to Ap­ple head­quar­ters. "iTunes ful­ly grasped the cul­tur­al sig­nif­i­cance of such a des­ig­na­tion. They did the right thing."Daniell said that the iTune recog­ni­tion –ca­lyp­so and so­ca now ap­pear with ap­prox­i­mate­ly three-dozen oth­er gen­res un­der the head­ing of "World" mu­sic–will help ush­er in a new era of op­por­tu­ni­ty for ca­lyp­so and so­ca artistes through­out the Caribbean and the di­as­po­ra.

"It im­pacts all as­pects of the in­come gen­er­at­ed by our artistes," he not­ed. "We firm­ly be­lieve that with the new list­ings it will be eas­i­er to source our works and that will lead to in­creased in­come and recog­ni­tion for our artistes."Dunn and Daniell, who worked to­geth­er on the award-win­ning film Ca­lyp­so Dreams, are cur­rent­ly in­volved in the pro­duc­tion of a new doc­u­men­tary fea­ture en­ti­tled The Glam­our Boyz Again: The Mighty Spar­row and Lord Su­pe­ri­or on the Hilton Rooftop. Dunn said he is an­tic­i­pat­ing to pre­miere the film this fall at the T&T Film Fes­ti­val.

"Ob­vi­ous­ly I am in­spired in this ini­tia­tive by the likes of Spar­row, Supie, Rose, San­dra, Re­la­tor and oth­er ca­lyp­so stal­warts to pur­sue this ef­fort on their be­half," Dunn said. "They have ded­i­cat­ed their en­tire lives to the cul­ture. I want­ed to make sure that their en­dur­ing com­mit­ment to the art form was re­spect­ed and ac­knowl­edged glob­al­ly."

Daniell said that he is hop­ing to con­tin­ue these ef­forts for recog­ni­tion of ca­lyp­so and so­ca in co-or­di­na­tion with Min­is­ter of the Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Dr Lin­coln Dou­glas. "I am very pleased that the min­istry is sup­port­ive of this ini­tia­tive," said Daniell. "This is an ef­fort with far-reach­ing im­pli­ca­tions for T&T.""Recog­ni­tion of ca­lyp­so and so­ca by iTunes is a ma­jor first step," said Dunn. "It breaks the ice. But there is still a long ways to go."Dunn said that he and Daniell will now fo­cus their en­er­gies on gen­er­at­ing sim­i­lar recog­ni­tion from sev­er­al oth­er In­ter­net mu­sic out­lets, in­clud­ing All Mu­sic, Zune Mar­ket­place, eMu­sic, Ya­hoo!, and Ama­zon and, even­tu­al­ly the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my of Record­ing Arts and Sci­ences in the US; pro­duc­ers of The Gram­mys.

"Des­ig­nat­ing mu­si­cal gen­res is an im­pre­cise cul­tur­al en­ter­prise and in­her­ent­ly eth­no­cen­tric in its con­struc­tion," Dunn said. "But ca­lyp­so, in par­tic­u­lar, has had a world-wide pres­ence and in­flu­ence for more than a cen­tu­ry. Giv­en its glob­al pop­u­lar­i­ty, its ex­clu­sion from sev­er­al crit­i­cal In­ter­net mar­kets has been trou­bling. With a con­cen­trat­ed ef­fort, how­ev­er, I be­lieve that we can have an im­pact."