The music of T&T is as socially diverse and culturally mixed as its people. Our music, more-so Soca, Calypso, Chutney and Soca Chutney, in particular, have emerged as national cultural expressions.
Its combination of heterogeneous musical and cultural influences has enabled it to symbolise the buoyant diversity of the country itself. Like samba in Brazil, soca is enacted most spectacularly in our Carnival celebrations.
It is said that football and samba are two passions which dominate the Brazilian soul, entwined as in a marriage. This is the link between music, culture, rhythms and sport. We’ve had Calypso Cricket, we had Kaisoca Soccer in 1989 and we had the Soca Warriors of the 2006 era.
The Dwight Yorke-led squad was dubbed the "Fighting Spirit of the Caribbean" in Germany. But even before that, according to former national player Winston Phillips, T&T played what he referred to as Calypso football.
"Calypso football worked for the 1973 team", said Phillips in a 2006 article. “It’s just our natural rhythm that is being reflected on the field. The natural rhythm and unpredictable pace of calypso or soca manifest speed and aggression in a team."
The formidable Brazilians are also schooled in incorporating their country’s natural rhythm into their style of play.
"You change your culture, you change yourself, and change yourself to what? To something unknown!” Phillips said.
The link between music and football or sport, in general, could well represent a fundamental pillar of the country cultural identity. Samba like soca has its roots in the African slave trade going back much further in time than football.
"The prestige of popular music and Brazil's World Cup victories acted as a kind of counterweight to the deep discredit into which political institutions had fallen," said historian Bernardo Borges Buarque de Hollanda.
Imagine what impact the power of our music could have on our sporting prowess. They say that our music and our rhythm is reflected in the way we walk, the way we talk and should be the same in how we play. It's about the swag. Just ask Chris Gayle. He has in the past demonstrated his love for music that mentally prepares one to destroy the opposition.
During the last two decades, advancements in technology have allowed music to grow into being an effective intervention to achieve a range of desirable psychological and performance effects among athletes. Shaka Hislop told me that he experienced the connection between music and sport during his days as an athlete.
"I’ve known about the connection between music and sport, particularly rhythmic sport since my college days," said Hislop. "I'm not sure that music translates directly to football or sporting performances where rhythm isn’t important."
Where music does play a part is in culture and it is our culture that plays a part in our football but it isn’t the only factor. There is any number of other factors that impact our individual playing style. Things like the weather for instance. Our football simply cannot be played at the pace of the European game for instance as it’s simply too hot. And so the rhythms of our game is much slower.
"Culturally, sport for us is as much an experience as it is competition. Of course, winning is the paramount objective, but how we win also becomes important to us. That too is reflective of our culture. As much as our music is the soundtrack of our culture, the impact on our football is indirect as opposed to defining," Hislop said.
Research has found, according to Dr Costas Karageorghis, that music exerts an ergogenic effect (anything that gives you a mental or physical edge while exercising or competing) when it improves physical performance by either delaying fatigue or increasing work capacity. This often results in higher than expected levels of endurance, power, productivity, or strength. So right away we can try to image the effects of Power and Groovy Soca. Power in relation to Twenty20 (T20) cricket and our footballers preparing for game-time during the warm-up?
Some players would tell you there are moments they prefer the more groovy sounds on their headphones and then there are moments when the fast stuff gets them pumped for the battle ahead.
When accompanying training and workouts with music, researchers have suggested assembling a wide selection of familiar tracks that meet the following six criteria in order to achieve benefits to performance: (a) strong, energising rhythm; (b) positive lyrics having associations with movement (e.g. Maximus Dan's Fighter (2006 Warriors anthem) or Famalay which also portrays teamwork and unity. (c) rhythmic pattern well matched to movement patterns of the athletic activity; (d) uplifting melodies and harmonies; (e) associations with a sport, exercise, triumph or overcoming adversity (and (f) a musical style or idiom suited to an athlete’s taste and cultural upbringing.
So whatever the influence, who knows, perhaps after one of the best seasons for the soca art form, it could well play a part in pushing our sports towards greater heights this year and beyond.
Shaun Fuentes is the head of TTFA Media. He is a former FIFA Media Officer at the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. He is also currently a CONCACAF Competitions Media Officer and has travelled extensively, experiencing and learning from different cultures and lifestyles because of sport and media over the past 20 years. He is also a certified media trainer for athletes.