Cherisse Moe

The so­ca mafia-is it re­al or is it all hype? This con­tro­ver­sial is­sue is not a new one. In fact, it has been rear­ing its ug­ly head for a while now, with some artistes charg­ing that "cer­tain" en­ter­tain­ers are be­ing favoured over oth­ers and are dom­i­nat­ing the air­waves for the Car­ni­val sea­son. Then there are those who chalk it up to artistes "tot­ing feel­ings" sim­ply be­cause their mu­sic just doesn't make the cut. Ei­ther way, this "mafia" talk, which seems to be on the tip of many more tongues this year, does not au­gur well for the im­age of so­ca mu­sic, and by ex­ten­sion T&T, es­pe­cial­ly at a time when some lo­cal artistes are do­ing their part to rep­re­sent the red, white and black on the world's stage. The T&T Guardian re­cent­ly spoke to some of the main play­ers in the mu­sic game and sought to shed some light on the top­ic. Here is what they had to say.

• Kees-(Reign­ing Groovy So­ca Monarch)

"I think in any busi­ness there are lead­ers in the in­dus­try and there are peo­ple with more clout than oth­ers. Even with me as an artiste com­ing up I didn't re­ceive a lot of air play.

"I have air play now, but that has had a lot to do with the work that I've put in over the years. But to say that some­thing or­gan­ised ex­ists, I can't say. But I'm sure there is some lev­el of con­trol as to what goes on the air­waves."

• TC-SLAM 100.5

(DJ and so­ca artiste)

"I don't know any­thing about mafia. My in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the word mafia is an or­gan­ised group of in­di­vid­u­als.

"Per­son­al­ly, I nev­er had any is­sues for my songs to be played and I'm not part of any­thing. If the song is good the DJs would want to play it. Any­thing that falls short of great is not go­ing to be played.

"I have sev­en songs out but on­ly one be­ing played right now and that's sim­ply be­cause the peo­ple en­joy it so that's the one the DJs will play more. This whole mafia thing comes from those peo­ple whose mu­sic is not be­ing played and them telling them­selves that peo­ple against them. I don't agree with that. I would tell them to try dif­fer­ent pro­duc­ers, try dif­fer­ent styles.

"You can't be do­ing the same thing and ex­pect­ing dif­fer­ent re­sults. I try to move with the cur­rent and put out what the peo­ple want to here. The peo­ple you hear­ing all the time on ra­dio are the peo­ple who are work­ing the hard­est and whose songs are all good. And to be hon­est, it's the peo­ple who can af­ford to put out all those songs be­cause pro­duc­ing a song is not cheap."

• Patrice Roberts

(So­ca artiste)

"Peo­ple are say­ing that some artistes are get­ting played be­cause of the so­ca mafia, but if you have good mu­sic no­body can stop that. Some peo­ple want to blame every­thing on so­ca mafia and oth­er things. But I do feel bad for new­com­ers who have good songs and their mu­sic isn't be­ing played. Those are the on­ly peo­ple I re­al­ly feel bad for."

• Trevlyn Leza­ma (DJ)

"While I'm work­ing no­body don't call me to tell me to play this or don't play that. I go to work with my vibes. I choose the songs to be played on my seg­ment. No artiste can­not pres­sure me or pay me to play their mu­sic.

"I can't speak for oth­ers but I know for sure when I go to work no artiste can't call and tell me, 'aye, I ain't hear­ing my song to­day.'

• K Rich-(new artiste)

"I think that it's a busi­ness, an in­dus­try, and with all busi­ness­es and in­dus­tries, once you ap­proach it with good busi­ness ethics it will re­flect in the way you are treat­ed. I don't want to think of it as a mafia but more so as a struc­tured busi­ness.

"Above all, what artistes have to re­mem­ber is that once their prod­uct is good and mar­ketable, there can't be any kind of fight down re­al­ly. I'm sure that they have rea­sons that are jus­ti­fi­able but I'm al­so sure that there are oth­er so­lu­tions for them."