Calypso

Music was an integral part of the lives of not only Afro-Caribbean migrants but migrants and immigrants from all over the globe who had found themselves living in the capital. In his introduction to Sounds Like London: 100 Years of Black Music in the Capital member of pioneering music group Soul II Soul Jazzy B writes that music was ever present in his house while growing up in the capital with the music becoming their connection to the Caribbean and the people there while also serving as an escape from working class life and all the pressures that comes with it.[1]

The first real wave of music to come in from the Caribbean to Britain was Calypso. Lord Kitchener (it was common for Caribbean singers to give themselves such names, see also Lord Tanamo and Lord Creator) was one of the first calypsonians to gain recognition in Britain. Already a star in the Caribbean, Kitchener (real name Aldwyn Roberts) had hardly stepped off the Empire Windrush when a microphone was placed in front of him for him to sing, among others, his ode to the capital “London is the Place for me”, a seemingly spur of the moment performance that of a song that had actually been written weeks before in anticipation of appealing to a west Indian audience that had been in London since the end of the First World War.[2] In the 1950s record companies started to realise there was a market for calypso and started to have musicians such as the aforementioned Lord Kitchener along with his contemporaries; Lord Beginner, Roaring Lion and Bill Rogers, fellow expats who came to London hoping to make a living through singing calypso.[3] The record companies had initially hoped to sell Calypso to the Caribbean, competing with American companies who were doing the same thing, but soon found a home audience, first the audience of black communities in Britain but then Calypso started to find a mainstream audience of white listeners in both the UK and USA with celebrities such as Harry Belafonte coming from the genre thus priming the pump for later crossover of Afro-Caribbean music with mainstream white audiences, though it must be remarked that the American version of calypso was far more widely recognised than the London variety, as influential as it was.[4] Calypso itself however was a bit of a flash in the pan, many big American stars failed to gain traction for very long with calypso releases with the beginnings of rock and roll starting to take hold so the Brtish music behemoth EMI decided with so many stars underperforming their London calypsonians were no longer bankable so calypso was relegated back to the independent labels.[5]

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[1] Lloyd Bradley, Sounds Like London: 100 Years of Black Music in the Capital, (London: Serpent’s Tail, 2013)  7-9

[2] Bradley, (2013) 19-20

[3] Bradley, (2013) 36-37

[4] Bradley, (2013) 37-38

[5] Bradley, (2013) 38-42