Background
He was born Garfield Blackman in the town of Barrackpore, Trinidad, and rose to fame as "Lord Shorty" with his 1963 hit "Cloak and Dagger", subsequently taking the name Ras Shorty.
He was born Garfield Blackman in the town of Barrackpore, Trinidad, and rose to fame as "Lord Shorty" with his 1963 hit "Cloak and Dagger", subsequently taking the name Ras Shorty.
In Dominica, Shorty had attended an Exile One performance of cadence-lypso, and collaborated with Dominica"s 1969 Calypso King, Lord Tokyo, and two calypso lyricists, Chris Seraphine and Pat Aaron, in the early 1970s, who wrote him some creole lyrics.
A prolific musician, composer and innovator, Shorty experimented with fusing calypso and the other Indian-inspired music, including chutney music, for nearly a decade before unleashing "the soul of calypso,"..soca music Shorty was the first to really define his music and with "Indrani" in 1973 and "Endless Vibration" (not just the song but the entire album) in 1975, calypso music really took off in another direction. Soon after Shorty released a song, "Ou Petit", with words such as "Ou dee moin ou petit Shorty" (meaning "you told me you are small Shorty"), a combination of calypso, cadence and kwéyòl.
Shorty"s 1974 Endless Vibrations and Soul of Calypso brought soca to its peak of international fame.
Soca’s development as a musical genre included its fusion with calypso, cadence, and Indian musical instruments—particularly the dholak, tabla and dhantal—as demonstrated in Lord Shorty"s classic compositions "Ïndrani" and "Shanti Om". His fame continued to grow throughout the 1970s, and he became one of the country"s top performers.
He recorded tracks such as "Kim" and "Money Eh Number Problem", which was a stinging political and social commentary based on the words of Trinidad"s then Prime Minister, Eric Williams of the People"s National Movement. "Money Eh Number Problem" was used in a political advertising campaign in 2000 for the United National Congress.
In his early days, he was a known womanizer and fathered 23 children.
In 1984, he voiced his disenchantment with soca, claiming it was being used for the wrong reasons. In the late 1980s, he began recording again, fusing soca and gospel in a style he called Jamoo. He continued recording into the late 1990s, writing hits such as "Watch Out My Children", which focuses on the dangers of drug abuse.
The song was recorded in ten languages and was adopted by the United Nations in an anti-cocaine campaign.
He toured transnationally with his band, the Love Circle, which consisted mainly of family members. Artist Ataklan has also benefited under the musical training of Ras Shorty I and has gone on to become a maverick of the Rapso tradition.
The family aims to put across positive messages with their music, focusing especially on youth. They also exhort modern soca artists to preach positivity and the word of God through their music