Words by Jesse Serwer
Photo by Martei Korley
The Zika virus is the latest source of public-health paranoia, raising fears about travel across South America and the Caribbean. It’s unlikely that this scourge will slow down the influx of visitors into Barbados for this summer’s Crop Over celebrations, though. A year after scenes of Crop Over were splashed across newspapers, magazines and Instagram accounts worldwide, the island is expecting record crowds at its annual Carnival celebration, climaxing on Kadooment Day August 1st.
LargeUp is in Barbados right now, where we’ve been connecting with the island’s top soca artists for an upcoming series of features. So of course we had to pay a visit to Lil Rick, the king of Barbados’ homegrown music style, bashment soca. While over at Rick’s Kennel Studio in the Parish of St. Philip, we met up with producer Dwain “Dwaingerous” Antrobus of Bass Ink Productions, who played us his fittingly named Zika Riddim. The aggressive instrumental features Lil Rick on the lead track “Brek Down De Fence,” along with more tunes from his Hypa Family, including his children Supa Hype (not to be confused with the Jamaican Supa Hype) and the Hypa Kidz, (whose “Bubble-Ish” might just be our favorite track on the beat), as well as Stiffy, King Bubba FM, Ray Danga, Dr. Versee and Trinidad’s Flipo. If these tunes don’t get you thinking about hopping the next plane to Bim, well then Crop Over isn’t for you!
Listen to the full riddim below, and look out for Music of Barbados on LargeUp soon.