Lord Nelson Shango

Soundway continue their single series with the incendiary ‘Shango’ by Lord Nelson who hails originally from the Caribbean island of Tobago. The original 1978 track sits on the A-side with a bass-heavy, dancefloor-minded remix from Daniel Haaksman and DJ Beware on the flip side.

Robert ‘Lord’ Nelson, now in his 80s, is one of Trinidad and Tobago’s most popular artists with a string of hit records from the 1950s all the way through to the 80s and 90s. After leaving Trinidad for the USA in the early 50’s Nelson soon became a much-loved calypsonian with the expatriate community in the New York area and beyond, as well as back home in the Caribbean, with his unique style of mixing calypso and later soca with soul, funk disco and boogie.

Taken from the 1978 Charlies LP ‘Black Gold’, ‘Shango’ was produced by Clive Bradley – one of Trinidad’s top producers in the 1970s. With ‘Shango’ Nelson follows a tradition of calypso and soca tracks that focus on the shango cults of Trinidad and Tobago that have their roots in the religion of the Yoruba people of Nigeria. With it’s driving 4/4 beat, traditional instrumentation and choral chants it was a step away from his trademark poppy and soul-flavoured soca-funk sound of the late 70s

Berlin based DJ, producer and owner of Man Recordings Daniel Haaksman is one of the key names on the tropical bass scene and along with DJ Beware (UK/Hong-Kong) has tweaked it up and rolled it out with a little extra trademark weight for the dancefloor.