Pioneering Trinidad soca producer dies

(Trinidad Guardian) Pi­o­neer­ing So­ca Pro­duc­er Dar­ryl Brax­ton, the man who made hits for Bun­ji Gar­lin and KMC, died yes­ter­day.

Brax­ton’s death was con­firmed on so­cial me­dia by his cousin and fel­low pro­duc­er Aaron “Track 7” Pe­ters.

“On be­half of our fam­i­ly, we’d like to an­nounce the pass­ing of Dar­ryl Brax­ton. His con­tri­bu­tion to the mu­sic world and busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty in the Caribbean was a mon­u­men­tal one so we open our arms and sup­port each oth­er at this time. We ex­tend a heart­felt thanks to all who as­sist­ed over the last few years in the vary­ing ca­pac­i­ties,” said Pe­ters in the so­cial me­dia post.

Brax­ton helped rev­o­lu­tion­alise so­ca mu­sic by ush­er­ing Rag­ga So­ca in the late 90s and ear­ly 2000s as he was the pro­duc­er of break­through so­ca hits for Bun­ji Gar­lin and KMC when both artistes had been fo­cused on dance­hall mu­sic.

KMC broke in­to so­ca star­dom af­ter the Brax­ton pro­duced “Bash­ment to Car­ni­val” dom­i­nat­ed air­waves and fetes dur­ing the 1998 Car­ni­val sea­son, and then con­vinced Gar­lin one year lat­er to try his hand at so­ca cul­mi­nat­ing with the 1999 hit “Send Dem Rid­dim Crazy”.

Brax­ton con­tin­ued to pro­duce hits for var­i­ous so­ca artistes in­clud­ing Iw­er George’s So­ca Monarch win­ning “Fete Af­ter Fete” in 2007.

KMC took to so­cial me­dia to pay trib­ute to his friend.

“Me and this broth­er grew up to­geth­er, me and him to­geth­er cre­at­ed a new style of so­ca in 1997 that was em­braced by the youths and change the sound of so­ca with my first two hits (so­ca bash­ment and bash­ment to car­ni­val) the name Daryl Brax­ton be­came a force in the busi­ness with a string of artistes and hit songs he pro­duced start­ing from me then Bun­ji Gar­lin, Na­dia Bat­son, just to name a few. He will live on through his mu­sic. Con­do­lences to his fam­i­ly.. sleep well, my broth­er.”

Brax­ton had been ail­ing for sev­er­al months lead­ing up to his death.