| Drupatee Ramgoonai - "Hotter than a Chulha":
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Other major hits of Drupatee, "Mr. Bissessar" (1988) and "Hotter than
a Chulha" (1989), both repeatedly draw the listener's attention to the unique and unprecedented
form of the music. "Hotter than a Chulha" declares that Indian soca is sweeter, since in this
new form "Rhythm from Africa and from India/Blend together in a perfect mixture". From the
hills of Laventille [the "African" slum near Port-of-Spain which gave birth to the steelband],
the skills of the panman [steelband player] must "spill into Caroni" [the Central Trinidad
rural sugarcane belt which is predominantly East Indian]. Drupatee sings that interfering with
the soca by adding "curry" and "jeera" (cumin) to it will create a new form - "hotter than a
chulha" or East Indian stove - that will send the audience wild.
Why this seemingly innocuous call for racial harmony and cultural 'fusion' should arouse so
many different and opposed reactions is discussed in the section on the chutney-soca controversy
in Chapter 3.
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