Mone may recognize Nicholas Brancker for his role in spreading soca beyond its origins in Trinidad & Tobago. But beyond that, he has been a shining example of how Caribbean musicians can succeed both at home and abroad, taking on the titans of the global music business.
With an impressive body of work and numerous accolades, his journey serves as a potential guide for Caribbean musicians looking to maintain a successful music career in these islands (and beyond). And yet, Brancker’s name is rarely mentioned in conversations about Caribbean musicians who have achieved excellence in the art.
Born in England in August 1965 to a Bajan (Barbadian) father and Trinidadian mother, Brancker would return “home” as a child – first to Trinidad, then to Barbados when the family settled there permanently in 1970.
He was a miracle. From the age of three, he picked out tunes on a toy piano, before starting formal piano lessons at the age of seven. “My interest in music is something I don’t remember starting. It has always existed,” he said Caribbean Beat.
Despite his initial resistance to it, he recognizes that formal training is necessary. Family was also an integral part of his musical beginnings. “I was very lucky that both my parents loved music,” he says.
His mother had more musical experience, coming from a family of church musicians, while his father had come from a Bajan family that “was a little less tolerant of the artistic side” and self-taught.
Brancker’s first music lesson from his father was perhaps the most important, leaving a lasting influence that continues to inform every aspect of his work: “You can make whatever you’re doing your own, even if it’s already created”, he explains. “Every performance is me, in some way, immersing myself in an artistic interpretation of something.”
His father’s love of the blues also influenced how Brancker saw the global influence of black music and the responsibility to “not lose sight of what music has always meant to us as a people,” he continues. “It’s not just a source of entertainment—it’s a spiritual source, a cultural source, an identity that we use to carry ourselves through history.”
As a result, Brancker listened deeply to a wide range of recorded Caribbean and American folk music over the years, developing a broad-based musical understanding. He also evolved from keyboardist to bassist during high school. “From the first time I saw a bass being played, I said, ‘I have to do this.’ I never taught myself,” he recalls. “I just picked it up and started playing.”
Still a teenager, he was already gaining recognition through numerous concerts and performances, including at the Battleground Calypso Tent in Barbados in 1984. There, he met Guyanese-British music legend Eddy Grant, impressing him as much as Grant asked Brancker (then a university student) to join him on his next world tour (1985–86). It was the chance of a lifetime.
“My only issue was, how am I doing this to my parents?” Brancker recalls. “My reasoning was that I could always go back to university, [but] I don’t know if I would make that shot again.” Although “concerned” – especially his father – they let him go. And, in a full-circle moment, the University of the West Indies awarded Brancker an honorary doctorate in 2021.
The first in Brancker’s extensive and varied catalog was for an album by Bajan calypsonian Adonijah in 1984. The most recent was for an EP by trumpeter and singer Kweku Jelani in 2023. He has also released two albums as leader — In Contempt (1996) and Bass touch (2017). And, over four decades, he has written, recorded and/or produced a staggering number of songs – reportedly over 3,000.
“I make music because I have no other choice,” he explains. “I have this inside fighting to get out. It’s not for ratings.”
And yet, the accolades came, including two Grammy nominations in 1992 for Best Contemporary Jazz Song and Best Contemporary Jazz Performance (for “Love Is” by flautist Sherry Winston); Barbados Service Star (1995) from the Government of Barbados; and 18 Sunshine Awards between 1994 and 2002.
When soca star Red Plastic Bag shunned Trinidadian producers for Brancker with his 1993 hit “Ragga Ragga,” it resulted in an influx of talent from Trinidad to Barbados.
When soca star Red Plastic Bag shunned Trinidadian producers for Brancker with his 1993 hit “Ragga Ragga,” it resulted in an influx of talent from Trinidad to Barbados seeking similar production. A Bajan calypso and soca industry flourished.
While he spent several months in Jamaica in 1994 working with Mikey Bennett – of Telephone Love (1988) and Mr Lover Man (1992) fame – Brancker didn’t hear music with the frenzied soca beat of T&T. By studying the emerging science of acoustics and sound engineering, he learned not to hijack the clarity of the soundscape with competing frequencies, to minimize the instruments and let the bass pump. She formed a template for his new sock.
The result was a period marketed by T&T promoters as the infamous “Bajani invasion” in the mid to late 1990s, when Bajan rhythmic “ragga soca” music dominated the airwaves. and T&T Carnival with hits such as “Pump Me Up” (1994), “Turn it Around” (1997) and “Ice Cream” (1996). Brancker has worked in all of them – whether as a musician, arranger or producer.
The response, after the initial burst of euphoria, was almost xenophobic – with Brancker being described as “the general of the Bajan invasion”. This bothered him – especially since he was half Trinidadian. “I didn’t foresee the Caribbean working this way,” he recalled.
Brancker has a much broader view of Caribbean and global folk music. “I can understand the idea that the grass is greener on the other side, and when you’re not in that space, something can seem more appealing than it is … you start to get [familiar things] of course.
“But in terms of the artistic contribution of Caribbean people to the world,” he points out, “I can’t think of another group of people who have done more per capita for music on the planet than we have. It’s a shame that we tend to see ourselves as less than.”
That said, he doesn’t discount his 12 years in Roberta Flack’s live touring band (2005–2017)—the last three as associate musical director—nor his tenure with Eddy Grant, who, Brancker says, was “without sorry Caribbean, but still African in substance”. It greatly influenced Brancker’s worldview and his evolution as an artist.
Brancker’s focus is now on live performance, and he’s looking to create “a more consistent way of expressing himself year-round, artistically” with his new Nicholas Brancker Band. His Uplift: a Caribbean Fusion Concert last March is a recent example. With a view to touring in the future, they are looking at collaborations with small orchestras in Europe.
He is also invested in fostering younger generations – helping them develop better knowledge of themselves, their history and craft, their instrument(s), and their context in the world.
“I can’t think of another group of people who have done more per capita for music on the planet than us. It’s a shame that [Caribbean people] we tend to see ourselves as less than”
“I take my musical gifts very seriously. “The older I get, the more important it becomes to see a sense of strength, confidence and positional awareness in younger musicians,” he says. “They don’t stand with their chests up in international environments. They don’t respect themselves that way because they think someone else is better than them… But all that changes is the taste, not the standard of execution.”
Surprisingly, it is important for him to help younger artists understand that what Caribbean musicians bring cannot be copied by others. It’s about authenticity, for Brancker: a belief reinforced by a lifetime of international experience and a sensitivity rooted in the Caribbean.
“You can have artistic influence only if you are authentic. I cannot positively appreciate anyone who copies something. “The more varied your experiences are, the more you can highlight what you’re doing,” says Brancker. “The other thing is that we need more voices in making music in the English-speaking Caribbean… We limit ourselves and I’d like to think that my voice has value and gives a wider breadth of what expression can be. ours.”
This is not arrogance, but confidence. With an acclaimed and commercially significant body of work, Nicholas Bracker is still composing and performing new music, as well as developing and mentoring a new cadre of young musicians. He is an heir in his time. Soca music is now Caribbean music, and we can thank Brancker for that.
