Heard on All Things Considered
OLIVER WANG
The latest album from Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band, The Serpent's Mouth, walks a tightrope between embracing steel pan's melodious charm and its kitschy past.
Back in the 1960s, steel pan albums from Trinidad and Tobago began to catch on with United States tourists, leading many bands to incorporate pop hits into their repertoire. The fad hit a peak in the U.S. in 1971 when an album by the Esso Trinidad Steel Band netted a Grammy nomination for best ethnic or traditional recording. Notably though, the most enduring song off that album wasn't a traditional Trinidadian standard, but a cover of The Jackson 5's "I Want You Back." This craze clearly struck a chord with Germany's Björn Wagner, who, after living in Trinidad and Tobago, returned to Hamburg, Germany and formed the Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band.
The band's latest album, The Serpent's Mouth, out now, is its second full length. Parts of the album take the steel band cover tradition to delightfully unexpected ends, such as Bacao's steel pan version of Dr. Dre's 1999 hit "Xxplosive." Dre's song heavily sampled a 1971 song that itself was a cover of an Isaac Hayes song on the Shaftsoundtrack. If nothing else, the Bacao Band's cover of a sample of a cover is a marvelous example of how music travels, across time, space, genre and generation.
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