Their Music Is Rooted in the Caribbean : Soca: David Rudder, a Trinidad native, paints his own portrait of island life with ‘soul calypso.’ He brings his sound to Irvine Barclay tonight.

Caribbean musician David Rudder doesn’t have much patience with the images of island life concocted for travel brochures, movies and television.

“I try to show (that) the Caribbean is more than just this impression of sand and sea and straw hats and colored shirts,” the soca singer said by phone recently from Houston.

“I try to paint pictures of the Caribbean and the way we see things. It’s not just this happy-go-lucky kind of ‘Yeah, mon’ existence that people (associate with) the Caribbean.”

The Trinidad native, who performs with pan (steel drum) player Andy Narell’s band tonight at the Irvine Barclay Theatre, burst on the international pop scene following his unprecedented 1986 sweep of three main awards at the annual Carnival that is the focal point of the Trinidad music scene. Three albums featuring Rudder--”1990,” “Haiti” and the “This Is Soca” compilation--were released in the United States by Sire, a rarity for a Caribbean artist.

Some observers tabbed Rudder as a potential Bob Marley of soca, the snappy, horn-driven style that streamlined calypso’s complicated rhythms for the mid-’70s dance floor and quickly became popular throughout the Caribbean.

Most fans identify soca with what Rudder termed the “dance-hall” soca sound as epitomized by Buster Poindexter’s 1987 hit version of Arrow’s “Hot Hot Hot.” One of Rudder’s principal goals is to show the political and social dimensions than can lie behind soca’s party-hearty atmosphere.

“There’s still a stigma to that watered-down version of calypso that was big in America in the ‘40s and ‘50s,” Rudder said. Soca, short for “soul calypso,” “is the way we express our blues,” he explained. “It has a laugh within the music, a cutting, cynical kind of laugh through the pain. One song can tell 10 stories--a lot is said with double-entendres, so many times you have to be within the West Indian situation to understand the secrets of the music.

“That worries me some times because I would like everybody to know soca music. The problem is: Do you sacrifice saying what you feel for your own environment to let everyone else understand what you’re saying? How do you strike that balance?”

Rudder began his professional singing career at 11 performing pop hits. Before he took the soca plunge, his influences ranged from calypso giants Sparrow and Lord Kitchener to soul men Stevie Wonder and particularly Sly & the Family Stone.

“Trinidad has always absorbed a lot of music, so although I have come back to myself and who I am as a Trinidadian, a lot of those influences have formed within my creation,” says Rudder. “People say it’s calypso but I always say people hear Africa, because if they hear blues or jazz inside the music, they’re hearing Afro-American.

“If they hear samba, they’re hearing Afro-Brazilian and if they hear reggae, they’re hearing Afro-Jamaican. I kind of absorbed the diaspora.”

He began recording singles in Trinidad in the mid-’70s and recorded his first album in the early ‘80s. But his five albums released since the Carnival victory failed to click commercially outside the Caribbean--the two most recent ones weren’t even released by Sire here.

But Rudder is far from discouraged. He maintains his strong following in Trinidad and spends seven months on the road each year, playing with his backing band Roots and occasionally guesting with Narell, who he began collaborating with five years ago.

For Rudder, the missing link to soca’s international success may be the distinct image and “culture” that make rock, rap or reggae artists instantly identifiable.

“I know the music itself is ready but there are more ingredients that go into the pie,” he said. “Trinidadian society is still very individualistic, and if David Rudder, Lord Kitchener, the Mighty Sparrow and Shadow are coming down the street, no one would know those are soca guys.”

Rudder’s idea of soca guys is based on substance more than style; he even characterized Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie as American calypsonians in the classic vein. His description of calypso as a “newspaper” music reflecting the feelings of the common man in the street evoked another American sound: rap.

“Rap is like a black American finding calypso in a different form,” Rudder said. “It’s very oral, and even the names of the rap artists like Kool Moe Dee or Grandmaster (Flash) is the same mask that calypsonians used in the early days--Growlin’ Tiger, Lord Kitchener, Mighty Duke.”

That initial wave of calypsonians share something with rap artists--official disapproval. When Trinidad was still under British colonial rule, the Dancehall Act required artists to submit their lyrics to the police for advance approval. Many calypsonians skirted that rule by outwardly complying, then substituting another song when they performed.

According to Rudder, there’s little chance of the political brouhaha currently surrounding rappers Ice-T or Sister Souljah happening in contemporary Trinidad.

“No one interferes with calypso in Trinidad,” Rudder said. “Guys get away with murder, almost, because politically you’re seen as a weakling if you react to what a calypsonian has to say. He becomes the king and the politician becomes the court jester.”