Trinidad Road March Songs 1999 to 2020

Road-March

The Trinidad Road March is a song fitting for dancing and jumping up in the streets. A road-march song is usually delineated by a quick repetitious and rousing chorus. In the early times, Lord Kitchener was considered the king of the road-march. He still owns the record with eleven road-marches. The road-march are the tunes played by steel or brass bands on the roads on Carnival Monday and Tuesday.

There was a time when the Leggo, or Break Away song, was heralded as the best song for the two days of a parade on the streets. Today we call that song the National Road March which, of course, was officially sanctioned in 1962. Prior to 1962, that song was known as the Leggo! Lord Kitchener pictured above currently has the most wins for Trinidad Road March songs.

Artist	Number of Road Marches
Kitchener	11
Super Blue	10
Machel Montano	10
Sparrow	8
Lion	5
King Radio	3
Fay-ann Lyons	3
Tambu	3
Shurwayne Winchester	2
Calypso Rose	2
Blakie	2
Spit Fire	2
Farmer Nappy	1
Iwer George	1

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Road March list from Bacchanal! The Carnival Culture of Trinidad

People nowadays keep saying that we have changed calypso over the years. I say why not? We had to change, for calypso is a live and living thing. – The Mighty Sparrow

“Raise Yuh Hand, Jump up and Get on Bad!”: New Developments in Soca Music in Trinidad by Lorraine Leu

If you want to learn more about Trinidad, check out the following articles: Waving Gallery, Doux-doux and Bad John. In addition to Trinidad Road March’s song traditions from Lord Kitchener, there is also Trini folklore, such as Papa Bois is an oral tradition meant to pass on the stories to the next generation. Other Trini phrases in the vernacular are Light Candle, Sprawl Off.