World

North America

Trinidad and Tobago

Vibes It Up

April 27th, 2006 | By: Stacy-Marie Ishmael | 12 Comments »

World class squad - check. Loyal supporters - check. Generous patrons - check. Stirring soundtrack - check. What’s missing? A winning slogan, naturally.

Back in 1988, the great Trinidadian calypsonian David Rudder released a song that became an anthem for the supporters of the once-great West Indies cricket team. The song - “Rally Round The West Indies” - perfectly captured both the frustration felt by the fans at the declining fortunes of the struggling team and the hope that they still felt for the future of Caribbean cricket. Its eponymous chorus - “rally round the West Indies / now and forever” - is still reguarly invoked whenever the Windies compete.

What will be the defining moniker of the Warrior Nation? What will we chant when we meet Sweden, Paraguay and Germany?

Snippets of the Warrior anthem (Maximus Dan’s Fighter) aside, a number of slogans seem to be gaining in popularity.

Show them your warrior spirit On the eve of the crucial encounter with Mexico back in October 2005, senior Warrior Russell Latapy declared: “now is the time to vibes it up again. The whole country have to vibes it up.” And so we did, thrashing Mexico 2-1 and securing the playoff against Bahrain. Since then, players and fans alike have been “vibesing it up” all over the place . Trinidadian rapso group 3 Canal based their 2006 Carnival presentation around the theme, and recorded a tribute to the Warriors entitled - you guessed it - Vibes It Up. Great song, with the wicked chorus line, “show your warrior spirit!” [You can access a Caribbean Free Radio podcast featuring 3 Canal and their excellent vibes here]

Elsewhere, on the FIFA website, there’s a joint promotion with Hyundai that is giving fans the chance to vote on their favourite team slogan. Current TnT slogans include “the Pride of Trinidad & Tobago”, “Soca Warriors coming through” and “Here come the Soca Warriors - fighting spirit of the Caribbean.”

The fans over on the Soca Warriors Forum have some suggestions of their own. “Soca Warriors go mash dem up” (destroy the opposition) and “Soca Warriors give dem licks like fire” (ibid.) have proven popular.

I quite like the suggestion made by forumite kicker: “Soca Warriors - The world’s greatest game finally found its riddim”.

Is soca set to displace samba this summer? Will we succeed where the Reggae Boyz failed?

Whatever happens in June, one thing is certain: We are the Soca Warriors. Win or lose, we are fighters.

Tags: 3 Canal, slogans, Soca Warriors, songs, SWSH, Trinidad and Tobago, World Cup Chants

Trinidad and Tobago World Cup RSS Feed

Comments

By The Blog Goes On 04.27 - FIFA World Cup 2006 - World Cup 2006 Blog | April 27th, 2006 at 10:20 am

[...] Good vibes for the Soca Warriors’ rallying cry (Trinidad and Tobago Blog) [...]

Posted from United States

By IZATRINI.com | April 27th, 2006 at 11:16 am

Vibes it Up!

Posted from United States

By Global Voices Online » Blog Archive » Trinidad & Tobago: World Cup team slogan | April 27th, 2006 at 4:08 pm

[...] Over at the Trinidad & Tobago World Cup Blog, Stacy-Marie Ishmael reviews the slogans being put forward in support of the Soca Warriors, Trinidad & Tobago’s national team. [...]

Posted from United States

By I Solemnly Swear - FIFA World Cup 2006 - Trinidad and Tobago World Cup Team Blog | April 28th, 2006 at 5:34 am

[...] Select World Cup Team World Cup Blog Home Angola Argentina Australia Brazil Costa Rica Cote d’Ivoire Croatia Czech Republic Ecuador England France Germany Ghana Italy Iran Japan Korea Republic Mexico Netherlands Paraguay Poland Portugal Referees Saudi Arabia Serbia and Montenegro Spain Sweden Switzerland Togo Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Ukraine USA ———- World Cup Store World Cup Marketplace World Cup Tickets Travel to Germany World Cup Fantasy League Add this blog to: MyYahoo, Google, Bloglines, GERMANY 2006 TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO World Cup History: Appearances: 1 | Wins: 0 | Losses: 0 | Draws: 0 | Best Finish: 2006 Debut Home » Group B, World Cup 2006 « Vibes It Up | Home | [...]

Posted from United States

By Euler | April 28th, 2006 at 10:56 am

Your posts are great!!! That vote will be written on the NT bus, right? The T&T real slogan must be “We are the Soca Warriors. Win or lose, we are fighters.”

Here in Brazil there was a TV campaign showing some people with all odds against them that became successful in their lives, like a blind and poor man that became a teacher. The slogan was “We are Brazilians, we never give up.”

Your slogan reminded me of that campaign

By doc | April 28th, 2006 at 12:45 pm

I actually like “vibes it up”

Posted from United States

By stacy-marie | April 28th, 2006 at 6:24 pm

Euler - we’ve got the same Warrior spirit. In a few years, we’ll have the same number of World Cup trophies

Posted from United Kingdom

By soze | April 28th, 2006 at 6:32 pm

SM> Yeah, great posts. I did not know mutch about T&T, but you have got me actually saying ‘vibes it up’ in my daily jargon…

And this shameless public flirting between you and Euler is entertaining too.

By Show Your Warrior Spirit - FIFA World Cup 2006 - Trinidad and Tobago World Cup Team Blog | May 4th, 2006 at 6:36 am

[...] I’ve been driving my flatmate crazy, randomly exclaiming “we reach!” and ending my every sentence with “vibes it up.” It’s that World Cup Fever I tell you. [...]

Posted from United States

By The Fighting Spirit of the Caribbean - FIFA World Cup 2006 - Trinidad and Tobago World Cup Team Blog | May 9th, 2006 at 4:41 pm

[...] You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Leave aReply [...]

Posted from United States

By More ‘Official’ Songs Than You Can Shake a Stick at - FIFA World Cup 2006 - Trinidad and Tobago World Cup Team Blog | May 24th, 2006 at 8:51 pm

[...] I haven’t even mentioned any of the other tribute songs that have been penned since the beginning of our World Cup campaign - you can listen to more than two dozen of them over at the TntInGermany website. My beloved Fighter aside, I’m quite partial to 3 Canal’s Vibes It Up and jointpop’s Little Giants. In fact, jointpop might be able to claim the rights to the first T&T Warriors tribute, as Little Giants was released way back in 2001. [...]

Posted from United States

By Send For The Doctor - FIFA World Cup 2006 - Trinidad and Tobago World Cup Team Blog | June 18th, 2006 at 11:48 am

[...] I haven’t been so well this weekend, so to keep my spirits up I’ve been listening to 3 Canal’s latest album, Vibes on repeat. It’s a great album by one of my all-time favourite groups, and there’s the added bonus that it’s also a fantastic tribute to the Soca Warriors (featuring tunes like Vibes It Up, a great analysis of which can be found here) [...]

Posted from United States

Comments are closed