A kind of Caribbean dance music, born in Trinidad and Tobago in the 1970s. It grew out of calypso — the island's older storytelling song style — but with a faster beat and the feel of American soul music mixed in, so that it works for dancing rather than for listening to the words.

Soca is the sound of Carnival. In Trinidad, and in Caribbean communities in London, Toronto, and New York, it is what plays from the big trucks while people dance in the street. It is loud, fast, happy, and built around calling to the crowd — 'put your hands up', 'jump' — so a soca song often sounds like an instruction.

It is an uncountable noun for the music itself ('she loves soca', 'a soca beat'), and you will also meet it in front of other nouns: soca music, a soca singer, soca artist. Say it SOH-ka.