Working-class youths invented the steel drum in the 1930s by banging dents in the tops of discarded oil drums to create notes. Today, steelpan is Trinidad's de facto national instrument.

Drummers perform during Carnival in Trinidad. Thundering. Clangoring. The air around me throbs and shatters with the sound of steel pans. I'm in Queen's Park Savannah, a big patch of green in the ...

Samaroo was also hailed as a “giant”, a “legend” and a “musical icon”. A member of one of Trinidad and Tobago's great steel pan families, Barry Manette, recalled meeting Samaroo for the first time: I ...

"We have—if you count just large steel bands—we have about 15." Pan's history began in the late 1930s, when American military bases in Trinidad needed oil and empty oil drums littered the streets.