De Carnival ain’t over Yet!

THE GRAND MASTER of calypso, Lord Kitchener, sung a famous calypso which came like the closing anthem on the carnival season. It was named “The Carnival is over” and played on Ash Wednesday to signal that carnival is at an end and the Lenten season was beginning.

But carnival has grown so exponentially that it stretches well into September these days. There is the two-month mid-year season which begins with VincyMas in July and continues in Saint Lucia, Antigua, then Barbados, with Spicemas in Grenada August 6-13, 2025, rounding up the “Big” ones in the islands. However Caribbean people have spread their wings all over the globe and carried this unique festival with them.

This is especially so in the Caribbean diaspora on both sides of the north Atlantic. Thus, in North America, the Caribbean/ Canadian contingent starts off the Carnival celebrations in Toronto on what we know as the traditional August weekend holiday. Then there are several community celebrations all over the UK as Caribbean people organize in their respective communities.

These provide a build-up to what, in terms of crowd participation, is in fact the biggest, not just carnival, but street festival of any type, the Notting Hill Carnival that took place last weekend on the streets of west London. The Notting Hill Carnival, now in its 57th year, annually draws over two million persons from all over Europe and beyond.The major events are the Panorama on Saturday night attracting even some of the biggest steel band arrangers from Trinidad and Tobago.

Normally there would be Jouvert on Sunday morning, but this has been fused later with what we know as “dutty mas”. However, the highlight on Sunday was the Children’s Parade of the Bands.Yesterday, Monday, a bank holiday in the Uk, was the Big Day, their version of our Parade of the Bands. One week later, this round of Caribbean carnival partying will conclude with NewYork’s Labour Day Carnival in Brooklyn. Just as Caribbean people from the diaspora come down home for Carnival, so too do home-based mas-lovers, including from St Vincent and the Grenadines, travel up to Brooklyn to party with friends and family, bringing this round of carnivals to a close. We wish them all a Happy carnival.