Wanted to post this weeks ago, but here we are…better late than never.
Wok. Chip. Wine. Saltfish. What’s she making I hear you ask? Well…nothing but rum punch!! If you know then you know. If you don’t know, then get to know. Either way…
Happy Reading!
So, Notting Hill Carnival (NHC) 2015 is well and truly over! *cries* And as the 2015 carnival scene draws to a close and everyone is now looking forward to the 2016 carnival season I’ve been looking back. My carnival experience was a bit different this year compared to years gone by and well, it got me thinking about how I’ve grown as a carnival goer over the years.
I started going to NHC (without my mum) when I was about 13 or 14 years old. I used to go with older cousins; walking around Ladbroke Grove, visiting the numerous sound systems dotted around the labyrinth of back streets and generally following wherever the music or crowd took us. Back then I’d be jamming to the sounds of RnB, Hip Hop, Garage, Jungle and Bashment or Ragga or Dancehall as it was back then. I had a wicked time every year and by the time I was 15, my cousin bestie at the time had moved into a flat on Ladbroke Grove itself! I felt like I had struck gold. We’d go to Fonthill Road in Finsbury Park to find complimentary outfits and I would stay at the flat for the weekend. We’d hear the first floats go by with the music blaring, step straight out into the crowds and even witness the mass clean up on Sunday and Monday night – the experience was unreal.
After a couple of years however, of almost being crushed to death, bottled or caught up and running from fights at Rampage (a sound system) I tried a different approach to carnival. I joined the Elimu Mas Band of Paddington Arts with another set of cousins and it was then that I began to really and truly experience carnival and what it was about: the history, the community, the spirit, the colours, the costumes and of course, the Soca! For the next few years I bought a t-shirt with Elimu and followed the float along its route down Great Western Road, past Westbourne Park station and the judging point for the participating bands, meandering our way through the crowded streets and then onto Ladbroke Grove.
We were a family. In fact, a lot of my family were with that band, totalling 13 of us throughout the years. Paddington Arts was and still is a creative outlet for kids, young adults and even the older lot. I‘ve had the time of my life dancing, wining up, laughing and drinking and doing it all in a safe environment. Walking along the carnival route, you’ll find a lot less trouble and if you do encounter it, you’re safe in the confines of the band that have stewards to protect the “masqueraders” and band members.
It was a couple of years later still that the team I go carnival with now was established. My team of carnival goers continues to evolve over the years but in the last 8-9 years two close cousins and I have stuck together like birds of a feather. And our yearly routine would go a little something like this:
Anywhere from the end of June to mid July would be Elimu’s launch party where they would showcase their costume designs for that year. Signing up and paying on the day of the launch gave you a 10% discount. Happy days.
We would seek out soca at places like Cork’s Wine Bar, hola if you feel me! On a Thursday it was Release D Riddim with a host of djs. Here you’d see the person from work you never knew was into soca (them days it felt like a secret society) and drink and dance the night away. I’ll never forget the Cork’s Wine Bar jingle that would play on the then Choice FM, now Capital Xtra. Then the sad day came when Cork’s closed its doors – but we shan’t dwell. There was Redeye – which is exactly what it says on the tin. It’s a rave that goes on until six in the morning, so when you come out, ya eyes red!! Not to forget events like Wotless, Soca Frenzy and Oh Gosh but to name a few.
As August bank holiday approached we would be buying paint, overalls and alcohol and finding old clothes and shoes. The Friday or Saturday before carnival we’d collect our t-shirts or costumes from Elimu base and by Saturday evening my cousins were at my house or family houses nearby to make our drinks. We each had our own individual way of making our rum concoction (I don’t think we could officially call it a punch). Over the years, mine has consisted of a bottle of rum plus whatever alcohol I could find in the drinks cabinet, a variety of fruit juices and a few other choice ingredients just to give it a likkle spice! In the early days, this would be poured into a few bottles and put into a strap over bag but we soon evolved. We purchased drinks bags from Black’s camping shop and were able to carry 1.5 – 2 litres of ‘punch’ on our backs each day, keeping our hands free for everything else which would invariably include another bottle filled with excess alcohol. Somehow, we were always unprepared and despite needing to be up at five am on Sunday to go to j’ouvert, we wouldn’t get to bed before twelve.
J’ouvert (jew-ver) is quite different in NHC to what it is in the West Indies, but it is still relatively new here and each year it grows and develops. Essentially, in NHC, j’ouvert is the start of carnival. It’s like the mini quake that starts the avalanche. It starts around six am and floats with sound systems and steel drums travel up Ladbroke Grove with us dancing, drinking and throwing around paint and powder around them. Unfortunately other materials like flour, chocolate powder, ketchup, brown sauce and even eggs and salad cream would also get thrown into the bumping mix. Not one to be a party pooper but eggs and salad cream should have no place in j’ouvert – it plain stinks and is dyam nasty!!
We’d wake up at five am, get on our old clothes and protect ourselves as much as possible from the stuff that would inevitably be flying around. This included wearing overalls and gloves, tying plastic bags (usually Asda, I think one year I upgraded to Waitrose) around my shoes and wrapping my sunglasses (to shield my contact-lensed eyes) in cling film. I would tie my hair with a headscarf and wear a couple of shower caps on top. Literally, I looked exactly how you’d imagine I’d look from that description. The saving grace was that everyone looked like that in some way, shape or form…when we got there. We would grab a small bottle of our punch and meet the rest of the crew at the 18 bus stop where we’d travel down to Ladbroke Grove. It never ceased to amaze me that people would still either leave their cars parked on Ladbroke Grove or drive down it at that time. They could NEVER escape without getting painted handprints on their car. Just silly!!
Covered in paint we’d head back to the house to shower and get ready for the main event. There would be thorough crevice checks for paint from j’ouvert but you’d still find it somewhere on you throughout Sunday. We’d cut our t-shirts into a style, don our drinks bag, horn, whistle and flag (Grenada – whoop whoop) and get back on the bus – this time to Elimu Mas Camp. We’d get off the bus and the soca would be pumping; it’s drums beating, a never-ending flow of innuendos and rhymes and rhymes of drinking, dancing and behavioural instructions.
We’d go to camp, say our hellos and head to Topps Pizza (we always get a special deal – its good to make friends at carnival). With our stomachs lined we’d find our place in the band with the rest of the t-shirts and have the wickedest time! Dance, wuk, wine, drink, make noise, find a police man or two or ten and steal a likkle dance. A couple remain ‘professional’ but you’d be surprised how many get involved. I find it impossible to be in the middle of such loud soca and not have the beat literally move your body – ‘if you love to drink rum, hands up and sing…!!’
Turning the corner onto Ladbroke Grove at the top of the hill and looking down at the immense crowd that fills the street is always the highlight of carnival for me. It’s the part of my imaginary life movie that would occur in slow motion. It could just be the alcohol but it never ceases to move and humble me that so many people are out to have a great time and celebrate carnival and I’d be passing right through the middle of it all.
While my cousin lived in the flat we’d be able to have a toilet break and say hi to family. When we no longer had the flat (a very sad day indeed), well we had to become a lot of words ending in ‘tive’ to gain access to a toilet and the family moved over to Grenada corner (St. Charles Square) along with my Trinidadian aunt who for years held a point at the Ladbroke Grove fire station. It just shows that carnival is forever changing but we adapt and still fully enjoy ourselves. You can always find a place to call home in NHC. Unfortunately, by the time you get down to the Harrow Road we have to turn the music off. The good thing about Sunday (aka ‘kiddies’ day) is that on Monday (adults day) we get to do it all again. There’s no such conciliation for Monday though. So sad.
This year however, was different. We stopped going j’ouvert on Sunday mornings a few years back and started instead to opt for going raving on Saturday night (some people do both – cray!!). This year however, we were like the little pigs: one cousin (me) went to Paradise near Ladbroke Grove (no soca), one cousin went to a rave in Vauxhall (with soca) and one cousin stayed home.
On the request of a good friend, I went with Chocolate Mas Band on Sunday. I left my house without my cousins for the first time in years and I felt lost. I did meet some friends along the way, at the Chocolate meeting point and once we hit the road. So, I was never really alone but it simply wasn’t the same. That being said, I still had an awesome time. Chocolate Nation is actually a nation of people, there were so many people and despite being swept away from my friends at some points you have no choice but to keep moving and dancing. People were getting on so bad; they climbed cars, lampposts, walls and people. They were literally “wining on anyting”!! The music was great too. This year, because I wasn’t with my usual girls I had my phone out as opposed to packing it safely away in my drinks bag and that meant a great collection of photos. I’ve got some great memories. Once we got onto Ladbroke Grove, the chocolate started flying around and my bright pink t-shirt and bright yellow shorts slowly turned brown.
We got to Grenada corner and I was so happy to see some of my family there. Admittedly, I never returned to the nation of chocolate but I know they continued on and had a great time. Instead I called my girls who said they were 10 minutes away. After 20 minutes I called again only to be told that the phone I had called was lost and I was talking to the police. The officer told me her location and after asking an aunt (thank god for the older generation who used to frequent these roads religiously in their youth) I was on my way to collect the phone, wading through the crowds alone. But low and behold, I saw Elimu mas band and I knew the girls had been with them from the last time we spoke, within minutes I had found them and the owner of the phone didn’t even know she had lost it. God is good right?
We collected her phone, (thank you police) and made our way back to Elimu then back to Grenada corner. When the music switched off and the family dispersed we didn’t go home as usual. We went to a friend’s uncle’s house and by the time we arrived I was in a bad way. I needed water as a priority. I got some on arrival and a good piece of jerk chicken – gotta love Jamaicans. It started to rain hard and we decided to leave but not without dramas to get home. Suffice to say we were all in a bad way; I couldn’t even eat the good stew pork and rice my aunt had made earlier. Instead, when I woke up at 6am on Monday I felt the hunger, ate it and went back to bed. And when I woke up a little later, I did it all again – but this time, I went with Cocoyea, I did it with my girls and I did it hard! There was rain, wining, militant police, wining, toilet dramas, wining, crowds, wining, soca, wining, alcohol, wining and best of all good company.
So what is NHC to me?
It’s heritage. I actually don’t have a year in memory when I did not attend carnival, my earliest memory was being a child and finding a pair of ‘batty riders’ (aka short shorts) with my cousin and having a great time on board a float where our parents left us to go and enjoy themselves. We had a great time, even as kids. The NHC started sometime in the 1960’s and whatever the history books say, it’s a reflection of the carnivals that take place at various points throughout the Caribbean islands. NHC is a West Indian affair with a very global contribution. There is something for everyone. Back then there were struggles and there were riots but since its beginning, the spirit of NHC has only grown. Carnival is how West Indians have chosen to step out of years of repression and those steps have made their way here to the heart of London with NHC.
It’s people. People plan for each carnival throughout the year, people invest and donate to the bands and the costumes, people volunteer to dj, steward and co-ordinate. And people do it because NHC is in the hearts and souls of West Indians and Londoners. I’m bursting with pride when I travel that route and see the older generation lining the streets, representing their respective island with t-shirts, flags, whistles and other memorabilia drenched with their national colours. They have been celebrating for years and here I am continuing that tradition and I see the younger generation ready to continue still. That being said, it’s amazing to see every other race and culture there. This year my Ghanaian partner, after hearing that I was out in the pouring rain wearing a small black plastic bag (the ones you get when you buy alcohol from the newsagents) on my head, told me he’ll never understand why I do it. And as God as my witness, he will understand one day!!
It’s soca. Soca is the soundtrack to carnival. It gives you strength. “I am the jumping in ya heart I am the reason carnival start, I am soca”. I used to enjoy listening to the back-in-the-day soca aka calypso at family gatherings but I fell in love with soca in my early 20’s. The words and the beats! I LOVE to just let the music take control. There is a song that has one of my cousins itching to “jump on the ground and roll”. And honestly, I can’t help but want to follow suit.
Lastly, it’s simply the best time!
I could continue to write another few thousand words about this tremendous annual event but I’ll leave it there. Hope you enjoyed reading about my experiences at NHC over the years. For those of you who go, you’ll know there is so much more to say and for those of you who don’t why not come and let your heart and waist move to the beat of the drums and have a few experiences of your own.
Memphis DQ 