Episode 219 | Canaval 2025 Wrapup

In this week's episode we're fortunate to be joined by Franka Philip for customary canaval wrap-up.
Franka is a journalist and media consultant with 25 years experience in online, radio and print with specialist skills in digital media.
We do a mini review of the fetes we attended during the season and we hear Franka's expert opinion on the elements that make for a great fete experience.
We get into the beauty that is Panorama and discuss the results while Franka sheds some light on the comments around Beverly Ramsey Moore's Katzenjammers hattrick winning season.
The competitions were a hot topic as well and seem to always be shrouded in controversy and this year was no different as The Ultimate Soca Champion kicked off the bacchanal and Calypso Monarch and Road March sparked a firestorm of opinions. We might finally have some answers on which competitions are still relevant and which ones may have outlasted their usefulness.
Franka speaks to her experience with Lost Tribe and reminisces about her time with Minshall and we get into how J'ouvert has changed over the years.
As is tradition, the canaval is over when we (and Kitchener) say it over.
Enjoy!!!!

Transcript

Journalist Introduction and Brigo Memories

Speaker 1 0:17

So listen as we continue this journey right Cause see, we have plenty Calypsonians passing through us. We have soca artists passing through us, plenty different types of personalities to pass through. I want to tell you that I've been following this lady on social media for a long time, long before social media too.

Speaker 2 0:32

How do you mean? Long before social media? Long, long, long before social media. Have you been stalking me A little? Bit a little bit.

Speaker 1 0:37

A little light stalking.

Speaker 2 0:38

Wow.

Speaker 1 0:38

Because a journalist extraordinaire, this extraordinary, I don't know if I should speak properly.

Speaker 2 0:43

That extraordinary word is so loaded. It is yes, very.

Speaker 1 0:48

Extraordinary journalist to me, then, and very, very active on the thing. Welcome Franco.

Speaker 2 0:54

Thank you, corey, and it's been a while.

Speaker 1 0:56

We've been planning this right.

Speaker 2 0:57

We've been talking.

Speaker 1 0:58

We're passing each other on the socials all the time and we bounce up each other in some fets, yes, and we bounce up each other in some fets, yes. And you know what we say during the fets. We say we're going to save it for when Ashwin's dead down and when the smoke clears, right. When did you last hear these kind of musics, boy? I?

Speaker 2 1:14

Sometimes I just chew them. But I'll tell you what I do with Remy doing that karaoke.

Speaker 1 1:21

It's bad, eh, it's been good Remy, bring a breath of fresh air into the thing you can imagine men like Brigo on that. We miss that time.

Speaker 2 1:28

Yeah, I miss Brigo, though I have a story with Brigo. I mean, he's a character, right. I remember one time when I was at the Guardian he came to do an interview, right, he came by. You know, he just came, and he came and he brought a whole bag of tamarind. And he said I picked this on June and I'm having you for a while.

Speaker 1 1:48

He bring it for you. I remember some classic Brigo interviews in those I-95 days when Mbala was on the radio the whole day, the whole night and I remember him saying with George Mbala, it was something else to see he had a lot of very interesting insights.

Speaker 2 2:04

He was an eclectic kind of guy, definitely an eccentric, but when you listen back to his music you recognize there was something very sweet about the way he tapped into certain things in the community and even David Rudder, I think, remade Limbo Break. Oh, he did, I think so I think it was. He may be right. I'm trying to remember which album. It was Somewhere around 99.

Post-COVID Carnival Revival

Speaker 1 2:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, no better place to start than with Brigo, right? Yeah, man, we come together after Carnival, so a special episode for me because we get to do a little bit of a Carnival review you know what I mean. And I love a review more than I do, so let's so now. This is my segue, to make it an annual thing, since we both love reviews. 2026 what have I done? How was your carnival overall? How you enjoy the season?

Speaker 2 2:53

it was real good boy. I mean, I have to say it was well pitched and, in marshall's words, there was a balance yeah, you kind of had some balance.

Speaker 1 3:03

It was balanced. He called it early, right, I think. Generally, like, I feel like this year is the first time since covid we had a full carnival. Like I don't know if it's the people saying is he music? I don't know if you feel that way, like if the music make the difference this year, or maybe it's because we had a longer season, I think make it.

Speaker 2 3:21

I think I think it's a long season but also the music. So, 21, we had a taste of carnival, which was a kind of halfway through. It wasn't important to do. 22, when we came back into carnival people still felt a little odd. It wasn't, you know the a lot of people had lost their bearings. 23, full carnival.

Speaker 2 3:45

But you know that way that you could tell the muscle memory hadn't been yeah, maybe is that right so I think between 24 and now we've regained our muscle memory and we are back in full flow as trend and tobago doing carnivals yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 4:02

And the thing is like um, if I remember right, last year might be a shorter carnival too, as early february last year was quite short yeah, so we get chance to build back down. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And next year we're going back into a short season again yeah, so it's. I think it's the middle of february next year yeah, I believe, ash, wednesday should be the 18th next year, so 16th and 17th actually, you know, I think that's about perfect. Yeah.

Speaker 2 4:22

I think when you have an overlong season it begins to wear on you a little bit On your pockets. On your pockets, especially those last few weeks of come on. We go here now and you're thinking mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 4:34

That wasn't in the plan at all, right.

Speaker 2 4:36

No, of course not.

Speaker 1 4:37

And especially when the music's sweet Because the carnival you get introduced to the carnival almost with two rhythms. One was the full-blown rhythm where it had a sweetness to it, we get back groovy, soaker where it is, and one. I had Eddie Charles here yesterday, coincidentally, and he was talking about the Tilden Hall rhythm.

Speaker 2 4:54

And when I heard that first I said this has to be a great return to Calypso and soaker.

The Changing Landscape of Fetes

Speaker 1 5:01

That was my first thought. It feels like you can imagine Eddie and them had that rhythm in them time, yeah, boy. Yeah, yeah yeah, in the big band days. So we get introduced to that and I think people get sweet. And, like you say, if a ticket goes well, everything sells.

Speaker 1 5:13

When the carnival going sweet, and then like you say coming down in the dregs now like you can't get enough of the FET, it was bad, it was bad, it, it was bad, it was bad, it was bad. So I do the thing. I had the bungee, I remember saying down there and I had to pay for a fit, a thousand dollars right To go a weekend festival, when I just wanted to go the one fit.

Speaker 2 5:33

Oh boy.

Speaker 1 5:33

And I said, nah, this bill for a parody song. So I know bungee had a thousand rags. So I said you know what? I will make it into a thousand thing and it couldn't fit. And then I went I say with carry it. But the more I listen to carry it when Bungee talk about the grong and the grong fet and I realized but wait, we giving away.

Speaker 1 5:49

We kind of we fight to get something and we giving it away completely, and that's what Bungee trying to say in the song. So I went and I sing that and I say carry it, with the fet tickets being hard, because if I take it, something is no better place to start for me. I remember the days I go and fire FET very, very early in the season.

Speaker 2 6:07

That was the first big FET for the season. That's why it used to be right First ground FET, First one, yeah.

Speaker 1 6:11

I see Soka and Moka sort of taking. Is it Moka? Soka and Moka is Trinity.

Speaker 2 6:17

Based on my understanding of the carnival season. Soka and Muka was the first kind of school. It was the first all-inclusive that happened for the year.

Speaker 1 6:25

Only for the year.

Speaker 2 6:25

Yeah so that basically opened the year for a lot of people, right? Because you know, as much as we talk about ground carrying it and all that, there are people who ain't going there, yeah, there ain't happening, People telling you there ain't going there.

Speaker 1 6:39

But Ami seemed to be the only one that survives.

Speaker 2 6:40

Yes, and I think I used to cover those fets a long time. I used to write a column when I was in the Express as a young reporter and I used to call that column the party animal column and I think there was a year when I went to every single fet. It was not easy, Right. Every public fet, Every public fet working you looking up.

Speaker 2 7:01

Yes, and I developed an ability to stand up aside and look right as opposed to getting involved, and so there were trends that I would notice, and so I am not. I wasn't surprised when these feds started to become less and less oh, you saw it come in, yeah first of all, one of the things that people never think about because they're not promoting the party is that whole notion of policing Right, and the cost of policing a public FET Ended going up all of a sudden it started going up.

Speaker 2 7:31

Those FETs started to become rougher and rougher as well. I mean, yes, there was a lot of joy in the front where people with the flags and all that. But I remember one year in Brass Festival somebody got stabbed. I remember that Right, Brass Festival, somebody got stabbed. Yeah, I remember that Right.

Speaker 2 7:45

Yeah, to carry Moldy Fett. Yeah, and those incidents started to become more and more prevalent. Wasafet was a hotbed for fights. Yeah, yeah, yeah Right. I remember going to Wasafet and looking over the crowd and seeing fights starting here, fights starting there, you know, and that's when Marshall used to sing. Throw them out of the party throw them out right.

Speaker 2 8:04

But those parties became very rough and people kind of felt a little unsafe going to those parties. The allure of going to a public fair for the middle class, that kind of lost its shine. And also to the promoters who tell you, they began to become very expensive to hold and so, well, I went away. And when I went away I realized that, okay, those parties are definitely dying out. You know, and people like roy maraj and cliff harris, who are not probably willing to invest their money as as they used to before in promoting those kind of festivals, that's what they would do you know, and so army is remains the last bastion and, as I was talking to somebody earlier, they said maybe hard fat could become that yeah.

Speaker 1 8:47

I hope so.

Speaker 2 8:48

But let's see how it goes.

Speaker 1 8:49

I saw a hard fat crowd on social media. It looked young. So that is encouraging because at one point I was telling myself but like young people, they like the phone thing and the video and I guess maybe they're enjoying themselves the same amount we was enjoying ourselves when we was young.

Speaker 2 9:08

It just the same amount we was enjoying. We started when we was young. It just looks different. It looks different. Yeah, I don't knock it. Yeah, it's their enjoyment, it's their way of enjoying, and we have to also look at the far quarry. That music um determines how we act you know, at that time, when they was fed so popular had plenty power, yeah, plenty, plenty soaker.

Speaker 2 9:22

And so I think during the early aughts, groovy soaker began to become the thing, and when you had the groovy soaker monarch, people who probably felt that they couldn't win a power soaker or even sing a power soaker properly. They invest in that. They invest in groovy. So, groovy became the thing and people like a groove.

Speaker 1 9:42

Yeah, people love it.

Speaker 2 9:43

I love a groovy soaker.

Speaker 1 9:45

You saw it this year too. Yeah, so this year with you, full blown, the same tour, that, that that big links for them, that's right. So you know I'm blacker than who you talk about them songs in a zone there yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I saw the grung fets. If you remember that transition from grung fets it went to island people and them, fets being the big fets insomnia, glow black to blue and those sets.

Speaker 1 10:06

But I started to see a change in, like Yui Fets. I was in Yui at the time. We were going brass and customs and things still, and Yui Fets, the youth still had that energy. But year after year it started to become more dressy. People started to dress up more and more and the days of buying clothes to throw away to go fet it started to come to hand fast. I wonder, beyond the music itself, you said the violence might be a contributor to it as well. But is it that the response from promoters like Island People started to be okay? If we could guarantee safety or have a different energy there, we could charge a little more, because now we reach a point where FET used to be. How much $80?.

Speaker 2 10:43

Yeah.

Speaker 1 10:44

For 10 bands more, because now we reach a point where the fact used to be how much? 80 dollars, yeah, for 10 bands. You know you're paying hundreds of dollars, if not thousands, for djs alone. I never thought we'd see that they may feel like that. That push up the price point too because of that security thing and people like nice things.

Speaker 2 10:56

People do like nice things. So there is that notion of you want to do something that's a little safer yes, you do, but you also want to feel like something and that's the, that is the, the kind of formula that derrick and derek and dean they changed it right they changed it and I mean, I remember the first time they had insomnia.

Speaker 2 11:17

I went to that first one and I was blown away because it went up a level right right and every time you take something up a level, people want to be a part of it, of course, right. So I think it was really good that. On the one hand, it was really good that parties became a lot more enjoyable and they wouldn't have to worry about safety. And you could have dressed up a little bit, you know. And you could have dressed up a little bit, you know. But there has to be that line where you could just go up in a short pants, a t-shirt.

Speaker 1 11:50

At least a few options. It has hundreds of heads for the carnival.

Speaker 2 11:53

And that's the other thing. I think one of the things that we do in Trinidad us middle class people I like to say is that we focus our attention on a few things and we have a presumption that, oh, because people can't get into those things, carnival has suddenly become inaccessible, but if you look at the list of fets that goes out at the beginning of the season, there are hundreds of fets.

Speaker 1 12:17

I remember the explosion at Clubhouse, having to debate this with some people who were in New York. They used to have this Clubhouse room all the time and they felt as if the borders were closed and they couldn't come back. It would be the end of Carnival. I was like I don't understand. I was so confused that people were actually thinking this. They feel if you have no private Ryan and thing, you don't have a Carnival. But I'll challenge people that if you want and I'm going to try it next year- right, I think you could see all the major artists for carnival for free.

Pan Yards and Panorama Experience

Speaker 2 12:52

If you're willing to, you could get around. Of course you can. So if I take it too high and all them types of things, I don't know. The thing with the thing with carnival is that, um, we have to remember that the population has different demographics. Right, and you're going to find a FET that may not be your demographic, but people there are having a good time and somebody will jump in. Of course, some artists will run on the stage and people like that. We have a way that in the media is a little guilty of it too. Every year you're lucky to see the same FETs get covered, right, right, so you would always see the all-inclusive, especially school all-inclusives, which are the most prestigious ones, the ones that people want them tickets to go for.

Speaker 1 13:30

Yeah, we get from being a little bit nice to being St Mary's nice right. There's a different level.

Speaker 2 13:34

And we have to realize too, corey, this is not been a vacuum. If you look at the standard of entertainment around the world. The standard of entertainment around the world, look at, for example I'll call a name that some people might be familiar with there's an outfit called Defected Records, out of London, and every year they have festivals. It's dance music, so every year they have festivals all around the world. So it's Malta, it's Croatia, it's Australia, wherever. And looking at Defected over over the years, you'll see how much the stage has improved, the lighting effects has improved and people have gotten used to that standard right, which is where trinity is coming.

Speaker 2 14:16

Trinity audience travel of course people going, people going to see beyonce in miami, they're going to see Cole play here, and when they see that, and then if you see it on TV, you want a taste of that too, and I have to congratulate I think it's Lollabies who did the stages for like. Mega and I find those stages were exceptional and since, of course, their set was done by Ben Geyer and they always try to recreate a kind of scene which was nice.

Speaker 2 14:46

But yeah, we move into a stage where, even though voice so poetically said, you see that truss in there, you don't know. Far from it, people want it. People really want it.

Speaker 1 14:58

Yeah, they'll realize how much they want it if they go back to the days of scaffolding. Remember when scaffolding was raw, all concrete still on the scaffolding. I think people want that. No, and it's one of the things that make me want to get here to it, because I saw you in an interview earlier in the season. I think moe is the lady's name. I can't remember?

Speaker 2 15:16

yeah, it was um carnival experience.

Speaker 1 15:17

Yeah, I think she does great interviews and I saw you talking about like some different elements and feds that I find myself complaining about a lot. I have fatima manner and I'm upset every year how fatima looks compared to saint mary's. Let me document this for four, but one time all right, because fat saint mary's really take it to a level they're dead and fatima not taking it to that level. But something you said in that interview right about just the grung being flat as a man who had eyesight problems, right, fatima is bottom of the amount to step up little, step up here. Step up the grunging firm and them kind of things. So I wanted to ask you what? Well, first, how much are you able to enjoy a FET? Having worked FET for so years, are you still going there with a critical eye every time you go?

Speaker 2 16:02

I always go with a critical yeah, but I'm still able to enjoy. You're enjoying it right. Because it's just a part of me now. I could go to events and I could choose observer mode.

Speaker 1 16:13

Right.

Speaker 2 16:14

And look around, look at the floor, look at this, look at that and, of course, my crew is similarly inclined oh seriously, yes of course A whole squad. Some of inclined so seriously?

Speaker 1 16:27

yes, of course, some of my, some of my closest friends are former journalists as well.

Speaker 2 16:29

I see. Well, so, um, I wouldn't say as well, I am still a journalist, but some of my friends are, have been, journalists, and so we have that, that observant kind of thing, but also, too, because we like to party and we like to know that when we're partying with a good spirit and a good vibe. And so you go to. I get your point completely about Fatima and I understand people saying, oh, shall they move it to the ground? I'll move it to the grounds, but I also get the phobos perspective.

Speaker 2 17:01

Father Gregory perspective that why am I spending a million dollars to? Build infrastructure that comes down doesn't go into the coffers and you really want to focus it. So for me, Fatima FET I think that was the first time I went in many years. It's a nice party. My challenge with Fatima was that they would they were trying to do too many things at the same time, mm-hmm. So you come out the car park, which was the grounds you had a steel band beaten right you walk across the road.

Speaker 2 17:34

As you enter you get a tassel tassel section and Lavant Hill rhythm section right thing anything can hello what's going on here? You work it too much, but it's because they're trying to make it good. Yeah, value for money you know you get value for money. The food court was good I found you don't need 300 options I found to me the options were good to me. I was especially enamored of the pork section in the back there.

Speaker 1 18:01

Yeah, that's another grounds they open up in the back.

Speaker 2 18:03

That's the back. I think that's the Presbyterian.

Speaker 1 18:05

The school yeah, it looked like the school yard there, or church maybe.

Speaker 2 18:07

Yeah, the church car park or something so that pork thing was all right. It was good. So, you was in Fatima this year. Feel a little congested right. Obviously. Small area, yeah, lots of people, humidity. Of course I got it right. Um, thanks to marvin andrews for taking care of me to get me some club soda and all the rest of it but um, it's a nice party and I could see the arguments for and against yeah, yeah it's pretty similar to when st mary's were having their party in the school of course yeah, and it's just a good you know and they had a strategic plan about when to move it to the grongs.

Speaker 2 18:46

I would imagine, and I think it was that last year, when Marshall came and performed, that they decided okay grongs, we could do grongs.

Speaker 1 18:52

Yeah, it's such a spectacle, even when they're setting up because, as you say, ben Gaya just driving past and seeing what it's about to look like is something.

Speaker 2 19:09

So where else other than fatima? I don't got plenty facts. You know, I went, fatima, I went to rise and rose, right, that's why you're in raising right we saw each other there. I went bayview right there was a fourth fat.

Speaker 1 19:14

I mean something else. It wasn't that great, or is?

Speaker 2 19:16

no one here staples. I went farmhouse, yes, so what's your staples?

Speaker 1 19:21

which ones? You have? Some legos, my staple is b view or staples, baby, my ones, you have some there. My staple is Bayview. Oh, your staple is Bayview, my staple is Bayview. I hear you saying in that interview that Bayview is a private fed. I like the way you put it.

Speaker 2 19:29

Yeah, it's a fed, because I don't feel the tickets exist.

Speaker 1 19:31

I don't feel it real.

Speaker 1 19:31

They do, eh, when you get them you realize what they do, you know them every year and that's why this year I could give them 15 out of 10 for the party. Yeah, so you're there too. That is the first time I went to and what you thought? I thought it was great. Yeah, from the entrance. I almost know I try not to have your critical, I just want to be drunk and have a good time. But I remember walking into that fet and the first thing was greeted by is a big, open food court. It's not like you know. Sometimes you walk into a venue and you're in the crowd. Vail was like that back in the day when Vail was in the Vail and it was Fetland. So that was good. But it felt good walking into an area where you could grab a bite, catch yourself first, then go to the Fet. It also felt good to be able to leave the Fet, go to that area, catch yourself again and come back.

Speaker 2 20:17

Yes, and the vibe and the energy. Everybody F. I didn't expect that and I think because nobody went. Look if you, as a federal, we went in short pants, yeah, and t-shirts, yeah, and so that vibe continues. Yes, we dress up a little more now, but people who dress up, yeah, I'm the minority, but we have a good time. Everybody knows, everybody seems oh, it's familiar people, you feel safe and it's the only party that that is the party that I do drink a lot in yeah, I try not to over drink but that one is going hard.

Speaker 1 20:52

I find rise and rose sort of maybe a baby to that it is, and it's interesting, everybody know everybody because if you started at that venue I would I guess the bay view yeah, makes sense.

Speaker 2 21:03

That venue needs. They either need to reconfigure or do something for that Rise and Rose, because I found it felt Kind of tight.

Speaker 1 21:10

I heard rumors that they said they were going to move. Rise and Rose Is one of them. Staples For me every year. The first year we went to Rise and Rose I couldn't believe that they had FETs With that kind of vibe still, because, because rain fell, maybe we reached here must be three o'clock. I went to open the fetter and rain started to fall. Everybody ran for shelter and then, as people come back and find a spot with a cooler rain, come down again and then everybody was like once it rains, the party's better.

Speaker 1 21:33

Listen, no phones ain't coming out, no. So everybody fettering and having a good time. You can't get your. They were rumored to be moving the venue this year Because last year was a little worse than this year in terms of the crowd. If you had to use the washroom as a man. You go out in the road. I think that caused more people to come in because security, you know who just leave and who come back?

Speaker 2 21:53

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 21:55

But maybe it's time for them to change the venue.

Road March and Competition Analysis

Speaker 2 21:57

A Fed promoter who was in the party, who has used that venue before.

Speaker 1 22:05

He said why don't they use next door where they?

Speaker 2 22:06

used to have sailor v. What is another venue there right next? So there's a piece of land I've. I went to sailor v I think the first year, like I didn't go for very long so I didn't remember too much about it right but maybe that's an option. Uh, I like the idea that I can go to a fet there and go down the road for some bacon chuck after spend a couple yeah, it's nice, it's nice that's really nice but, they need to do something about that.

Speaker 2 22:27

Maybe they build a deck somewhere or I don't know. But yeah, it's, it's tight and I don't really like yeah, yeah, yeah kind of tight vibe yeah, I know, I mean it could get under.

Speaker 1 22:37

I suppose that's what like. Uh, some of the other fetter went to a soaker, so again when you gave your description of what makes feds great. It fits. That's why we go soaker every year soaker is an amazing party yeah, but it's not like a bigger version of that. People know each other. People come to fet on them and they come to fet and you're not coming.

Speaker 1 22:54

You're not studying, you're here no, both street festival as well as the soaker in the west yeah, I have to find adrian schoonan, probably run a charm offensive on him, because I was. I need a soccer street fed, no, no no, you had to get out Because if you have to pick, one street is the one.

Speaker 2 23:10

Yeah.

Speaker 1 23:10

Yeah, it's really. I don't know what it is that makes it so different. Maybe it's because Carnaval Sunday morning is way bigger than it was before, but they seem to be able to manage it, they manage it very well.

Speaker 1 23:18

Yeah, soccer in the West was not not the same, because I guess with marshall coming back this year and that that time is carrying party neck and neck and maybe they sell plenty more tickets than before because it was ram packed. But by the time they reached streets which marshall and bungee performed, there too it was better. It wasn't, as it didn't feel as packed. Maybe they just take more space in the road there, but it was. It was something else of a vibe there.

Speaker 2 23:42

That's right, you also look, made it look amazing.

Speaker 1 23:45

Yeah, it's something you had to go. Yeah, after Bayview, that's the place to head to.

Speaker 2 23:50

I've been to Private Ryan's party, but Saturday always presents a challenge for me because I want to go to Pan Right. And I want to hear every single note in the Pan.

Speaker 1 23:59

Yeah, that's something I do for the first time this year too. I went to Pan. I've been going to semis maybe I ain't going more 15 years and I was going this year and I ain't go. So I said, you know, let me go finals, let me listen for a change. And that's what I kept. I went to bvd friday. I kept that saturday free no private run, nothing else. Let me stay awake for the pan. And it was um much, much more than I bargained for panda pause raising. I could not the. I guess I never pay attention to the fact that when you're in the notes and the pan not facing you, no, it's not.

Speaker 1 24:31

Yeah, so you don't hear the tenor as well at all you're not hearing the actual pan side and I know what it feels like to hear the side on the drag, but they will slow it down, of course, as a last step to the stage. I never realized that they're playing at a different volume level on the stage than on the drag, so when that first note hit me I'd almost fall. I'd walked in late and I think at the first was it supernovas or somebody played they were about number number two, three or four right, so I reached somewhere.

Speaker 1 24:59

And boy, when that first note hit, you can't do anything else. You cannot check your phone, your it's almost like it comes at you, and you were telling me that you feel good when you hear people have this review of Pan 2. It's something you do every year.

Speaker 2 25:11

Yes, I love Pan. I think I started going Pan what used to be prelims back in the days, which is now semis, when I was probably about 18. So it used to be prelims. It used to be prelims, gotcha was probably about 18. So it used to be prelims. It used to be prelims, gotcha. They had a lot more competitions back in the day. Yeah, so back in the day you had the Pan prelims on that same Sunday, savannah Party Day. Then in between that you had North Zonal Finals, east Zonal Finals, but of course the South Zonal used to take place in San Fernando, but you had more pan happening and the final no Sun used to be completely full for the final so that's why I was saying to somebody that this year was the fullest.

Speaker 2 25:51

I've seen the North stand on a final night, okay. And pan is one of the best things that has ever come out of Trinidad and Tobago. I think it represents the best of us and and I've seen it evolve. And when I was living in England, I used to go to the panorama there too and of course, you had a range, just like a guy called Anis Hadid, aka Halfers, used to play in phase two.

Speaker 2 26:19

You have bands like Ebony and you have those bands bands that are really good and the nice thing about pan in another country is the same level of pan playing expertise because, at the end of the day, it is an instrument and you have to learn to play it right, and so those kids out there, they know how to read the music, much like many of our children now, yeah, and so they have a wide repertoire, so it doesn't feel as if you're listening to something that's alien. It's quite good. The standard of competition is very high, and I really hope that they would bring back the World Steel Band Festival where a couple of those bands would come over here.

Speaker 1 27:00

That's where they used to play classical music or different types of pieces. So the Steel.

Speaker 2 27:03

Band Festival used to play classical music or different types of pieces. So the steel band festival used to have the classical pieces and that was something that used to happen in the Jean Peck complex. It was a beautiful time and there was one last year, yeah, but the World Steel Band Festival, I think, is where there's also a conference to go along with it and then the bands come. I think that happened. That happened within the last 10 years or last 15 years in trent.

Speaker 2 27:28

Since I've come back to trent, that happened and it was something that a lot of people come here for yeah love pan and I was saying to a friend of mine the tourism for pan boy, if we really market that especially, you think we get isolated outside, a kind of only mainly pan tourism on its life you upon tourism is something that we could do, and I'm sure that mrs Ramsey, more on her team, are thinking about ways to do that yeah, because you do realize that we know the dates of everything already.

Speaker 2 28:00

They put out the notice so when what's happening later in the year. So this will still steel band month, right, there's will still band the pan on the avenue, etc. Etc. So those things are out there. You know when it's happening right I know a lot of older people who come back for like pan on the avenue and those kind of things. They take a few days and they come back.

Speaker 1 28:19

Pan on the avenue is ram cram. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So the winners this year. Once I was with Exodus. I got there after Exodus played, so I heard Renegades and when I see, I mean when I hear the first few bands, I hear every one of them sound like they could not loss. I was like damn care loss. But when Renegades came on and you know, Devon Stort and a lottery thing.

Speaker 2 28:46

It's a whole spectacle. It's a spectacle, oh man, and I think people will complain about it. Oh God, why are they doing all that? Now, if you go to the juniors, they do the same thing.

Speaker 1 28:54

It's a show.

Speaker 2 28:54

The kids love having a show and that is what we've grown up doing. We had Best Village. We had where we know that every presentation and doing a thing, we know about show we know about show, so for us to probably attract more people to look at it and to enjoy it and to feel that it's more relatable some of those gimmicks are nice yeah, you know um duvon. Yeah, well, you know duvon, and them take it another, another level.

Speaker 1 29:22

Yeah sure man, you come to have a good time he had a good time, and he is that arranger. Right.

Speaker 2 29:28

And I think that for me, corey, the results were perfect. Yeah, yeah, I have no complaints with any result.

Speaker 1 29:34

So were you there from beginning to end.

Speaker 2 29:36

You're hearing all them bands, yeah. So who's your side? The bitter reegades.

Speaker 1 29:41

Oh, so you accept your loss as Renegades, you accept your second place.

Speaker 2 29:43

Listen, I do a pan crawl every year and this year I said, okay, guys, we're doing it in the East. So we went up to Supernovas and we went to Exodus. The first time I heard Exodus play that song, I said that looking like it. That is hard to beat.

Speaker 1 30:01

But from your experience over the years, is it a resurgence in young people in Pan or was that always the case, because there seem to be a lot of youths with every Pan side?

Speaker 2 30:09

I don't think it's a resurgence as much as it is an evolution, and it's more of If you look at the ecosystem of Pan, look at the arrangers. Most of them went to UTT and they've done that Pan course. There's the National Steel, and they've done that pan course, gotcha. Um, there's a national steel symphony. A lot of people, a lot of players are there. Amrit samaru, for example, is a member of the national steel symphony.

Speaker 2 30:33

Um, a lot of those arrangers have been playing pan for a long time because there used to be a junior pan festival. Chantal esdell talks about this because because where Liam T came through, she came through and so you had those things. So now we're at a point where you had those people who were coming up to the ranks. You have the UB trained and the UTT trained Pan players and arrangers, and then you have music in school, so a lot of children can read the music and they can play and, yes, a lot of the big bands, a lot of bands and communities are taking children as normal, as regular. And if you remember, when President Kangaloo came in, she referred to the community model in the pannier.

Speaker 1 31:18

Yeah, yeah, omari came here and spoke about Lloyd. Best talking about that.

Speaker 2 31:22

Yes, he talked about that very, very early as well.

Speaker 2 31:31

The panier being a sort of a unit that could solve some of the disciplinary issues we have in society. If you wanted to get a proper insight about that, check out Maria Noone's documentary about Cypria Del Tones. Okay, okay, and I can Ola's and on and his brother alpha, speak at length about how that won't used to be the place where, if you want a daughter to get pregnant, go on. But now they have a homework Center there, into their agriculture. They find ways to make money, so they you roast fish on the pizza or some yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 32:02

I've done that and I'm after. Yesterday I messaged alpha we're only doing something I want to bring some people down to see the expansion of dial tones and the beauty of it. Nice, so it's a whole, if you really think about it. Huh, a pann yard is a place where children, young people could figure out their careers Music, tuning, commerce.

Speaker 1 32:30

Yeah, marketing Managing events Right and even psychology.

Speaker 2 32:36

Yeah, of course, learning to understand how we work in teams. All of that. That is a whole growing, a kind of really good place for kids to grow up yeah.

Speaker 1 32:48

So a friend of mine who in corporate leadership was saying just the, the um, we went to I believe it was silver stars pan, yeah, and they were practicing for soaker has a school.

Speaker 1 32:59

Yeah um iron park, yes, and he said just the way the youths who hang around the yard. They're doing what youths do liming, somebody tracking so who on their phone, who's taking picture. But when you're, yeah, everybody come to order. He was talking about that being applied to corporate leadership. You know how we could organize with teamwork. Some of the same things you're saying is this is something that we must pay more attention to. So I personally will never miss our next pan finals. I had to get back to semis too. You have one, you have a convert, and the pan crawl is something that I don't think I've ever done in earnest. I might go one or two. You know I used to do if somebody in the country like a client, I would carry them in a pan yard, but it's something that I must do okay, so you'll do our pan crawl I'll wait here.

Speaker 1 33:41

I'll wait here so, as somebody who's seeing all the results. You went to a media abundance of cats and jammers three straight.

Speaker 2 33:46

I didn't I I listened to them I listened back to them because it was, I think I went out that day right now to the medium bands. For me, I find it, I find this a fascinating um field of pan, because you hear bands that sound better than some of the big bands and you could hear the kind of like yearning to be bigger cats and jammers. Yes, yes, pan berry yeah, amazing, I guess I guess, right, you hear the bands and you think wow, kuva joylanders yes and I know that, um, somebody's going to be coming up to the large bands next year.

Speaker 2 34:24

I don't know who it is, yeah, but somebody's coming up and that would be interesting, and I think we just have to recognize that that is the place to look to see what's coming next.

Speaker 1 34:36

Yeah, interesting what I'm looking with you. But people say now with the three straight, they say it's because Beverly Ramsey more there and that is why she thing. And they say she set up the thing. What do you think? Is it valid? Nepoti voices.

Speaker 2 34:54

No, the band Good Kersh has been up. I remember seeing a video Somebody sent me a video of Kersh as a little boy. In the band Kersh is her nephew and the arranger. Now, one of the things people have to realize is this right, Everybody on Pantron Bigo's executive belongs to a band. You cannot be on the executive because pantran biggo is an association of steel bands, it's not an association of pan players it's an association of steel bands. So therefore the representation has to come from within the steel band movement the education officer for pantran biggo is the captain of Renegades.

Mass Experience and Pretty Mas Evolution

Speaker 2 35:32

Yeah, people from Silver Stars on the thing, you have different pant size represented Right and it's very easy, it is so easy to just fall into that, that mood of oh God, if we want to see the score sheet, kind of vibe. You know, tameka and Jamil, they were really good Right. I heard them back and I thought, yeah, they're on top.

Speaker 1 35:55

They're on top, so it would not matter who win. Really, the, the executive would have come from the everybody on the on, everybody.

Speaker 2 36:02

You can't, you cannot. I can't just jump in because I like pan and say hey vote for me.

Speaker 1 36:07

No, it don't work so yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, well, pan being, when you say somebody moving up to the big band category next year, it reminds me of, like Premier League football and relegation. You know, three teams going down, three teams coming up and that whole competition. The spirit of competition in Cannavale and Pan in particular seemed to be one where you're going with your side to back and almost built out of the communities and I wonder sometimes if it's still relevant. When you look at things like the Calypso, monarch, the competitions we have throughout the whole season, you feel irrelevant still there for competition.

Speaker 2 36:40

You know this is a thing we love competition and carnival. I see it working in Pan because I think, because it gets better and because the standard is so high and the excellence is not hard to see.

Speaker 1 36:58

Gotcha.

Speaker 2 36:59

Where I have a challenge with competition, I have a real. I think I've outgrown the road march. I don't want that. It could go. Sorry, it could go. People have tried to tell me about reasons why we should keep it.

Speaker 1 37:14

Well, one of the reasons might be just this the banter and the bacchanal and the things that happen with a road match. You could quarrel after. We like that.

Speaker 2 37:23

Listen, my view is if you're not going to get rid of it, find a different way to judge it. But then I wonder, as a masquerade on the road, would I hear as wide a range of music on the road, Because people might be studying where they have to play these songs?

Speaker 1 37:41

Well, one of my theories is this right, like we do market research as a company, and one of the things with humans is that the more you expect or can anticipate something, you're literally at a level of sameness. So when I set up a survey or more, so observation type market research, the more you expect or can anticipate something.

Speaker 1 37:55

You're literally at a level of sameness. So when I set up a survey or, more so, observation type market research, I cannot let you know when I'm watching you. There's something we do called accompanied shopping. It's one of the most uncomfortable things. I don't go in the grocery with you. And when you pick up certain things.

Speaker 1 38:08

I ask you why you pick it up. People don't always feel comfortable. You can imagine some products and man asks you well, why you ain't answering that truthfully? So what they started to do in groceries like a lot of groceries you go in now you'll notice there's tinted glass all up at the top. So what we do sometimes is record people from up there when they don't know they're being recorded, and then you will see them pick up the product, read the thing and you could zoom in and see if it might be the price of the other thing or the flavor, that's right.

Speaker 1 38:34

So one of the things I feel with Roadmatch, with the technology we have now, we should be able to tell what song play on the road by every DJ whole day, in every part of Carnival, right, so you don't know South this, and that you could see what play. And I think if you do that, there will never be another Power soccer monarch or power soccer winning road match again. Because on your road people said, if one that's played the most on the road was, um, your bam bam so big, I can see it from the front you know, in your match or even blessing.

Speaker 2 39:07

Blessing, yeah, I would imagine, so you know that was, I am.

Speaker 2 39:08

I remember the year that marshall came up with haunted yeah boy. And that year I remember the dj saying this is tribe road march and I was. I turned to my friend nicole jake westfield. I remember the DJ saying this is Tribe Roadmarch and I turned to my friend Nicole J Questfield and said I think this is everybody Roadmarch. The song just captured something and for me I don't necessarily think if we want people to go back to spectating mass yeah, that's a punishment right.

Speaker 2 39:32

Two songs for the whole day. No man and I was looking back at some of the record story and remember the year that full extreme one yeah, full extreme got played 556 times that's like, if you like, in a prison camp.

Speaker 1 39:52

That's punishment if you sit down in that stand it's like waterboarding, right?

Speaker 2 39:56

you know you're just getting this thing all day and it.

Speaker 1 39:58

You know you can imagine a foreigner in that stand. They may not understand that that might be one of the few times the dj played for the day. They just they think that we on the road doing that whole day. They must think we're crazy. Yeah, yeah, something else. So I don't know if that will help it if they check it everywhere, because that stage march, if you want to call it that, like this year, is not the only year with controversy.

Speaker 2 40:18

A lot of artists I remember I were in particular doing the truck climbing thing- but before him was crazy, crazy, used to do it, yeah, and I don't find to be honest, yeah, is that a truck climbing?

Speaker 1 40:28

I don't know.

Speaker 2 40:28

I can't remember if it was, but I I remember him doing it oraniwine, I can't remember, but I don't have a problem with people doing that Because I'm going to listen to him you had to work for your time.

Speaker 1 40:37

Yeah, win it. You had to work.

Speaker 2 40:39

Right People talking about? Oh, you know no.

Speaker 1 40:42

Well, it's supposed to be the one competition you're not paying no sort of effort for.

Speaker 2 40:48

No more. I mean, look at marshall, marshall, strategically work party this year.

Speaker 1 40:53

Yeah, party, party, yeah don't let me say party. You know he could reckon people have been yeah, party right he worked it and this is not.

Speaker 2 41:02

This is not like long time. We have to evolve and you really have to push your song yeah, so party versus carry it.

Speaker 1 41:09

If you had to just judge song, none of the other circumstances, which is your preferred song?

Speaker 2 41:13

I think harry does is bungee at his finest in storytelling that one and is fetal like yeah, boy, it's fetal like for me that one creep on that's my favorite from from him for this year, but his storytelling is immaculate, as always, right, um, but I don't necessarily want to hear all them words yeah it's difficult to keep. That was one of my complaints about it.

Speaker 1 41:37

I was like it's great, but it's too witty it's one of the things that maybe I will always have a complaint. People tell me I don't like bungee because of that, but it's usually a lot of words. Now I will sit down and figure it out, because I know that it's not just random words. He's saying something. So if me and kind of I'll have a contract as an example of that, which will be one of his less worthy ones, but I love it.

Speaker 2 41:57

Plenty words, yeah yeah, but he's a lyricist, you had to give him that I think I think he, he's, he's excelled at it from the very beginning and um, but I think, carrie, he put a lot, there's a lot of emotion in that song, yeah, and, and that is where you could feel that he put a lot into it. Party, party, sorry, boy, party was. I was kind of like we've been here before, haven't we?

Speaker 1 42:22

but then when I saw the whole thing at saint mary's and heard it live and saw him work it yeah, I was like okay, this yeah to me, uh, when you say working it right more than just climbing the trucks. There was almost not a full week in this kind of world where Marshall wasn't viral for something. It was Bridget on the stage. It was when the stage shut down on him in Soka and he didn't curse off nobody, which I think everybody was just watching him, waiting patiently or something else. And then he went to the little competition where he had I think it was St Dominic's home. He did that and that was viral again.

Speaker 2 42:57

The national. Home for the Disabled it was, yeah, it was the national organization for people with disabilities.

Speaker 1 43:02

Right and they eventually won but, Bridget and St Dominic's were in that competition as well. St Monica's as monica's. That's what that's in, uh, dominic's, it's in monica's, so the he's been.

Speaker 3 43:15

and then there was a lady, mrs puckering salute miss puckering 100 years ago and he'd go and sing for her.

Speaker 1 43:18

Yeah, to the point where she had to say, mashad, sing something. I'm bringing her to talk, you know. But he stayed viral throughout the whole season. His song never died down and that's something to show you when you talk about we've been here before because we've been. That song was structured for that less words, so all school children singing it. I think the word deserve, whoever's the writers I see about four writers on it yeah, andrej is one of them.

Speaker 1 43:41

Great one, great strategic mind uh I think is uh, is it mevon, I believe? Yes, explicit, explicit right kyle peters, who is a genius, this is, I don't know what he's doing with that guitar. It's making me feel not to play no music ever. Yeah, and of course, marshall, but when they put it right, kyle peters, who is a genius? This youth, I don't know what he's doing.

Speaker 1 43:53

I get eyes make me feel not to play no music ever yeah and of course, marshall, but when they put it would deserve all people who are working no place. They may have a job, but they work so hard.

Speaker 2 44:01

They deserve a party they deserve it. They deserve it and there's something about marshall's understanding of the psychology of the people he plays music for. Yeah, and this happened. I remember when he started to play mass and he said now I get it. Oh, really, yeah, I remember back in the day when he first started playing he was like oh, okay now, because you know, it's one thing to be on the track and you're watching, but when you see you're in that crowd and you get it, it's like right and his music kind of changed a little bit after that, I see so it's always and you know we have to give him credit.

Speaker 2 44:39

He's a thinker, he he knows his people, he understands the industry yeah I think some art, I think other artists need to sit back and think about where they go in terms of understanding the other elements that go into making them a success. Yeah, and he has a great team.

Speaker 1 45:01

Well, of course. Well to stay viral like that for so long in this social media era. You can't do it by yourself as an artist.

Speaker 1 45:07

It'll be very, very difficult. Your team had to really push you and go with it, so I feel like he put in the work he deserves it. Very difficult, your team had to really push you and go with it, so I feel like he put any work. He, I think he, he, he at 11 now, which is where kitchener is, and you only have one person still ahead of him if you want to count his pelham, and I wonder if there's a record that meaningful to him, because it's clear that he wanted to pass super blue right, yes, and then now it's clear that he's still hungry for kitchener. I wonder if he's gonna go after most road matches of all time.

Speaker 2 45:34

I think Marshall is still hungry period. Yeah, and that is not just to say that he wants to win a road match. Marshall wants to win, and that's a good thing, right, and it means that, as long as he's able to, he is going to put himself into the music and into what he does yeah he took a year off to study. You think he didn't learn anything about? Yeah?

Speaker 1 46:00

if you say you change when you play math, you change again when you go on and you study the thing.

Speaker 2 46:04

You study all the elements of carnival exactly and and learning from people like choki and you know, uh, some of the other lecturers there who have long experience in Carnival and Calypso. You're bound to be able to apply some of that. I have things that Marshall has said himself, that there were things in there he learned that he never thought about and he never understood. So, yeah, the guy's a thinker, the guy you know, he got it, he's one of the best of us. People might say, but he's yeah, yeah, he's one of the best of us. And people might say, but he's had his ways, he's done stupid things.

Speaker 1 46:37

Right, of course, all of us.

Speaker 2 46:38

He's also a human being and I've seen him evolve. I'm really proud of him. Yeah, I know you said you did many interviews with him over the years worked with him a few times, listen when Marshall came up for Notting Hill Carnival.

Speaker 1 46:50

we do an interview for the BBC when you were over there. Oh nice, nice, nice.

Speaker 2 46:56

There are several of them hidden somewhere in a folder at home. Yeah, bring them out, we want to see them.

Speaker 1 47:01

So earlier in the season I was talking about the similarity with Freetown Collective. Their. Take Me Home song and David Rudd's High Mass, which everybody lived to see. I want to show you something here. Yes, I'm going to fix my voice. This is our free voice. Yes. All you have to know, Frank, I'm a drinking water.

Speaker 2 47:21

Wow.

Speaker 1 47:21

So this was something I was looking at with that song, right?

Speaker 2 47:23

He didn't offer any drinks. I came in here and there was water.

Jouvert Reflections and Carnival Traditions

Speaker 1 47:27

Oh yeah, you know you're right, we're going to fix that next year, since it's annual wait, I want it at minimum and I will get a whole year to get a ginger ale too annual at minimum. So when you listen to these chords, right, there's G, there's E minor, there's C and there's D right. So they have some songs that people might know with you.

Speaker 3 47:48

Remember this song One bright morning when this life is over. I know I'll see your face, you remember that.

Speaker 1 48:00

And then, what was the original to that song? You remember that?

Speaker 2 48:04

No, sing it.

Speaker 3 48:05

Every step. I take I make every single day. I'll be watching you. I'll be watching you. I'll be watching you.

Speaker 2 48:16

So I saw something online the other day that said those four chords are the basis of pop.

Speaker 1 48:21

Well, listen.

Speaker 3 48:27

You know it's a local version of that song In a double deck party. Double deck party. Upstairs you'll find me.

Speaker 1 48:38

In high heels, mama. And then Marshall come and say this here, he say Same chords. How the next line go.

Speaker 2 48:54

Tell everybody.

Speaker 1 49:04

We deserve a party, so I don't know if it's. I don't think it's by guess. If you say you saw study and thing when I heard it, I say because I too, when I heard it the first time. I say I don't think it's Marshall's greatest song.

Speaker 3 49:20

It's clear he wants to push it for a road match.

Speaker 1 49:22

Yeah. And I say but when he make up his mind that he road match tune, that we gonna push it, he not gonna change that. And little by little I start seeing it building and I say but wait, something about this song.

Speaker 2 49:33

Is that familiarity? It's just so familiar yeah you know, and there was a. There's some lines in it that I said I can't remember where it came from, but there were lines that I heard it and I think, yeah, I know this one. I can't remember where it's from and I never really went back to check, but he, he does what he.

Speaker 1 49:50

Yeah, yeah he does, because when he go back to tell the boss you want a break and you need it now yeah, yeah you just feel like it.

Speaker 1 49:58

So it's almost like the first time you hear the song you could relate to it and I feel it's one of the way I mean to me, carries is a better song if you want to go song for song and it didn't lose by much, which shows you something about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So a great road match. At least it will give us plenty to argue and quarrel about in any time. I see earlier in the season two they had, I suppose, what would be a new soca monarch and the ultimate soca champion. Uh, salute to blackadan and congrats to him. You know I was posting on facebook the other day that sometimes I feel like time's done with competition and then when you see how emotional blackadan is winning this thing.

Speaker 2 50:33

I like him a lot. Why I like his humility. I love this song. Right, I think he, um, he performed well. Looking back at some of this stuff, the thing is, uh, um, some people felt that the ultimate soccer champion was a little too contrived right I kind of disagree and I I want to say that what the ultimate soaker champion did is what I think a lot of people feel soaker monarch should have become right now soaker monarch lost its way. I don't think it's coming back ever.

Speaker 1 51:11

I think that's it I think that's it.

Speaker 2 51:13

And also too, once people and sponsors start to back something else, they're not going to back Soka Monarch anymore. Soka Monarch did not evolve with the times and it used to be painful. I remember one time I came back home for Carnival, me and my friend Laura Dorridge Phillips. Laura and I went to Soka Monarch. We got there at 9, we left there at 10 to 5. I said, laura, I didn't come here to do a day's work, I'm on holiday. But and that is going to, that can't be good but, I, like what Rome and they were trying to do.

Speaker 2 51:53

I feel maybe a little more spontaneity or maybe during the year if they're very serious, all the things that they try to implement, like the vocal classes and all of that do what Caribbean Prestige Foundation said they were going to do and do that.

Speaker 1 52:08

Oh, they were planning to do that at a point I didn't remember that At the beginning, that was what Socoma I did not know it's what.

Speaker 2 52:13

It was just a fetish competition you know, it's a place where artists would come and they would get training and really yeah well, when people saying that now I've been telling them that's it for that, but I didn't realize that was the origin we have to and one of the things we have to recognize and we have and we have to give a lot of these young people and young artists grace.

Speaker 2 52:29

That's not something it has learned. Performing's not something you just learn. Performing is not something you just do, and I remember Jillian Lucky doing a TED Talk. Justice Lucky did a TED Talk, probably about 10 years ago, where she talked about black Stalin showing her how to sing on a stage Because she came up and she went and he said hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Get to the people, former Establishment Bond people, former establishment thing, thing, thing.

Speaker 1 52:59

A lot of people say god, he's so good at this car perform, but where do they live? I?

Speaker 2 53:00

suppose, and you know we were talking about wendell manuara earlier. I always tell people go to wendell yeah wendell has a wealth of knowledge on performing. He's been an actor he every year he does lilly putt. He's a director of the lilly putt theater, so he knows what to do he and he seemed to be willing to share a lot oh yeah, he's always willing to share, you know, and he's helped a lot of people. One of the people he helped, his second star.

Speaker 2 53:24

Yeah, second star was one of his, one of his um, he had the genes, yeah, exactly yeah so I think, I think what we need to do and the people who are interested in soca, interested in the development of the art form, we definitely have to find a way to train and to develop some of the artists.

Speaker 2 53:44

So people talk about young brother and I'm glad that young brother in the end came true with his performance because, in the beginning I was like okay, I actually spoke to another artist and said, look, tell his management team send him to Wendell Because he needs to understand he was having a rough time in the beginning, you know the song is big and he has to make himself big on that stage. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and eventually it got there.

Speaker 1 54:10

If you ever see growth, this kind of from the beginning from the first part. I went the first Soka would have been in January and I was like nah boy, I don't know if he's going to make it the song bigger than him and he had a rough time connecting with the crowd. Soka is a older crowd. He tried to do some of the steaming. Nothing was working.

Speaker 2 54:27

Yeah.

Speaker 1 54:35

During Black man Feeling the Party and Scorpion black man feeling to party and scorpions thing made was just weird. Yeah and um, I reached a central bank cooler fit which was closer to here and here now completely on same older crowd. He had him in their hand and talking to skinner park was when he.

Speaker 1 54:44

Skinner park is one of the most impressive things yes a man walk on this stage like if he'd been there 10, 15 years doing that. So maybe he did go to wendell, but he definitely got help, or he got help continue to learn and his management team is clearly minded to take advice yeah, so got it got it, you know.

Speaker 2 55:00

So he, I, I applaud him and I like him yeah he is really everybody's young brother and I hope he continues in this vein of of making good music and of being yeah and he found a way to do that because it's the greatest rebrand of all time.

Speaker 1 55:16

If you want to say greatest, bend over because he has not lost himself. He come and see in Calypso Monarch and I was wondering if it was the Tilden Hall rhythm he was going to do. I mean, marshall did that in the competition Not knowing he have a Calypso for the thing, and the calypso in the end for me wasn't strong enough. The lyrical content was not a winning song and I know people like you say is everybody younger brother, so people who don't watch your competition every year probably expected him to win because he had such an excellent performance on calypso monarch night two.

Speaker 2 55:46

He did well he did very, very well in a night where people are having it.

Speaker 1 55:50

People might remember the first few performers had a rough time. Yeah, rough, rough, rough. I feel squeezy wasn't hearing. I know he said salute to david, whereas david was telling me that squeezy been having pitch problems the whole season, which is true I think squeezy has pitch problems.

Speaker 2 56:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah it make it.

Speaker 1 56:05

He's a studio. Well, I mean he's a performer, but you could see the song and when I listen back to the original video, plenty pitch correction going on with the technology there. I didn't realize it the first time.

Speaker 2 56:14

He needs to go to somebody like a Glenda Collins or Chris Tambu and just learn to sing properly, or Tambu does that now. I mean Tambu's been training people for a while.

Speaker 1 56:24

I did not know that, yeah, I must go, but he do get it where he had Terry Lance at a rough time. Yeah, boy. Terry had a rough. She wasn't in any band Because she definitely don't have them side of problems.

Speaker 2 56:36

No, she doesn't have.

Speaker 1 56:37

I don't think the band was hearing her. She wasn't in any band and the backups couldn't hear each other. Something was going wrong.

Speaker 2 56:41

Yeah, there was a bit of a.

Speaker 1 56:42

Something was going wrong.

Speaker 2 56:43

I remember at one point I can't remember whether I posted in a chat group I was definitely in a chat group. I mean asking is it me or is it that the backups are totally off?

Speaker 1 56:55

yeah, it was, it was, yeah, you know. But then, ricky Jai, come on and show you a seasoned performance. Everything settled down that was a hell of a performance.

Speaker 2 57:03

Hell of a performance I have a little soft spot for Ricky yeah yeah, he's, he's just great and he's consistent, he's done his thing, he's professional and that was a really good song.

Speaker 1 57:16

The greatness show on the night. This song was a great song. The theme of this song. I always wonder sometimes when they have points for originality. He must have maxed out that because you know the Chutney artists come in to see your boy listen. It was. It was really well done and that's another thing.

Speaker 2 57:29

So in one of the chat groups I was in, somebody was saying I don't hear no chutney though, and I'm like you have to listen to the song.

Speaker 1 57:36

Yeah, it wasn't the band had a lot of that, yeah, like kind of thing going on he's a boss boy he didn't make it look so effortless, yes, and then of course you have people like one of the more impressive people for the season for me in calypso was kurt allen. Because kurt allen, the person who performed before Kurt Allen in Skinner Park, right, kurt Allen's song, if people didn't hear, it was about Rowley. Before you go, before you pack and run away, he telling you you had to take pong, we pong everybody who come before you and we here to keep everybody else in check. So, before you run away, good team right, and Kurt Allen so seasoned. But the performer before him in skinner park, as soon as that person finished, the toilet paper went up. You know people ain't coming here to bring a bad talk. No, rowley in um in skinner park. So and that man went onto the stage watching a sea of toilet paper and deliver the song till the toilet paper start to go in time with him.

Speaker 2 58:27

Now you could see the cardinal you can't deny a good song and kurt you're great yeah, and you know his years of singing, acting and all the rest of it oh, he was acting on well when I say acting you know he's put on. You know he's put on dramas I didn't know so dramas the barrack yard, okay, okay, he's honed some of his skill through that, right. Um, I think he's brilliant and I think his, his thought process is very clear and um, yeah, he has it.

Speaker 1 58:55

Yeah, it makes sense because he really embodies the song he's singing.

Speaker 2 58:58

He does.

Speaker 1 58:59

It's almost like he gets you, as an audience, so attached to the song that he just becomes a conduit. I don't know that there's anybody who does it as well as him Some I've never seen before.

Speaker 2 59:08

And many people don't remember that he won Soka Monarch many years ago with the bees and tongue, the bees and tongue.

Speaker 1 59:15

I was fetting then. I was talking about this just yesterday with Eddie Charles. There was a year in Brass Festival. That was the days you remember. Brass used to go till morning.

Speaker 2 59:24

Yeah.

Speaker 1 59:25

And then there was a time they were trying to cut back the times for some noise thing. I think that would have been EMA trying to stamp down that and they had stopped the fit and everybody started leaving. And I don't know what band he was coming on with, but people were by psa gate, we heading out, and then all of a sudden he had a band strike up and he do bees in tongue. It caused a stampede, if you see people run back to the stage. So I don't know if people remember. That's all he was good yeah, he was a bad, bad man.

Speaker 1 59:50

but againes and Tongue. You know you just create this euphoria or frenzy with our song and he able to do it in Calypso.

Speaker 2 59:57

So it was impressive for me to see Young Brother fit in with Giants like that who've done it for so long, and I think Helon winning was the right thing. Helon had to beat away. I'll tell you something right? So if you look at Helon's song and Kurt song but kind of similar themes, and people were saying, oh, you know, they didn't understand the Young Brother Lovers, who didn't understand why he didn't win. What people need to realize is the topicality of a song.

Speaker 2 1:00:23

You know the way that he learned put across that letter. He keep hearing the whole song. Yeah, I couldn't take my eyes off of him.

Speaker 1 1:00:31

And when he mailed the letter in the end it was almost like he that was winning. When you do it, it's like all right you win. I really wanted. Curt Allen to win. But I don't think they could have beat Hillel on the night. But the defending champion, you saw it, you saw his performance.

Speaker 2 1:00:43

Yeah, I saw him what we gonna say.

Speaker 1 1:00:47

I mean the song wasn't good enough. Orlando Optive come out before and say the mafia done set this up for Marshall to win. I don't think he had a chance to win. I feel he know that too. You know his respect, my respect level for him. I don't know if it could go any higher, but it went way higher for him on that night because I think he knows he has a song that not competition ready. He had two verses to get it to even qualify for the competition. But I think if it was me and I going into that, I feel I would do just a little bit more than the bare minimum not to hurt my brand and go into the competition and leave marshall does not do things by halves right, and so the song itself invites all of that.

Speaker 2 1:01:27

It's a. It's a spectacular song. Look at the video. Right, the video is a vibe. Yeah, it's a whole movie.

Speaker 1 1:01:36

He can't come after all of that yeah and let it down let it down yeah, hell of a performance, because I expecting the best version of batman I would have seen is duvran sturt and renegade. Is duvran sturt putting a show for batman on the stage? And I'm thinking marshall could just run on and run off.

Speaker 2 1:01:52

He know it can't wait, but no, he can't do that.

Speaker 1 1:01:53

But he do the most. I didn't even know the motorcycle thing was up. I guess when you're watching on stage you don't know that happened backstage.

Speaker 2 1:01:59

Yeah, exactly, you know. So when I look at it I thought oh my God experience in the field of judging did not even have him as high as fifth yeah, I wouldn't have him as high as fifth.

Speaker 1 1:02:14

A lot of people were like, yeah, I'd have him much lower, but he's put on such a show that I mean the judges is human too. It, the presentation and his style lifts everything else. Because now he had some trouble with the verses too. I suppose he just had them to his voice.

Speaker 2 1:02:29

He was having a rough go this season in particular.

Speaker 1 1:02:32

Long time I didn't see him With that kind of voice, struggles, he used to have that a lot Early in the days, but now I see him this season Struggling a little bit. So for you, fair Calypso Monarch competition Fair enough. Fair road match. I guess road match could only be fair, despite what people thought.

Speaker 2 1:02:46

Ultimate soca I was just glad for blacker than me too and I was glad to see what I was glad to see and I like how they had the younger um artists doing their thing and how those guys came to first yeah, you know, it was nice to see a lot of really really good and I think um the intent that Roman Day had, it really bore itself out.

Speaker 1 1:03:09

Yeah, I suspect they will keep stepping it up too.

Speaker 2 1:03:12

Yes.

Speaker 1 1:03:12

I hope it remained very youthful the way it was this year, because you know who was really impressive in there GI, gi put ona hell of a show on been like that yeah they pay a lot of respect to the competition. So, as we're on the Chutney Marshall entering Chutney Soka, you're for that, you're against that. You're finally done with competition.

Speaker 2 1:03:31

Chutney Soka is a thing of its own Right, and to me that competition has a uniqueness about it. That, yeah, anybody.

Speaker 1 1:03:43

Yeah, people could go in. People might forget who's the defending champion when they're saying Marshall shouldn't go in. Remember who won last year.

Speaker 2 1:03:49

Was it Neshada?

Speaker 1 1:03:51

No, nyla Blackmon. She went with a song, nyla. Blackmon. Yeah, flashback and tell me what Chutney Nyla sings. She Chutney-fied this song. She do an excellent job making the song of Chutney on the night. I can't remember this song offhand, I'll put it in the Remember post, but I love make that song in a Chutney and take them. Last year and again, a show that I don't think they could have denied, I don't think they could have denied.

Speaker 2 1:04:13

Chutney's. Okay, and they must have these things. They must have shows that are just themselves.

Speaker 1 1:04:19

Yeah, unique it's unique.

Speaker 2 1:04:21

You know it's part of the whole culture. I do even think, do you? Isn't it a free show? I think, it's free, if I'm not mistaken. Somebody will correct me in the comments if not.

Speaker 1 1:04:34

But yeah, I think it's free. I like that, I like that and I like. I like the juxtaposition of the druperty, the marshall and the lady lover.

Speaker 2 1:04:41

No lady lover yeah ladyover is something else.

Speaker 1 1:04:45

Lady Lover is seeing what a lot of people are thinking and so you know, it's in a way that also so undeniable and I'll tell you what.

Speaker 2 1:04:54

I don't know if you saw online, but our jazz Chanteuse did a version of what she did in Soiree, in Soiree, oh, I didn't see that. Oh man, she did it In Soiree, in Soiree.

Speaker 3 1:05:05

Oh, I didn't see that yeah man, yeah man, yeah man, oh man, she did.

Speaker 2 1:05:08

It was people just like what, and yeah, yeah yeah, nobody does that better than Vonna? Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 1:05:13

I mean she's into pretty things. I hope to have her here sometime Very good yeah. Yeah, she's good.

Speaker 2 1:05:26

But I it's so missing so it's good to see people you think about. Lady lover, lady lovers she's kisha. She's hey, hi kisha, you're going right.

Speaker 1 1:05:30

That's how I, when I look at, I think, oh, that's kisha yeah from down the road you know, sister run said it best for me where she say she looked like she's just talking, like she just has something to tell, only when she come on the stage so I didn't attend army, but I saw what she did with this song at army and I thought you know this is pretty much what spoken word yeah, she looks like she having a conversation you know, and she telling you ting, ting, ting.

Speaker 2 1:05:54

And some people may blanch a little bit of the language, but come on, I'm a believer in youth and I think it's important.

Speaker 1 1:06:06

Lady lover, long may she rain yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and rain she is, yeah, but she's the, she's the owner of a stage yeah, I think she's great yeah, yeah, yeah, I think she's great. So on stages, the big stage, what was your mass experience? Like I see, any lost tribe you're having a time is lost tribe your band is home.

Speaker 2 1:06:26

So when I back in the day I used to play in, I used to make mass with minchell and I played with minchell. I was, I loved the art of it. I think minchell there's.

Speaker 2 1:06:39

You know minchell's contribution to our culture, to the world, in terms of not just his um, olympic stages and whatever, but minchell has contributed a lot to the world of art and all praise to him, so he was making mass with minchell yeah, so he was there in mass camp and again um wendell, mann, warren, roger, roberts and a crew of us we all knew each other back in the day from school and they were doing it and my uncle, pascal Ramkisson, who does all the plastic molds, he had to beg for me to come and do it.

Speaker 2 1:07:12

I was like I would love to come and do it so he had to beg my father and that was it and I really liked the story Menchel was telling. I was like many others. I loved the way that Minshull understood the zeitgeist and in many ways he was prescient. So if you go back and look at his band River and man Crab, all those things are what's happening now. The climate change the destruction, and he's an artist.

Speaker 2 1:07:43

Yeah boy, right? So at the time it was Minschal and Barclay and Gary people, those names of people remember Stephen Lee Young. So, being part of a band where there was a presentation, some expression, you know where, it wasn't just baubles and yeah, just play maths, it was maths, right, and there was always something a little twisted. I remember the year I mean I wasn't able to play until 1984, 85. Right, and I remember he bought a band called Dance Macabre, probably around 82. And it was Crocus Bag with shells. Oh wow, it came last.

Speaker 1 1:08:21

Yeah, but he knew it.

Speaker 2 1:08:22

Because you know why Everybody thought Carnival is color. And he had to point out that is an ad, that is a Kodak ad. So anyway, all of that just to see that when I had come back to Trinidad there was very little in that happening. Right. And my friends were all playing with Tribe. So, there. I was in Tribe.

Speaker 1 1:08:46

Yeah, I guess that zone is Bees and Feathers. It's not much.

Speaker 2 1:08:50

Yeah, and I struggled a little bit.

Speaker 1 1:08:53

I had a great time, but I struggled with the costumes.

Speaker 2 1:08:55

I was like hmm.

Speaker 1 1:08:56

And I'm not a small woman, I'm not small, I have plenty. Yeah, so they had to. You're talking about Nessa now.

Speaker 2 1:09:02

I had to be like come on. No, no, I was it could have fit. It could have fit. I used to take the boy shorts Big up, nessa, every time. So when D-Naken said to me we're doing something different, we're giving Val a chance to do this thing, I was like praise God, because it was, I could see where it was going. People made a fuss about, oh, how they could call the band the lost tribe, because minchell had a band called the lost tribe but yeah, one year, one year I got you he had a band called the lost tribe.

Speaker 2 1:09:35

People like oh people soon got over themselves and I've been able to see the band evolve from then to now but I interpreted the lost tribe being a tribute to Minshaw.

Speaker 1 1:09:46

No, I think.

Speaker 2 1:09:49

I wouldn't say it was like a complete tribute, but I think it was. Val understands. Val won QRC. Minshaw won QRC Okay, got it Right so, and there's a respect inherent in that but Val is not going to be doing Minshaw.

Speaker 1 1:10:04

Yeah, yeah, of course you can see the difference.

Speaker 2 1:10:06

So Val did what he does best. He got a group of young, adventurous designers to come together and do their thing. So you know, every year you look at Lost Tribe. Some sections don't work, but guess what? We have a great time.

Speaker 2 1:10:21

We have a really, really good time. So I like the Lost Tribe vibe. Again, it's something you know, plenty of people in the band. It's a nice cross-section of people from old to young. I know people who are in their 70s who play with the Lost Tribe. I know teenagers play with the Lost Tribe and nobody's like oh God, look at old people, or whatever. Everybody on the same head, everybody loving it. Okay. And that's where I see myself in the 44 seeable.

Speaker 1 1:10:49

That's where you're going.

Speaker 2 1:10:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can't see myself playing mass with anybody else my whole mass group play with lost tribe.

Speaker 1 1:10:54

This year I ain't played. This year and last year, years before, I played with fantasy and humor. There's real beads and yeah, don't give no more than that, but the thing about men and mass though yeah, I that for a lot of men.

Speaker 2 1:11:05

They just want the band and the shorts.

Speaker 1 1:11:08

And maybe the short pants, if that.

Speaker 2 1:11:10

But I'm seeing that change and even in pretty masks I see men making an effort.

Speaker 1 1:11:14

I saw Spirit this year looking different Because I play with humor. I salute everybody in humor. I love humor, but it's our years where I get the same pants a year after Whoever leaves back. They I get the same pansy hair after Whoever leaves back. They just order some more and they bring it. But spirits on your road seem to be they're doing some different things on your road too.

Speaker 2 1:11:31

They're doing some different things overall. Well, I guess I suppose I mean from what I hear about the way that their customer service I saw the video of them at Movietown They've stepped up a level. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Adrian Skool and his team clearly put a lot of thought into that, and it's always good to have somebody come in and do that.

Speaker 1 1:11:50

Of course.

Speaker 2 1:11:50

Because then everybody else realizes oh.

Speaker 1 1:11:52

Yeah, it shakes things up, let's just raise our game a little bit more. Yeah, it's important to kill somebody that can play something. But yeah, I'll tell you like I just want to be free. No, listen, hold on, tell me, tell me there was a section this year called nancy right where all those nice black men?

Speaker 2 1:12:18

and other men right were in. They had on their headdress and they look real good and they were able to be as naked as they wanted to be.

Speaker 1 1:12:24

So it has space.

Speaker 1 1:12:25

It has space for you, man All right, I'm watching because what I'll tell you is when you bounce up lost tribe on the road. I always remember one of my first experiences playing mass as an adult because I'd stopped playing mass as poison. My mother used to carry me on the road with Barbarossa all the time and, of course, as and I remember being by the hospital and hearing a super blue for hours, so waiting by the hospital, and I just walk home and I tell myself, oh Fet, I'm done with mass. And I went back as an adult, probably with fantasy. And the first time I reached the savannah and I see Belmont side with traditional mass, I had to stop. I had to come out of the band and watch them.

Speaker 1 1:13:02

I almost didn't cross the stage. I was amazed. I almost felt like the sailors. The sailors you see sailors. You see people playing guerrilla, you see all different types of things, little children. It was amazing. It almost hit me like okay, this is what Cannavale is. As a boy growing up in St James, you see revelry all the time over the years.

Speaker 1 1:13:27

But I had to leave the band again. It was right, damien street corner on mokura road and lost tribe stopped for fantasy or humor to come down the road and I went. I just walked through the band. I couldn't believe it. It was. Some is a spectacle and to me lost tribe is the only one that looking different. No, I don't know if it's the mass in other areas, but everybody else is looking pretty. All the bands are just morphing to one.

Speaker 2 1:13:50

So you have bands like K2K who their background is fashion. And they are spectacular as well. Smaller numbers but, it looks amazing.

Speaker 2 1:14:00

Then you have, of course, the Moko Jambis, who have Alan Vaughan with his Moko Samoko and they have brought a lot of pageantry to the moko jambi, right. Right, you have bands that do it, small bands. There used to be 20 revelers. I remember one year they did a band, a historical band, and it was very much like back in the day when I mean I don't rememberaldina, but the pictures of Saldina and depicting like the 18th century and all that kind of period thing, yeah, going back closer to that.

Speaker 2 1:14:33

Yeah, and I remember watching that and saying, wow, this is really cool. I don't know if I could do it, but Trinidad Carnival has evolved, and I think what people need to understand too is, back in the day, band leaders used to take a lot of their inspiration from movies right right so you had a whole band with rome and you had the pharaohs and you had all of that.

Speaker 2 1:14:55

But now a lot of people take inspiration from victoria's secrets kind of thing and you see ronnie and carol, at least with them you see Ronnie and Caro.

Speaker 1 1:15:06

At least with them you see a team that might follow through, you could connect with the team. But most of the bands I don't feel there's a team you could connect with. Like when I remember as a child, what I remember most about Minchell is that all the other bands had standards and Minchell had no standard it was different with Rat Race, but he did have backpacks he did.

Speaker 2 1:15:23

Yeah, back then, oh man. He did have backpacks the bane of our existence. But I think what has to happen for me is that more people need to think more deeply about costuming and about what they're doing.

Speaker 2 1:15:38

And I always say people are saying Mahawa Teng and whoever. But I feel that we missed the boat by not actively recognizing that Carnival has a space for art and by encouraging people to go away or to do things and come back and be part of it. And we love our carnival, but we haven't really thought that seriously about things like carnival as art. No no.

Speaker 2 1:16:08

You know and ways to get more people in it to do that. So, like this year, robert Young's band Vulgar Fraction I didn't see them on the road, unfortunately, and Ashraf Ramsaran, his band Heads or Tails. Where you saw the band, it was just 20 of them. And they had these big heads and you know they had like signs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I did see it. I saw it on social right and, of course, those people, they do very small, very niche bands, but the creativity that goes into it is something that we have to applaud.

Speaker 2 1:16:38

Charise barkley, the niece of of wayne barkley, brought her own band, the barkley revolution. Yes and um, she had a little truck, it was about 30 of them, they had a fire breeder and I was applauding them. I was like, yeah, do it, because people keep saying, no, you know it has nothing, you can't play mass, they have plenty of things. I figure one of the liberating things about Carnival Corey is that if I decide, if you, me, my crew, your crew, we decide, yeah, what, let me do something on our own, yeah, yeah, and 30 of us put on costume and we could join the parade.

Speaker 1 1:17:18

Yeah, of course, of course, of course we register the band.

Speaker 2 1:17:20

It doesn't take much to register the band and we drive through, we can cross the stage, we could do whatever. You could play mass.

Speaker 1 1:17:26

Yeah, it's still for the people.

Speaker 2 1:17:27

It's still for the people. People just have to be creative. Alison Hennessy, the late Alison Hennessy they used to do that. They had a truck. Some people sit down on the truck. They come down when they reach a thing and they jump.

Speaker 1 1:17:38

Right.

Speaker 2 1:17:48

And we need to become a lot more creative creative in the way we approach mass.

Speaker 1 1:17:50

Everybody cannot play mass in in the same way. In the same way, yeah, it's a mass right. It reminds me like um, you're talking about wendell man warren and them bringing a juve band juve was up for.

Speaker 1 1:17:57

The people think I didn't play mass this year and, uh, I say, well, I'll do juve because we ain't underplayed mass and my juve experience wasn't the greatest. Huh, uh-huh. Yeah, the band was good. No knock on strife or anything. They do a good job. It was well organized and stuff. But from time we meet them on Mokorapo Road till we make a little loop to the main road and get to the Savannah, I hear the road march from 2011 to now fast and I I still coming into juve, thinking it's a chip. I looking to hear keegan taylor have a juve song, I thinking I will hear more of that. They ain't play no juve song. No, must you tell. We reach laparose cemetery music. Slow down again. And I started to realize now that maybe my expectation is the issue, because I think juve is when it uses that one o'clock in the morning and it's a slow chip till sunrise.

Speaker 1 1:18:43

but youths want to hear carry and things they want to hear they want peace. Because I feel Juvie started to become a mass replacement. It's $600 to go and play in Strive.

Speaker 2 1:18:52

It has become a mass replacement for some people.

Speaker 1 1:18:54

So they want to play a mass. So I realize now I had to curate my experience because I remember my first year with Tricanal and canal and this is storming. I know I didn't even know that people used to pay because the way vandal and them set up the thing anybody is like for everybody you are him talking about rope and them kind of thing make me rethink everything. I think about carnival. Once in an interview he had done but trick and I'll grasp, crossing the savannah stage was something else. It was people, it is packed and the music and the vibe and the energy and thing was something else. So I think that energy definitely missing from the juve, at least in my juve experience. So next year I feel I want to catch that.

Speaker 2 1:19:32

Maybe too, etienne charles does a band on your road on the monday brass band on the monday so um alicia bartels and the dota nadala, oh yeah, they had done a band, a small juve band called juve love right and that is a good start because it's pretty much an indie vibe of Tree Canal, but it's women running it. Gotcha. And I think it's going to grow. I heard it was really good this year. Right, I bought a package just in case. I decided to come out Because I'm like you I'm a Tree Canal person. Right, yeah.

Speaker 2 1:20:00

And again, like everything else, they're going to have different ways of doing things. There are people who swear by Dirty Dozen. There are people who swear by Coco Dattles.

Speaker 1 1:20:10

Of course yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 1:20:12

And the experiences are all different. I think there are people who just don't understand or know what the ritual of Juvé is, and that helps if you understand the ritual of Juvé. Yeah, I suppose.

Speaker 2 1:20:26

But listen, everything else is going to evolve and at some point people are going to start going back to the originals yeah, yeah, yeah, but I just I'd really wish it was like it wasn't the past when juvie started at two o'clock that would be nice right that'll be real good, but then, if you have the march right, finish in a 207, come on yeah, well, that's one thing I was forgetting to tell you about Pan too.

Speaker 1 1:20:46

It was so impressive how they managed the time in Pan this year.

Speaker 1 1:20:49

Yeah, I walk in after 12. Just after 12, I walk in going back to Macau. I was worried about going to Soka the next morning and how late I would leave Pan, but Dimash was for Juvé to start. I remember when singing Sandra Wynn, I buy the Savannah waiting for the announcement so Juvé could start. You think we could go back, because sometimes just what you say about FETs to go back full circle, the violence and thing in Juvé, I feel like that is what caused it to go closer to Daybreak.

Speaker 2 1:21:16

I think that is what caused it to go closer. I didn't hear much of that this year.

Speaker 1 1:21:20

No, it was pretty tame. At least nothing here, nothing reported.

Speaker 2 1:21:24

But also to what we have to remember people going back to their communities to play juve.

Speaker 1 1:21:28

Yeah, you saw Cedras. Yeah, no, I want to go. I want to go too. That thing looked like a vibe boy. Where do you find so much people to be in Cedras?

Speaker 2 1:21:38

I couldn't believe it I say but Cedra had Soka yeah exactly, it's a soccer street in Seadros, a whole vibe, a whole vibe. Regional mass is growing, and that's something we have to look at for the future, but I don't know why. The authorities they know why. I think it is probably. Let's be real about where we are and about the prospect of policing and that policing juve between the hours of one and four.

Speaker 1 1:22:05

Yeah, it's like it's too much work.

Speaker 2 1:22:09

It probably is, but the vibe boy, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that one o'clock in the morning thing used to be real sweet, yeah, yeah, yeah, different, and you know what, and, and it gave people the chance to play juve beer and go and play monday mass. Now I scoff you know the idea of going out at 10 o'clock on a Monday to go and play mass. No, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 1:22:29

Jouvet finishes at 11 for me Right, yeah, yeah, yeah and you have to be a little drunk, right, you know you have to really be in it you have to.

Speaker 1 1:22:40

Hmm, yeah, well, I a package with Etienne and them and I didn't end up doing it and I'm glad I didn't become me. I realized it's so late. Juve is gone. When I wake up Monday it was after 4 o'clock, so where I was going to play in Carnival Monday.

Speaker 2 1:22:51

You could have still joined Etienne and them, I should have still gone down.

Speaker 1 1:22:55

I feel like next year, as you talk about regional Juves or to bring the conversation full circle, I feel the Carnival experience is so broad that you could curate your own experience and that is what we have to understand, you know.

Speaker 2 1:23:06

So all these people who have all these purist views and who insist on so many things being a particular way. It can't be that way. We are diverse as a nation and and I don't mind listen if you have juve in your neighborhood and there's a community, why not do it? Exactly it's a vibe.

Speaker 1 1:23:26

It's a vibe same thing with fets. We don't have to go to the big fets and pay the thousands of dollars and things you don't have to yeah, I swallowing back plenty my own complaints. This carnival next year, my goal is to curate my own carnival, make it exactly what I need to find that and go at my pace, because I I feel like I try to keep up with youth and I fail miserablyably. It wasn't good. It wasn't good.

Speaker 2 1:23:47

But we do. We do have to find balance.

Speaker 1 1:23:50

Balance right. What a way to bring it full circle. So, frank, the point of this is to make sure that we're here every year to do a Carnival wrap-up Wow.

Speaker 2 1:23:58

Because Carnival only done.

Speaker 1 1:23:59

Look how I get ropey 100% Carnival only done when we say done. Carnival only done when we say done Deal, we're done.

Speaker 2 1:24:13

It's a tradition for me every year to make sure that we play this song to close off the carnival properly this song reminds me of my dad, who loved. Kitchener yeah.

Speaker 1 1:24:18

Spiritually Growing up in St James, this song I remember. Being in I was one of those people who would be suffering from hearing the road march over and over. Oh God. So in the 90s I didn't like Super Blue. You see that Get Something and Wave Euro. Yeah, really Could not stand it Because it's all you hear when you're living in St James Whole day.

Speaker 1 1:24:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah, whole day Bands passing, because I was living behind Smokey and Bunty, oh God, that crowd the road match playing and men on truck them time singing and I couldn't take it and I always remember as a child you. The signal for me that the punishment of the road match was over was when steel bands come across the main road playing this, because late in the evening plenty steel band heading home and men who in cocorita and them kind of thing or bones road, all of them used to come and used to hear them playing this going down the road. I did not know this was a real song, I didn't know the lyrics.

Speaker 1 1:25:07

So as an adult I started hearing. I said, okay, this is why they was playing that back then. So it's a special thing. Your father's a good man, he know the thing. And hearing the lyrics Kitchener is so messy Kitchener how he managed to capture this thing. But listen, we're leaving it there. If I get a chance, I'm going to keep you here whole day, whole night.

Speaker 2 1:25:31

I realize, but that's all right.

Speaker 1 1:25:32

Yeah, good, I like that.

Speaker 2 1:25:33

Just feed man, You're good to go.

Speaker 1 1:25:34

All right, good, that's a mistake I make. I ain't feed you properly and never. A fellow who's supposed to be here with me, named Mark Jardine.

Speaker 2 1:25:45

Yes. We had to make sure he's here next time we had to get Mark in the mix.

Speaker 1 1:25:48

We had to get Mark in the mix. We had to get Mark in the mix. Different perspective. So thanks very much.

Speaker 2 1:25:52

I appreciate you coming out and thank you, it's been a joy, it's been fun.

Speaker 1 1:26:05

It was a pleasure seeing could do this more of it.

Speaker 2 1:26:07

Outro Music.