Calls to make Notting Hill Carnival less Caribbean are as bad as attempts to shut it down – iNews

Opinion

Assistant opinion editor

August 25, 2022 1:55 pm(Updated 3:53 pm)

After two years off, Notting Hill Carnival, the annual two-day celebration (or three, if you count Panorama, the UKs national steel pan competition, which takes place the day before) is back after a pandemic-induced break. Regular revellers like myself could not be happier. Nor could event promoters in the surrounding areas, keen to cash in on the celebratory spirit that often brings drunken punters from the streets of west London straight to their establishments. But as more of these Carnival-pegged club nights pop up, a strange trend has reared its head: questioning the relevance of carnivals cultural origins.

Though debates about what should or shouldnt be allowed to be played on the road, or in backstreet soundsystem stages, are nothing new, there seems to be some renewed confusion on social media about what the event should represent and whether its roots, the product of an amalgamation of traditional West Indian carnivals, multicultural fairs and resistance against violent racism, should take centre stage in celebrations nowadays.

Kelso Cochrane, the Antiguan carpenter murdered in Notting Hill by white racists in 1959, leading to the events that later turned into what Carnival is today, is buried mere minutes away from I live. I have visited his grave, a fading mosaic of the Antiguan flag at the top of it, several times. I will walk past the crumbling cemetery wall where his body rests on the way to carnival, the heaviness of the unsolved murder ever-present, and a few hundred yards away from where the celebration begins. Believe me, these origins are anything but dismissable.

Its also disappointing to see arguments that rather than playing soca a genre that is central to not just the parade route, but West Indian carnivals more generally other genres of black origin, such as drill, Amapiano, Afrobeats, or R&B should be played more liberally in fact, in some of those after-carnival events, many of these genres have been prioritised.

Ive seen suggestions that carnival is a Black British event, not a Caribbean British event, and should be broadened further to accommodate everyone. Except it already has. Aside from the general spirit of carnival, which encourages involvement from all, it has been considerably watered down for decades. Ahead of the last carnival before the pandemic, I wrote about how newer sound systems and sponsored stages risked erasing the cultural significance of the event, something I sincerely hope the organisers have taken into account and have worked to change.

Younger Black people who suggest its segregationist to highlight the distinctly Caribbean roots of this celebration are misinformed too. We have long had events and festivals catered towards us, each of us able to revel in the glorious blend of the genres weve all had a hand in creating. But turning Carnival into something unrecognisable, purely for the sake of pleasing those who prefer to remain ignorant about its socio-political history, is just as bad as rich, Nimby residents appealing to Conservative councillors to shut it down. Its as bad as the biased coverage Carnival has for so long been subjected to, fodder for arguments to shrink it, or further police it. Make no mistake, Notting Hill Carnivals existence isnt a given, welcomed by the authorities and those who wish to pay homage to West Indian cultures there is a constant battle to keep it going.

Personally, as someone of Antiguan descent, Carnival is one of few mainstream events in the UK where Ill hear soca, which isnt universally revered in the same way that say, Dancehall, Afrobeats or Amapiano have been in the past few decades (beyond playing the odd song, such as JW &Blazes 2010 song Palance, between fully-fledged sets of other genres.) Suggesting it is irrelevant or is worth being replaced isnt just personally upsetting, it would remove the very spirit at the heart of Carnival. There would be no JOuvert (the morning celebration in which revelers kick off carnival from 6am-9am), no masqueraders many of whom have practised routines to the very songs some are suggesting are replaceable for months. Simply put, without the music and, more generally, Caribbean cultures that make it what it is, there would be no carnival at all.

Beyond the surrounding streets of Notting Hill, I hope everyone who doesnt already understand why West Indian culture is and should always be central to this street festivity, takes note of how painful it is to see and hear the erasure of your culture in real time, with people chipping away at more aspects of its genesis when more of us should be chippin down the road to the music and cultural aspects that led to its birth.

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Calls to make Notting Hill Carnival less Caribbean are as bad as attempts to shut it down - iNews