By Alicia Roache, Staff Reporter
One of the four women on the float dedicated to soccer nation and carnival kings, Brazil. - Ricardo Makyn / Staff Photographer
FROM PIRATES to princesses and everyone in between, Jamaica Carnival has finally found its place. At one time it was touted as the 'uptown carnival' which excluded the masses, the 'downtown people', from the revelry. Yesterday's Byron Lee and the Dragonaires/Supreme Ventures Road Parade made a liar of anyone who would call it such.
The road parade was inclusive from the beginning at East King's House Road, but as it wound its way along Half-Way Tree Road and Oxford Road the crowd grew and with it the number of people from the 'downtown' area. By the time it got to the corner of Arthur Wint and Tom Redcam drives, the parade had turned into a virtual dancehall session, complete with hot shorts and torn tees.
Undoubtedly, the heavy reliance on dancehall music to supplement soca contributed to this state of affairs. Both genres of music were well represented from the beginning, but the focus turned to dancehall closer to the end. In fact, the trucks that played dancehall music more frequently, got more crowd support. The CVM TV and Cable & Wireless trucks were the most hyped. Bounty Killer, Beenie Man, Wayne Marshall, Bling Dawg and Courtney Walsh all hung out on the C&W truck, causing a massive jam as people clamoured to get a glimpse of, and put on a show for their favourite celebrities.
DANCEHALL VIBES ALIVE
When the MC on the CVM truck played Sizzla's Solid As A Rock, the response of the crowd sounded like a choral recital as everyone around the truck sang out. Soca did not quite get the same response. The instructions from the MCs to 'Wave yuh han! Wave yuh han!' got good crowd response, but when the same instruction was given to "Blase! Blase!" or "Thunderclap! Thunderclap!", a different, more feverish response was the result.
Carnival was not strictly limited to the able-bodied either. From the deranged to the physically handicapped, everyone, it seemed, came out to party. One 'madman' erupted in laughter when the parade passed him, while further down the road another did his own version of what seemed to be the 'Blasé, blasé'. A one-legged woman with her crutch in hand moved to the beat and the rhythm of the revellers who danced behind the 'big truck'. Not once did she seem to lag behind while the revellers partied on Half-Way Tree Road. Further down the road on Tom Redcam Drive, two men hovered around in their wheelchairs, spinning them to every beat.
Even the youngsters would not be denied their glimpse into the world of Carnival though they merely acted as spectators. And as the parade wound down to the National Stadium where the revellers were allowed to party for free, more people came. They came, it seemed, from everywhere. Even when the tail-end of the official revellers from The Gleaner passed Tom Redcam Drive, it seemed the crowd would keep joining in the revelry behind the big trucks all night.
