Carnival 2022, a Time-Honoured Tradition in Notting Hill Returns
The trendy, upscale neighbourhood has tried to end the Caribbean party, but it endures
Pilgrims of dub-step and reggae search for stages at the annual Notting Hill Carnival during the end-of-summer bank holiday weekend in London. The carnival in 1972 attracted around 500 people and has since grown to become the largest street festival in Europe with 50,000 performers in the parade, more than 30 sound systems and a million people attending.
Living in Brooklyn, every Labor Day weekend the streets around the public library and the Prospect Heights/Lefferts Gardens/Crown Heights neighbourhood became one of the largest parties of the year: the West Indian-American Day Parade (J'ouvert). For 72 hours, the streets were filled with music, and the smell of barbecue and beer filled the air.
I generally avoided the West Indian Day festival for many reasons, but mostly because I abhor crowds — the same reason I generally avoid protests, general admission concerts, football matches, and subway rush hours. One Sunday, lost on my bicycle, I crossed the street at the wrong time and found myself caught in the middle of a dance party, bodies, Red Stripe, weed, and food everywhere. That was enough of that scene for me.
While the Notting Hill Carnival is rooted in Caribbean culture — and anchored to the Windrush-generation, which settled in Notting Hill and Brixton, as the neighbourhood changed, so did the makeup of Carnival. Now long-time residents and newcomers to the gentrifying area mix on the streets.
Yet, when a friend suggested last Monday that we go to the Notting Hill Carnival, I didn’t think of Brooklyn. I conjured up the town fairs of my youth, filled with skeeball, arts and crafts, and maybe a country band or two. That was the « English Carnival » in my mind. Another lesson for the American. I stepped off the train at Notting Hill Gate into the largest Carnival in Europe — only it’s not in the huge borough of Brooklyn, rather the tiny, tony, Hugh-Grantish neighbourhood of Notting Hill.
For the first time since 2019, West Indian-American Day Carnival and Parade will return to New York this Labor Day, following a two-year Covid hiatus. Attracting over a million spectators, the diversity of Caribbean culture with dancing, elaborate costumes, traditional music, and food will take over a stretch of Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights. Imagine that same level of fanfare in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, which is about five square miles — the smallest borough in London and the second smallest district in England. Walking near Thé antique market of Portobello Road, there were people at every angle, stages at the end of every street, boards on every store window, and police and medics running in battalions. The bright colours of a dozen flags, the smells of a variety of foods and rums, and hundreds of bodies dancing surrounded the spectacle. It was (relatively) controlled chaos, the likes of which I love as a journalist, but loathe as a mere mortal. So I did what every decent journalist would do and pulled out my camera.
A vendor sells the various flags of the West Indian countries represented in Carnival: Greater Antilles [Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic), and Puerto Rico]; the Lesser Antilles, [Virgin Islands, Anguilla, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, Montserrat, Guadeloupe, Dominica, Martinique, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Barbados, and Grenada]; The Bahamas, Turks and Caicos Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, Aruba, Curaçao, Bonaire, and Bermuda.
Enterprising vendors sell all variety of juices, drinks, and food at the Notting Hill Carnival. Claudia Jones of Trinidad, who came over on the Empire Windrush in 1948 — widely considered the founder — created an event called The Caribbean Carnival to counter violent riotson the streets of both Notting Hill and Nottingham, in 1958. Instead of encouraging more violence, Jones’ objective was to try and turn down the temperature of racial hostility and elevate Caribbean culture.
The stage of Gaz's Rockin' Blues at Carnival. Gaz's Rockin' Blues is London's longest running one-nighter club and promotes live bands each week. Now it is an institution at Notting Hill Carnival ,as each year they create a spectacular set with a different theme.
Gaz Mayall (right) DJ's and hosts Gaz's Rockin Blues and occasionally plays live with his ska band, The Trojans. The eldest son of Blues legend John Mayall, Gaz first began Gaz's Rockin' Blues in July 1980 after a few guest appearances at the Two-Tone club on Oxford Street. Gaz also has one of the largest collections of reggae and drum and bass, picking up vinyl on nearby Portbello road.
Two of Gaz’s Rockin’ Blues longtime fans.
The first Caribbean Carnival took place at St. Pancras Hall in 1959 and was held at other venues like it over the years. It became a street extravaganza in the 1960s; attracting throngs of locals and tourists who gravitated toward the music and feel-good vibes.
College revellers wear hats in the colors of the various West Indian countries represented at Carnival.
A vendor selling various merchandise celebrating Carnival. Carnival was introduced to Trinidad by French colonials in 1783. Banned from the masquerade balls of the French, the enslaved people would stage their own mini-carnivals in their backyards using their own rituals and folklore, but also imitating and sometimes mocking their masters'. When the slaves were emancipated in 1838, Carnival took to the streets.
Nearly every year since Notting Hill started gentrifying, there have been calls to ban Carnival. Some residents claim they must leave for this weekend due to vandalism, violence, noise, gangs, and other issues. Several petitions have been launched, yet Carnival endures due to what one resident calls, “a special place in the heart of millions of Londoners… bringing together communities across the country.”
Police and Carnival-goers pass each other on the street. In past years, violence between the groups have broken out, and the first Carnival since 2019 recorded one person murdered, six people stabbed, dozens of officers assaulted and more 200 people arrested.
“At times it felt like the wealthy, white residents of the historically West Indian area and the police had spent the past three years working together in an attempt to sap the joy from one of the only truly great, uncontrollable, unruly things left about London…. but there’s nothing that can stop people coming here from all over the world to experience its chaotic joy and mammoth celebration.” — Vice.com
A store-owner makes a polite request of Carnival-goers. It was largely respected… largely.