What Is The C In Carnival For?

Written by Kesensa Mordi - Young Champion of The Black Curriculum 

Just a few hours before the streets of Ladbroke Grove and other areas of North Kensington are gridlocked with tens of thousands of people, a couple hundred people are there liming with the sun just after it has finished rising. This is often unbeknownst to these tens of thousands who come ecstatic to feel a part of Europe’s largest street festival. These early limers aren’t eager beavers who couldn’t wait to get started in the celebration of Notting Hill Carnival. These are walking talking archivists - both participating in and maintaining J’ouvert. One of the most traditional parts of carnival originating from Caribbean islands Trinidad and Grenada. 

J’ouvert derives from the French word “jour ouvert” which means dawn/daybreak. This not only reflects the breaking/opening of Carnival but also the hours at which ex-slaves in Trinidad were able to celebrate their freedom with singing, masquerading, and stick fighting. There is no J’ouvert without Jab Jab masqueraders who adorn themselves in the manner of enslaved ancestors. Jab is a satirical representation of slavery. The masquerading in itself is a representation of defiance and Carnival’s role as a symbol of challenging authority and order.

“J’ouvert is spiritual, it’s something about that ancestral memory we connect to. And with that early morning, and that sun rising, it’s like a whole communal kind of atmosphere” - Sandra Bell, community organiser & masquerader in BKNY

Masqueders cover themselves in black oil (or molasses), wearing horned helmets, and carrying chains. The unreserved carefree behaviour attendees arrive with reflects the sense of freedom enslaved ancestors felt at the end of slavery. Over time the importance of live steelband music became implemented in J’ouvert - a modern way of expressing rhythm in comparison to the freed slaves' use of skin drums, hand percussion instruments, and shakers. When use of skin drums was banned by British colonial forces, freed slaves instead opted for the use of bamboo drums. 

J'ouvert’ importance is irrefutable. Culture in its simplest sense. Though originating in Trinidad and Grenada, a part of history for all those of Caribbean descent whose ancestors would have felt the same pride and need to express themselves at the end of a long period of oppression. 

The customs of J’ouvert from the music (or more the replacement of grandiose speaker systems with simpler sounds such as live steel pan) to the costume (which reenact the experiences of freed ancestors) to the hours at which people convene is something that is eternal and should live longer than all of us here in Britain. A baby birthed to emancipation cannot and shant be controlled by authority. It is a slap in the face to tradition. It is stamping on those that came before us who made sacrifices and made their best attempt to hang onto their African customs.

How can Notting Hill Carnival go on without its opening ceremony that grounds the “festival” in its roots of resistance? The choice to erase culture begs to question what is priority? J’ouvert has never historically been organised by a specific body or organisation. You have never had to RSVP or sign up to attend J’ouvert because it is an event of the people, for the people in the name of honour and celebration. Carnival is not a celebration or even a slight representation of Caribbean heritage without J’ouvert. The C in carnival might as well be commercialisation. Carnival is more than rum punch made with Wray & Nephew or grabbing a whine. Carnival is more than carni - a seemingly harmless abbreviated version that shows the real life abbreviation of what was once. An example of this abbreviation is the cancellation of J’ouvert. This abbreviation is also shown in the scanty oversexualised costumes that are often lacklustre and even worse at times presented without a cohesive theme. 

So when culture has been taken out of something that it is supposed to be seeped in, what does it become? And more importantly, who is it for? What is the C in carnival for?