An Appreciation Of Notting Hill Carnival
The first time I went to Notting Hill Carnival I was 21, which - as a Londoner - you could say was pretty late in the day. I didn’t really know what to expect; all I knew was that 2007 was the year my friends and I were going to get involved.
From that first carnival I was hooked. I mean really hooked, and I’m going to explain why. Firstly, it’s simply just the spirit of it. As soon as you step out onto those west London streets you feel part of something very special. You’re surrounded by colour, music, people with massive smiles on their faces, whistles, drums and the smell of amazing Caribbean food. You’re instantly part of a community that wants to come together to have a seriously good time. This feeling of unity isn’t surprising: the very first iteration of the carnival was in the late 50’s and was set up to unite the Caribbean community in the area after they’d been targeted in violent race riots the year before. Since then it has grown and grown, along with the atmosphere of togetherness where anyone is welcome to share a beat.
It’s a joyous mix of Steel Pan Bands, Mas and community music groups who are all following big booming sound systems being blasted out of trucks that are crawling down the streets.
Now, the beats. Music is the lifeblood of Notting Hill Carnival. Each step you take you know you’re following a rhythm from a soundsystem somewhere. There are about 40 sound systems, 10 steel pan bands and 70 performing stages playing a mix of Soca, Calypso, Dancehall, Reggae, Drum & Bass, Jungle, Ragga, Hip Hop, R&B and more. The sound systems usually come with a loyal crowd, each year returning to the same giant speakers to find exactly what they’re looking for, or just to amble around and see what pulls them in. I do a mixture of both.
My favourite sound system is Aba Shanti-I. Not only do a massive crowd of people I know from different parts of my life all gravitate here too, but the vibe is amazing. People ram in together to move to Reggae, Roots Reggae and Dub, which has a bassline so heavy you can feel your ribs judder. Another one of my favourites is Gaz’s Rockin’ Blues. Here the DJ behind the longest one-nighter, also called Gaz’s Rockin’ Blues, plays a mix of Ska, Rock ’n’ Roll and Rocksteady, which gets me in the mood at the start of the day. The rest of the time I just head down any street I like the sound of, dropping by to dance for as long or as little as I want.
We can’t talk about Carnival without talking about the parade. It is a huge long snake curving around the streets full of a mix of colours, feathers, sequins and bare skin. Hundreds of Masqueraders (Mas) create this stream of colour – the costumes are insane. The majority of them take months to make and more often than not they’ve been hand-sewn. Headdresses, peacock plumage, short shorts meet with incredible harnesses that sit on the hips, from which gravity-defying structures soar upwards in a firework of ribbons, sparkle and feathers. It’s a joyous mix of Steel Pan Bands, Mas and community music groups who are all following big booming sound systems being blasted out of trucks that are crawling down the streets.
At Carnival you’re burning off a lot of energy, so you need some food, right? Boy have you got a lot of delicious options. Jerk chicken for days, rice and peas, curried goat, rotis and pattis to name but a few. There are certain moments in my life where I wished I ate meat and Carnival, without a doubt, is one of those moments. The smell of that jerk chicken is ridiculously good and after a few Red Stripes I always get tempted. RED STRIPE. Oh my god this is the number one drink of choice during Carnival, so much so that the Notting Hill Tescos stacks fridges full of them from top to bottom. These, along with premixed bottles of rum and ginger beer with lime wedges squished in them, make my perfect Carnival drinks list (it’s a short list - but effective).
But, oh dear, after all this booze glugging you realise you need the loo. The loos are my least favourite part of Carnival, no contest. Like at festivals, you need to try and be strategic about going and you’re met with massive queues for portaloos. But to be fair, the loo situation sees a lot of local entrepreneur’s crop up who open their houses and charge people to use their facilities. I’ve definitely paid a fiver to use someone’s loo - ranging from a very swish one in a big house to a pretty sketchy basement bog.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of why Carnival is one of my favourite events of the whole year. I haven’t even mentioned the fact that it gives you the perfect excuse to wear the most colourful things in your wardrobe all at once, or the people you bump into who you haven’t seen for years, or gazing up and seeing locals watching everything out their window and thinking how lucky they are to see all of it, but then realising that you’re the lucky one because you’re in it. It’s a chance for Londoners, people in the UK and visitors from abroad to come together to celebrate different cultures and have one big massive party. So Notting Hill Carnival, I’m going to miss you this year, but I’ll see you next year - Red Stripe in hand and ready to dance.
Written by Charlotte Livingstone
Charlotte is a music obsessed south Londoner who loves dancing, crosswords, The Chase (too much) and getting out and about. She writes for a living as a Digital Content Editor and is loving being able to write for fun with The Everyday.