Jamaica Carnival ready to rumble
ON Sunday, Jamaica Carnival returns after an eight-year hiatus with a parade through sections of the Corporate Area. The promotional road march is a precursor to the event’s official comeback in January 2017.
“We expect the supporters to come out as we are just giving back to the Jamaican people. We are offering a free entertainment package, so whether we get a parade of 500 or 5,000, we will be satisfied,” Julianne Lee, a director of Jamaica Carnival, told the
Jamaica Observer.
Lee, daughter of late bandleader and Jamaica Carnival founder Byron Lee, spoke Tuesday at its launch at Courtleigh Hotel and Suites in New Kingston.
Despite being off the scene since 2008, she said Jamaica Carnival has what it takes to be competitive.
“The Jamaica Carnival brand is inclusive. There is absolutely no separation, as we are all about unity and having a great time. We are having a ‘Jamaicanised’ presentation where we will be playing a mixture of soca, calypso and Jamaican music,” she explained. “We are a culturally rich country and that is what the Jamaica Carnival brand is all about.”
The Michael Ammar Jr-led Bacchanal Jamaica currently has the lion’s share of soca patrons in the Corporate Area. UWI (University of the West Indies) Carnival as well as Digicel/Appleton’s cross-country Carnival Pon Di Road are also heavy crowd-pullers.
Sunday’s parade starts at 2:00 pm at Liguanea Preparatory School on East King’s House Road, then moves to Hope Road, Waterloo Road, West King’s House Road and onto Constant Spring Road.
The ‘march’ is expected to end in Half-Way-Tree where veteran soca acts Jumo and Oscar B are scheduled to perform.
Alex Lawson, a director of Jamaica Carnival, disclosed that two music trucks will be on the route. DJ Kurt Riley, DJ Spice and Trinidadian soca artiste 5Star Akil are part of the entertainment package.
Byron Lee started Jamaica Carnival in 1990. For years, he and his Dragonaires band were a fixture on the Eastern Caribbean’s carnival circuit, especially in Trinidad.
Jamaica Carnival was a very successful venture, attracting thousands of fans to its fetes and closing day road march.
Lee died in 2008 at age 73.
