D An­tho­ny Black­man

Dur­ing slav­ery, the mas­ters cel­e­brat­ed Car­ni­val in an Eyes Wide Shut mas­quer­ade ball set­ting, danc­ing in­to the wee hours of the morn­ing, while the slaves mim­ic­ked and mocked their mas­ters' Car­ni­val, con­fined to their yards. Af­ter eman­ci­pa­tion, the freed Africans con­tin­ued to play mas in their yards, but would hit the streets, no sleep, straight from the fete, just as we did when steel­band was it. What came to be known as J'Ou­vert and ole mas was our fore­fa­thers' way of char­ac­ter­is­ing their for­mer mas­ters as dev­ils from hell. The sig­na­ture mas was the jab mo­lassie–mo­lassie is a word of French ori­gin for mo­lasses–they used mo­lasses to paint their faces and bod­ies to play the jab mo­lassie mas; clear­ly this is the rea­son­ing be­hind the use of oil and mud to­day.

Ole mas, like par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege, was ide­al­ly used by the slaves to taunt the mas­ters. In more mod­ern times, in ad­di­tion to paint­ing the face and the body, ole mas cos­tumes were cre­at­ed from old cloth­ing, and old any­thing you could put your hands on. From a steel band per­spec­tive, J'Ou­vert had the oil or mud in the back of the band, lots of ole mas char­ac­ters in be­tween, rev­el­ers chip­ping to bomb tunes fore-day morn­ing, and tak­ing a straight of some­thing hard at the first glimpse of day­light. To­day's youth pre­fer what the Car­ni­val mar­ket­ing ma­chine rolls out. Ole mas has be­come a stereo­type, all-in­clu­sive, big truck, al­most naked, and smeared in coloured mud. There is no more em­pha­sis on cre­ativ­i­ty, satire, or car­i­ca­tures of cur­rent is­sues. I am amazed at the com­fort with the price of play­ing ole mas, and even fur­ther in­trigued by the will­ing­ness to move up the all-in­clu­sive lad­der for a bet­ter mar­ket­ing mix, or prob­a­bly a brighter coloured mud.

What would be a young per­son's po­si­tion if they de­cid­ed to jump with a steel band for free? I guess they would be brand­ed as old school and cheap, not as a con­ser­va­tion­ist of cul­ture. A large per­cent­age of adults have aban­doned J'Ou­vert be­cause of the ab­sence of steel band and ole mas and the high prob­a­bil­i­ty of be­ing robbed or raped by a gang of thugs. Many oth­ers skip J'Ou­vert to meet the Car­ni­val ma­chine for 9/10 am on Mon­days. What fur­ther ex­ac­er­bates the above is the loss of the steel band and ole mas cul­tures, and the re­al­i­ty that the fear of the streets at J'Ou­vert has been in­ad­ver­tent­ly re­vived. The me­dia and the grapevine, up un­til 2010, were un­able to con­vince me that I had any­thing else to fear, oth­er than the dis­ap­pear­ance of steel bands on the road for J'Ou­vert. I have wit­nessed a few pet­ty jew­el­ry snatch­es, fights and the odd stab­bing over the years. I have heard ru­mors of the gang rapes and rob­beries in the all-in­clu­sive mud bands, as jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for tak­ing J'Ou­vert back to 4 am from a 2 am start. But this year, 2010, I hon­est­ly had a case of the jit­ters.

Af­ter ob­serv­ing the crime pre­ven­tion mea­sures of stay­ing clear of de­sert­ed streets and avoid­ing short cuts, a trek in Wood­brook, from Gat­acre St to Hamil­ton St, via Ari­api­ta Av­enue, was pure para­noia. Ari­api­ta Av­enue is lined with restau­rants and bars. DJ mu­sic out­side these es­tab­lish­ments at­tracts hordes of young peo­ple, and in­deed the thugs. There­fore, in ad­di­tion to the risks in­volved in nav­i­gat­ing through or around these crowd­ed sec­tions, one al­so had to get past groups of gri­mac­ing young men, ad­vanc­ing with a clean-sweep ac­tion, reek­ing of hate and vi­o­lence, and the mes­sage loud and clear–we are pow­er­ful, we do not re­spect the law, we do what­ev­er, when­ev­er we choose. Maybe it was di­vine guid­ance, but af­ter pass­ing through three to four such groups, I man­aged to reach the pa­n­yard un­scathed. More ten­sion and bad news as the band pulled out: St James on lock down be­cause a fe­male po­lice of­fi­cer was shot in the face and a male of­fi­cer was stabbed on Ari­api­ta Av­enue.

Nev­er­the­less, be­ing in Phase II, chip­ping to William Bell's soul­ful 60's clas­sic, Every Day Will be Like a Hol­i­day, was enough ther­a­py to al­lay my fears. Af­ter an hour or so of sweet pan, more dra­ma un­fold­ed on Tra­grete Road. The rev­el­ers part­ed like the Red Sea on the Is­land Peo­ple in­ter­sec­tion, as ap­prox­i­mate­ly 30 youths spread across the street with the same sweep­ing style, crawl­ing through the band lit­er­al­ly search­ing for prey. Per­haps it was di­vine in­ter­ven­tion again, be­cause just one small in­ci­dent oc­curred, when a hand­ful of the thugs raid­ed a small ven­dor/bar on the traf­fic is­land. Apart from that, there were no oth­er in­ci­dents. With no ap­par­ent ca­su­al­ties, the J'Ou­vert sweet­ness con­tin­ued up Tra­grete Road. An over­whelmed fe­male steel­pan afi­ciona­do sight­ed Sharpe's mu­sic as "or­gas­mic," as we head­ed for town. In a cir­cuit from Green Cor­ner, up Park Street in­to Pic­cadil­ly Street, down Duke Street, and back, noth­ing of the sort hap­pened–no DJs, no crowds, and no thugs.

Isn't it puz­zling pan folks, that back in the day, jump­ing in a steel­band in town was the most un­safe sit­u­a­tion, and cur­rent­ly, the said steel­band is the safest?