KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porterkevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

While there was no State fu­ner­al at the South­ern Acad­e­my for Per­form­ing Arts (SAPA) in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day, HOPE’s deputy po­lit­i­cal leader, Karen Nunez-Tesheira, was very much rep­re­sent­ed and climbed the fence twice.

At least that was what ole mas por­tray­als in the tra­di­tion­al mas bands de­pict­ed as they brought hu­mour to J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tions in San Fer­nan­do.

With just nine mem­bers, the pop­u­lar D’Blue Boys en­ter­tained the judges and spec­ta­tors out­side SAPA with sev­er­al so­cial and po­lit­i­cal por­tray­als, in­clud­ing one of Nunez-Tesheira, a for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment min­is­ter of fi­nance and HOPE po­lit­i­cal leader Tim­o­thy Hamel-Smith climb­ing over a fence. It was a jab at the politi­cians’ con­tro­ver­sial storm­ing of for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day’s fu­ner­al on Jan­u­ary 9, when they climbed over the rail­ing to en­ter SAPA. Nunez-Tesheira de­fend­ed her break-in then, say­ing she tried to con­tact Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Amery Browne for per­mis­sion but got no re­sponse.

The band even de­pict­ed Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley in a soiled di­a­per and San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris.

Band­leader Val Ram­s­ingh said the band’s pre­sen­ta­tion, Re­Jour­ve­na­tion, was a play on the word J’Ou­vert and the need to re­ju­ve­nate ole mas, which is dy­ing.

“We al­most walked with a cof­fin this morn­ing, but it is over 43 years we are in this con­sec­u­tive­ly, and we are not giv­ing up. A mes­sage to Trinidad and To­ba­go: let us hold on­to what be­longs to us. It is not Amer­i­can-made,” Ram­s­ingh said.

Phillip and Friends al­so por­trayed Nunez-Tesheira jump­ing the fence, hold­ing a sign stat­ing, “Ah Ha 2 Get Een!” and “Re­quest De­nied”.

Thou­sands of peo­ple con­verged on the in­ner city yes­ter­day for the biggest street par­ty of the year that fea­tured pow­der, paint, con­fet­ti, wa­ter, al­co­hol, sweet so­ca and beau­ti­ful peo­ple dis­play­ing a kalei­do­scope of colour.

While J’Ou­vert of­fi­cial­ly kicked off at 4 am, it took two hours be­fore Black­heart Pro­duc­tion reached the judg­ing point as the first band, with their pre­sen­ta­tion of Colour Me Bad. But from then, there was a smooth flow of bands, un­like pre­vi­ous years when there were hour-long gaps.

Ja­ma Pro­duc­tions’ Choco­late Fac­to­ry reached the main judg­ing area at 6.25 am in their green and or­ange tees, straw hats and wigs. De­spite be­ing a mod­ern band, there were some as­pects of mud.

While there were 24 bands, a sig­nif­i­cant re­duc­tion from 2023, some of those who pre­sent­ed had huge num­bers rang­ing from hun­dreds to thou­sands of mas­quer­aders.

Rize J’Ou­vert’s Fire and Ice stormed along the Rien­zi Kir­ton High­way, cre­at­ing a haze of pow­der. South Is D Bess’ Juicy Fruit brought the whole mar­ket with a flavour­ful pre­sen­ta­tion of fruits. Poudre J’Ou­vert, one of the big bands, coloured the route in yel­low and pur­ple as they stam­ped­ed along the black car­pet, throw­ing paint and pow­der that had po­lice of­fi­cers re­treat­ing.

Glam Jam J’Ou­vert’s sec­ond year epit­o­mised a street par­ty, as jump­ing, jam­ming, pow­der and paint com­bined to cre­ate a colour­ful spec­ta­cle. Pres­tige Pro­mo­tions found it chal­leng­ing to get all their rev­ellers be­fore the judges. Some women wore lin­gerie de­signed with pasties, pre­vent­ing them from a pos­si­ble pub­lic in­de­cen­cy charge. Dev’s Bar­ber­shop Crew’s One Love brought sto­ry­telling and the­atre about stereo­types and in­jus­tices, but in the end, it was all about every­one jump­ing up to­geth­er and hav­ing fun.

Mi­cal Te­ja’s DNA and Bun­ji Gar­lin’s Car­ni­val Con­tract were the two most pop­u­lar songs played at judg­ing points, but there was va­ri­ety. Farmer Nap­py’s In De Cen­tre, Olatun­ji’s In­ven­tor, Na­dia Bat­son’s Mar­ket and Kes the Band’s Mir­a­cle were al­so favourites.