DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

For the third con­sec­u­tive time and fourth over­all, The Lost Tribe has been crowned Se­nior Band of the Year in the large band cat­e­go­ry, wow­ing judges with their por­tray­al Lost In Time. The band al­so se­cured the large Band of the Year ti­tle.

Lost Tribe earned 1,324 points, com­fort­ably ahead of sec­ond-place win­ner Trinidad All Stars, which scored 1,111 points for their por­tray­al Sailors Ashore in Brazil.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia at the mas camp yes­ter­day, Lost Tribe co-founder, band­leader and cre­ative di­rec­tor Valmi­ki Ma­haraj ex­pressed grat­i­tude for the win, not­ing that the band is al­so cel­e­brat­ing its tenth an­niver­sary. He said their cel­e­bra­tions be­gan with prayer.

“Go­ing in­to the en­tire year, in­to the Car­ni­val, we were ex­treme­ly thank­ful, ex­treme­ly blessed. It re­flect­ed on the road—the way the mas­quer­aders ap­pre­ci­at­ed every­thing, the kind of con­ver­sa­tions we had with the mas­quer­aders, I felt was very en­er­gy-match­ing. And I feel thank­ful for ten years of learn­ing from those who taught us dur­ing this past time in the 10 years. And I’m re­al­ly look­ing for­ward to what the next ten years look like,” he said.

Ma­haraj ad­mit­ted that he was not ex­pect­ing the vic­to­ry.

“When we go out­side there, I go for the in­ten­tion of pre­sent­ing our band on the road, not pre­sent­ing for a win.”

In the Medi­um Band cat­e­go­ry, K2K Al­liance & Part­ners claimed the ti­tle for their pre­sen­ta­tion Holy Tres­pass­es - Life’s Sweet and Savoury Sin­ful In­dul­gences, which ex­plored life’s bit­ter­sweet mo­ments. They se­cured 1,334 points, sur­pass­ing Im­age Na­tion, which placed sec­ond with 1,173 points. Last year’s win­ner, Ki­net­ic Mas, fell to sev­enth place this year.

In the Small Band cat­e­go­ry, Trib­al Con­nec­tion Cul­tur­al Pro­mo­tions se­cured the top spot for the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive year, scor­ing 1,168 points with an­oth­er Au­then­tic In­di­an por­tray­al, as they did the year be­fore. First Cit­i­zens Orig­i­nal Jab Jab placed sec­ond for the sec­ond year in a row with their pre­sen­ta­tion, Whip Fes­ti­val, earn­ing 1,166 points.

In the Mi­ni Band cat­e­go­ry, Mokow Somokow emerged vic­to­ri­ous with 1,235 points, while Clowns ‘N’ Tongue moved up one spot from last year, fin­ish­ing sec­ond with 1,114 points.

T&T Car­ni­val Bands’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTC­BA) vice pres­i­dent Ros­alind Gabriel ex­pressed sat­is­fac­tion with the over­all ex­e­cu­tion of Car­ni­val 2025.

“2025 is the moth­er of all car­ni­vals. Be­cause every­thing in­creased ... ran well. We had more kings and queens than we ever did. We had more kings and queens, not on­ly se­niors, but ju­niors. The cos­tumes were of top qual­i­ty,” she said.

“We had an in­crease in ju­nior bands, from 64 bands in 2024 to 96 bands in 2025. And al­so, we had 16 new se­nior bands reg­is­ter­ing in 2025. So I think, all in all, we have a lot to be thank­ful for. We have a lot to be hap­py about,” she added.

Gabriel al­so high­light­ed what she saw as strong at­ten­dance at the Grand Stand, stat­ing: “Not a chair was emp­ty in this Grand Stand, and I’ve seen it in oth­er years. And I re­al­ly think (thought) at that time, where are all the peo­ple? Why don’t they come out to see the chil­dren? But this year, I didn’t have to say or think that. So, all these things we are very hap­py for. We see a great im­prove­ment in this Car­ni­val, and we are on­ly ex­pect­ing it to grow for 2026.”

How­ev­er, Guardian Me­dia ob­served emp­ty seats in the Grand Stand on Car­ni­val Tues­day. When asked about this, Gabriel clar­i­fied that she was re­fer­ring to the cen­tre of the Grand Stand, which she said was filled, while ac­knowl­edg­ing that the wings re­mained emp­ty.

“It’s al­ways that the wings are nev­er re­al­ly ful­ly pop­u­lat­ed, but the cen­tre of the Grand Stand, the cen­tre here, had a lot of peo­ple be­cause I took pho­tos,” she ex­plained.

Gabriel added that the TTC­BA and the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) will be work­ing dili­gent­ly to at­tract more spec­ta­tors to ex­pe­ri­ence mas in per­son next year.

In the Ju­nior Car­ni­val com­pe­ti­tions, the fol­low­ing bands took home top ho­n­ours:

• Mi­ni Band of the Year (Open Cat­e­go­ry): St Gabriel’s RC School — Up, Up, and Be­yond

• Small Band of the Year (Open Cat­e­go­ry): House of Jaqui — Spec­trum of Life

• Medi­um Band of the Year (Open Cat­e­go­ry): Co­co-Lily Pro­duc­tions — Tri­ni Bush Med­i­cine

• Large Band of the Year (Open Cat­e­go­ry): Ze­bapique Pro­duc­tions — Project 2025: Yuh Ever See?