Valmiki Maharaj on Carnival, Creativity & Building Cultural Experiences | The Corie Sheppard Podcast

Valmiki Maharaj — Creative Director of The Lost Tribe, Director of TRIBE, and head of Ultimate Events — joins The Corie Sheppard Podcast for a deep conversation on creativity, Carnival, culture, and the business of building unforgettable experiences.

From redefining modern mas to coordinating IShowSpeed’s viral Trinidad IRL stream, Valmiki shares the vision, pressure, and innovation behind some of Trinidad & Tobago’s most impactful cultural moments.

The conversation explores:
• The evolution of TRIBE and The Lost Tribe
• Creativity, storytelling, and experiential design
• The future of Carnival and preserving authenticity
• The business behind large-scale events
• Coordinating global productions and viral moments
• Youth culture, identity, and Trinidad’s global image
• Leadership, resilience, and purpose-driven work

A powerful discussion on culture, innovation, and the responsibility of shaping experiences that represent Trinidad & Tobago to the world.

#coriesheppardpodcast #ValmikiMaharaj #TRIBE #TheLostTribe #Carnival #TrinidadAndTobago #Podcast #Culture

Transcript

Cold Open And Streamer Chaos

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I wanna ask tough true right now because my foot still hits my demand name. Speed and joke boy. Well he's hey mass designers are not real designers. We used to get that all the time. I was to study Doctor Lawyer. Oh mom, I could be the next Gianni Versace. Who is that? I was going to go to Canada, I was going to go to London. And if I went there, I really believe I would have never come back. Go to say na na na. You supposed to be here and nah here. And one day, my phone rang and Dean called and said, Hey Mo, you want to meet you about two costumes. Afterwards, when I talk to him and Zania, they'll be like, Yeah, you're annoying. You just get messaging with it. As creatives, we are hardwired to dream. It has no box. It's only ask I. I think going to business school upground me. You grew up into the Hinduest Hindu that ever Hindu.

From Speed To Showcasing Trinidad

Corie 1:01

Welcome back to everybody. Thank you for everybody who's tuned in. Glad to have new people on board. Today I have somebody who we all excited to talk about. We have Valmiki Mirage, director of Lost Tribe, creative director of Tribe. And many other things we're gonna talk about today, right? Morning, morning. Plenty things. Plenty things, plenty things. Where are you doing? Doing good, doing good. Happy to be here. Same, same, same. Happy to have you here. You recover yet? I see you with speed yesterday the other day.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Boy, I wanna I wanna ask off true right now because my foot still hits on my man and him. Speed and joke boy. Real peace.

Corie 1:31

I see you trying to get him in a dressing room. I ain't think I laugh so in a long time. So you want a dressing room to change over your customer?

SPEAKER_00 1:38

I was being polite. And the man say, Chat, tell him how he's doing it. I say, alright.

Corie 1:44

So you were involved in the whole thing? What was your role in the in speed coming to Trinidad?

SPEAKER_00 1:48

We were. So one day, very randomly, a couple of weeks ago, I got a call from Che, Masha's manager, who is, I mean, an amazing person, a great creative, really love him. And he reached out about this project. And I mean, for me and our entire Ultimate Events team, the whole Lost Tribe family, like, we just jump at any opportunity to, you know, show Trinidad in the right way. So as soon as I heard even the beginning of it, not even the details. And I'm not gonna lie to you, like, even to be honest, I wasn't 100% sure who speed was. Okay, you know, I've seen his face, I've uh but I'm not a streamer consumer. Right. You know, I've seen clips of him, but I never really like uh um like looked at the streams themselves in the ways that I'm doing right now. So between research on him, but also, you know, trying to find a way to take all of most of the image of the reputation of Trinan Zabago and squeeze it into one little geographical area and five hours. I mean, it was a whirlwind couple of weeks. It was so nice. So you all knew five hours is what he was kind of planning for anyway. We knew that. So we got certain instructions from him to be honest. Speech team is incredibly organized, Chase team, the gifted team. Um, Cameron, Lorraine, all of it, they're incredibly organized. And so I think working with them made it a lot easier. On our side, Ultimate Events, Kendall Gabi, everybody was able to sit down and, you know, in a very logistical way, take something that isn't necessarily logistical normally and find a way to present it. Um, learning from, you know, learning from the fact that this was not a national geographic person coming to Trinidad. This was not uh Anthony Baudin coming to Trinidad. This was something different for a different audience, for a different space. And, you know, that was really interesting to me because newness excites me.

Corie 3:31

Yeah. Yeah. Well, the chaos of I see speed um streams before. Yeah. I see him go to different countries. They had one in particular, I want to say it's no way. Wait, he was almost trapped in a building. So much people outside. So when I saw the thing advertised and I say speed coming to the Caribbean, of course, my son is 13, so he's up on it, right? He is the target audience. That's right. So he didn't stop watching it, he watched you whole five hours. Wow. But him being excited about speed coming to the Caribbean, we have no idea that Etrinidad is the first stop. Assuming you all knew that and so on. So there's a lot of organization behind what we've seen as chaos.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

Um just now that the knowledge of the consumer, the knowledge of the platform, the knowledge of the style of product in itself is just so important, you know. What you would put on one type of channel and one type of program, what you will put here is very different. So how we will present it in that space. And I think that made it even more exciting because uh, for many of us, we've never seen our country presented in that way, and even for us who designed it, we have never seen the country presented in that way before. To the point that I look back on it now and I was like, wow, there's so many more things I would have wanted to do that, you know, resources um did not permit. But uh, it really was an amazing experience.

Corie 4:45

Well, I looked at it beyond Trinidad and I saw I see St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Barbados. The last one I saw up to last night was St. Martin. Yeah. But congrats, you all did an amazing job from us. Thank you so much. Behind all of it looks like a lot of chaos. And I suppose Carnaval is like that in a way as a masquerader. I don't know that I want to know the nuts and bolts of it. But congrats because when I saw what was presented, I kind of knew what would happen in terms of the youths coming out everywhere and stuff. But little by little, thanks for starting St. James. That was important, you know what I mean? That was critical. But I saw where you all moved him through. How you decide on what locations you're gonna take him to, what cultural experiences you wanted them to have, and so on.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

So, to be honest, what you would have seen presented came um as an abbreviation of a much larger plan. So we laid out many other locations, we were able to time it backwards, literally based on time, based on movement, also based on the behavior of the subject, you know, like he he is our our focus point. So we we wanted to design it in a way that uh there would be almost natural reactions to what came next. So as he's approaching the pan, yeah, the pan has to start to play. He has to naturally hear the noise. So if you notice, every time it was a lot of sound related. So every time he arrived at a space, there would be sound or there would be something loud for him to naturally. We didn't even have to tell him, hey, look across there, something is happening, he's gonna run towards it, you know. Um, I'm not gonna lie to you, I did not anticipate the amount of kids. No, no, because I'll tell you something, you know, Chinese, we are a very cool for school people. We are not a groupy customer. We don't play the celebrity team. We definitely do not, you know. We would line next to Marshall and Lara on the corner and Beyonce Parsons then, and like we were just next, okay, Beyonce Palance, yay! You know, like it's just cool. So this is just it was just so exciting, I think, for me to see like, you know, the behavior of a new generation, the reaction to this guy, especially even. It was exciting to see all their parents message me and call me afterwards and be like, who is this man and why are my kids going crazy for him? And I was like, You don't know your child watching holy. Your child is watching this.

Corie 6:48

We don't, we don't, I can tell you we don't. You can't keep up with them five hours at a time. You can't keep up with them. Us a TV show is half hour, 45 minutes, an hour. So when they have their phone on and they have a layer pod one sided, yeah, they always connect it to something and likely a speed or the likes of him.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

Well, something like that. And I think, you know, I I I kind of in the mask, and we were talking about it afterwards. I compared it to like years ago as a child. I remember people people speaking about the covers of magazines being graced by supermodels alone at one era, and then at some point in time, Anna put um celebrities on it, and there was a lot of confusion as to okay, why are these celebrities? They're not as beautiful, they're not as this, whatever. And she's like, no, but they have they have presence in their own right, they have something else in their own right. And now you have content creators, you have streamers. So I suppose maybe some people may describe it as the new era of celebrity, but also a new design of activity, you know, in terms of uh, I've never seen anybody run behind a car in Trinidad. I've seen people run behind music trucks, but not a car with a prison on it.

Corie 7:46

They run behind um Princess Margaret and the Queen hunting back in the day.

SPEAKER_00 7:49

Right.

Corie 7:49

But I don't know what it is.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

But you know what was really, really nice

Pride, Parenting And A New Celebrity

SPEAKER_00 7:53

though? Like uh, and I I saw this discussion start online. Forget the foreign eye, forget uh the foreign celebrity. Being able to see our kids outside or our people outside in a way that I have not seen in years. When is the last time you see the children outside away from their TV, away from their devices, you know? When is the last time, even Carnival, Carnival, you know, you don't see as much families on your road now as you used to when they passed them? When is the last time you felt a moment of, you know, Trinidad in the way that you felt? I saw people running on the streets with their um national flag mandanas on, and I felt really proud about it, just out of the periphery, whilst in the middle of the chaos. Since that time to now, every single day in the mass camp, the TV is on the stream. When is the last time you felt a moment of cribbing pride like this? Like I was I literally tweeted that the other day. I said, when is the last time we felt a moment that as a region that we were together, both joking about whose KFC is better than the other person or who did a better show than the other person, but also in terms of it's just a beautiful thing to see, you know?

Corie 8:54

I think so, especially young children like that. You know what I mean? When I saw the top of Charlotte Street, there's one appointing a streamer watching, right? And um, he leaving downtown, guys, just after KFC. And I hear the security say, corner park and Charlotte Street. Yeah. I say, Oh Lord, I say, you know what we're only knowing, you're gonna see when you reach it. Because there's a bunch of children home for people who never see it before, always trying to figure out where he's gonna go next. That's what they do in every country. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So by the time you reach, it's chaos at the top of Charlotte Street. But the the the the eclectic nature of what was presented, it presented, I want to say, I know you say it's a shortened version, I can't imagine what the long version was like, but for a viewer, it felt like it presented all of us. The people in Woodbrookyard, they know this thing coming, because it looked like people was just there buying their joke chicken. Some of them did, like Chow knew.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

And my new though, but yeah, but even that in itself was designed too. Because I said, you know, one of the things that's most special but most hilarious about Trinidad's is our just our natural reaction. So when he walked in Woodbrookyard and he shook the old man's hand, I was in pieces. I was looking at it on my phone and I could not stop laughing. And the old man was like, Who's this man? What's happening? You know, and then the lady, the other lady he went to afterwards talking to her. She can't understand her. He can't understand her. And she's just like, Did you go on back to the first day? It was hell.

Corie 10:12

Invaded. Do you see excitement on them trim face playing?

SPEAKER_00 10:17

I let me tell you, big shout out to Invaders. They they were, we could not hope for a better opening. We couldn't hope for hope for a better stop. They were perfect. Every single thing about them and that entire piece was just my probably my favorite for the whole day. Yeah, yeah.

Corie 10:31

And I see him up the islands. One of the things that he complains about a lot is if this the stream's slowing down, he doesn't need speed, I guess. So it kept moving, kept moving, kept moving. Eventually, all took him on the avenue, and now it's by it's by lost tribe. What was the experience like when he coming in there for you?

SPEAKER_00 10:46

I mean, for me, obviously, wearing the both hats at the same time in that moment was very special. On one side, you know, every single year, our mass camp runs throughout the entire year. It's a it's a home, it's uh it's a space of lifestyle, it's a space of, you know, everything is joy, you know. But as a space of Trinidadian Pride, to be able to welcome the eyes of the world into that space in that moment was very special to me. Um, we were able to work alongside not only our own um Lush Tribe committee members and so, but our family of black bands, tribe less hearts were all there, their costumes were there, um, different members of our team were there. Jaiso was there, Charlo one day with the um Moko Jumbi stilt walking. We had a whole discussion about that with his team from before, you know. Hey, like, you know, would he want to try it? Would he want to, you know, and they said, Yeah, this man is abuse when it comes to anything athletic. You know, he is ready for it. Um, while Charlo was trying to like strap him up, he was ready to go up, you know, already. Like he wasn't even waiting. Walked out on the streets. I was just like, Oli open the gate, the man go in, like go to him, you know. Go time. And then of course Attila and they came on. Um, and even that in terms of the logistical planning, you know, there wasn't enough time to go behind the bridge to like physically with driving and so to get him across here and back. And so we had to bring the Campbell in the city. I see, that was originally thought to do the I see originally. We were like, you know, I want to take him to you know authentic spaces, I want to carry him to South, I want to come to Central, I want to carry him to EDB and Shakon Maracas. But you know, in terms of again what streaming is, um, the time in the car would have been difficult, and um, you know, it's it's not it would not be well tailored for that platform.

Corie 12:21

Yeah, and I mean they did well. Salute to Attila and then keep going on the crew because his stick fighting was one of the highlights of the thing too. He partaking try everything, he tried the whip, it was it was nice to see.

SPEAKER_00 12:30

And then I saw Miss Ainto Attila's mom came and you know, she hugged him up and she blessed him, and I was like, oh my god, this was just so special.

Corie 12:36

Well, it makes that that that make my whole when I see something like that. Another part of it that makes me whole is Peter Minchell. Deliberately all plan out that to see him.

SPEAKER_00 12:43

Yep. Um, Che had reached out to him, and you know, I was very happy that he was able to, you know, that he was able, that he was feeling well, that he, you know, was able to greet him and welcome him in a way that only Minchel could. Yeah, yeah.

Corie 12:59

And he respected that. He respected that. He'll brief him and say, or he just experienced it as well.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

Definitely briefing. There was briefing, but briefing again, in the way that uh in the way that you would brief somebody that you still want them to have an authentic experience. Yeah, so they'd be surprised. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.

Why Lost Tribe Exists

Corie 13:17

Well, let me talk some mass things now. From the time you reach here, people go expect me to talk about masks. Right. And original people who listen to this podcast, they asked me when I sat, right? I tell you six years ago. So the original people waiting for me to tell you, thank you. Congrats to you as well. Ten years is Lost Tribe, no? 10 or 11. Where we are now? Boy, it's going on 12. 12.

SPEAKER_00 13:35

Last year was 11. Last year was 11.

Corie 13:37

Amazing, amazing experience. And uh, the people who listen in long time will hear me say many times, I'll say, Boy, I playing mass, but I can't play in Lost Tribe. Everybody I know in Lost Tribe have real opinions, like strong opinions about things, right? Everybody had only masqueraders. There's the people who did brightness.

SPEAKER_00 13:53

I didn't know I didn't know where you were going when you said you can't play lost tribe. I was like, What do you want to say in the way?

Corie 13:57

I need to be naked as close to naked as possible. I need two or three days where I could forget the rest of the world and all that. So, what one of the main things they would they expect in me to actually hear about is those origins, like what it was like for you starting it. Because first thing I hear Lost Ride is close.

SPEAKER_00 14:12

Well, I think that's a a very, very, very clear misconception. Um, it definitely isn't close. What I would say, what I would say more than that is uh is the use of something that is bigger than just a bead and a feather. You know, I think when Lost Ride started in terms of what materials is it took a very clear standpoint that we're not going to, and honestly, this was in just a response to critics generally who would say, hey, mass designers are not real designers. We used to get that all the time. Yeah. I'm like, yeah, so if you think I could only design with a bead and a feather, I'm gonna show you that I can't. I could design with uh crown corks, I could design with uh tie straps, I could design with a variety of different items that are just there sitting in front of you. And you know, the band has uh embraced that and carried materials as an agent for storytelling, which is our heritage as Trinidad throughout the past 11 years.

Corie 15:00

Yeah, and the more I say that is the more I see people close to me, some of my best friends, so the Hinksons, the Thompsons, my wife, they play nowhere else but Lost Stripe. Oh, I appreciate it. Yeah, yeah by year, I see you all build something. I want to

Monday Themes And Masquerader Co-Creation

Corie 15:13

talk about that Monday versus Tuesday thing and how the liberty experiences for you because Lost Stribe, the impact on your road visibly or visually. So you had one year my wife played and it was almost like an electric green or yellow. Me or colours and design, forgive me, but it was bright. And there's a the year you all played white, you could see it. The only band you could identify on your road clearly, I find is Lost Stribe. It's like you know they're coming. It's deliberate for you that that Monday versus Tuesday.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

Very deliberate. So as an old masquerader, I mean, as I would say, as a mass man, first I want to say a mass man, as bunji say a road man. You know, like I love playing mask to the point that Carnival Sunday night now, no matter how tired I am, how many things I have to do, from the time I hear the truck start up, normally rare answers on Mukorapol Street. So I hear Juve trucks kind of starting up, boys can't sleep, I was getting excited, you know, still. Um, but saying that Monday is my favorite day. It's my it's my my that's like that's my mask day even to now, you know, it's my day of freedom. And we have seen everything from the days when mass creators would wear a piece of their costume on Monday, all of their costume on Tuesday. We saw the birth of Monday wear, and we saw it into the way it was right now. And I just felt that, you know, we are one of the few islands that have a two-day carnival, a strong, full two-day carnival. And I didn't want it to just be one day is an anticipation of the other day. I felt like it needed to be a true two-day experience. One carnival, two experiences. And so from the first year of Lustri, we started theming the Monday. We've it it has gone through a variety of different you know phases. Apart from colour, which always has intention, we've also used it as a day of messaging. So um thematically, one year we did a say your peace campaign, and everybody was given uh what do you call it? A standard with a blank placard on it, and you could write what you want. And we saw everything from you know people posting their own political type of messages to people literally posting an arrow down and bull, wine here, you know, like it was just people just just as trainies do, you know, we're saying what we want to say. One year we had the love campaign, which literally was white t-shirts that said love is, and people would write what love is. Some people wrote their significant other, some people wrote love is wine here again, you know, like it's just chaos. Yeah, serious matters, yeah, right? So they're doing their thing, and that kind of evolved into an idea of messaging more and more. The colour from a design standpoint for me is something that has always been beautiful. I think the first year that we did really a strong, strong, solid one colour was the yellow. And when I saw the band come out in the yellow, it was just like you know, like when you have that aha moment in your head as a designer, and going into COVID, you mentioned the white, the white was just like a wash-in for me. Like I saw people in their white costumes, it's also a day that I say, you know, we designed the Tuesday, the masquerader designs the Monday because they make most of them make their own costumes and they get very serious about it. So people came into town, they wore the white, and there was something significant to me about that washing or blessing happening just before COVID. When that was happening, COVID was already in development, if you will, you know, we didn't know. We didn't know what was coming next. And I look back on it now, and even when I think about those years that we went through, you know, whether you call it a uh a rebirth, whether you call it a pause, whatever you call it, something about that white and a Nancy being there was always significant to me. Coming out of COVID, um, every single year, whether it be something that's energy related, when we did Mirror Monday, which was very related to the fact of reflection, you know, I want to look in a mirror and see myself. That's what our 10 years represented for us. I felt like, you know, every year, as simplistic as it may be in terms of a colour, there's always a deeper meaning behind it for me as a designer. And so it gives me more room to play beyond just presenting one theme on Tuesday. Sure, sure.

Corie 19:04

I have two questions about you as a designer as well, but for the masquerade as a designer, uh, when Attila was here, Attila was talking about us giving up our creative side. Because when I grew up, I grew up in St. James and making your own costume was a real home thing. Everybody I know they make a costume and they play a mask, sailors still do it, many, many people. So, even in that, a part of what you're looking at is the contribution people make to their own costumes, whether it's through the signage or making their own pieces.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

So it's one of my favorite things to see, you know. Like now, think about mask like fashion for the purpose of this question, right? You walk into a store, or better yet, I go online, I go open a magazine, I see this top and this pants, I see this chain, this watch, this glasses, and I go and I say nigh buying the exact same thing. Some people do that. Some people say, Wow, I love this shirt, and I'm gonna style it with something else. That is what we see when we see masqueraders. I just always say our mass is kinetic and we design half of it, right? What you see on the road, the masqueraders dance life into it. So, what you see, the way that it moves, is very different to how it looks in the photo shoot where we style it, you know, the way that they wear it, the type of shoes they wear with it, the type of earring they wear with it, and we take that further on the Monday where we tell you, hey, we're wearing green and you take that and go with it. People choose their shade of green to suit their skin tone, they choose their shade of outfit to suit their body type, and also to this it takes on a very spiritual frame for them as well. Like some people say, nah, I want to make a backpack. Some people say no. On Tuesday, I'm wearing something that's more covered, and so on Monday I want to be naked or outside, you know. So it's always interesting for me to have conversations with the masquerader to speak about what their carnival experience is in terms of what they put into the carnival experience. I understand, yeah. So it's a co-creation, it's a co-creation, 100%. So I could come naked or good. Yeah, I could come naked.

Corie 20:55

Be inside what you say, problems, problems solved immediately. When you talk about designer, there was something I read where you said there was a moment between you and Dean where you felt like it sort of boxed in with what you were doing before. Was it the beads and feathers thing? You were trying to move beyond that as a designer?

SPEAKER_00 21:13

Boy, the thing is, right? Remember I was raised, I was raised in the Church of Tribe, uh, you know, like when I started designing, I started playing masks. Like tribe started when I was in. Yeah, I was in QRC still. And so before you move on.

Corie 21:27

Did you tell speed to say cursey's majestic?

SPEAKER_00 21:29

I did not know. And honestly, all right.

Corie 21:33

I feel like if, you know, you went to KRC, right? Yes. And speed just happened to say curse majestic. All that school only pass.

SPEAKER_00 21:41

Speed pass in front of building, but when it's nice and nice of speed, speed pass in front of the building and speed say, oh, they got Hogwarts schools here. And I was like. All right, sorry. But when I was in school, I used to say the same thing here, you know? I was like, hey, it looks like Hogwarts. Anyway. I think go ahead. Sorry, yeah. Um, you see, you know, I forget where I was. From design in, you were talking about growing up in the world. Oh yeah, like okay, so yes, I was raised there and everything I knew about the mass, if I objectively speaking, came from what I saw around me. I started playing Mass and Hearts, I jumped through bands, I did these storm other bands, run around the place with my friends, and I did these starting to play mass, and I started to play Mass and Tribe. You know, I started working and designing there as well, and I found fertile ground. I found a space where I could grow. Curryboy, they have nothing I could tell to you more than God that would have come into me to say that this is not your landing point. This is your starting point. Because I look back on it now, and I mean, as I was telling you earlier, I haven't seen one of those interviews in a long time. But there came a moment where I just knew that, you know, whether whether it be like you were in a shell or you just kind of outgrew, that there had to be something else. And I have no explanation apart from God, apart from fate, apart from the universe saying the time is right, something else has to happen, you know. I mean, life was good, you know. If you look at it, I said, you know, I was designing sections, I had a section. Um, so many things were happening for me in the environment of what was carnival then for me. Um and then I look back on it now. Was I happy? Yes. Um, did I feel fully satisfied inside? No, and I had no explanation for that. Uh was the carnival different then to what it is right now? A hundred percent. Like it's undeniable to me from an objective standpoint that you know, Lost Tribe entering the carnival space has done something for me as a masquerad, but also for me as a designer that has, you know, changed everything around it.

Corie 23:43

Yeah, I never thought about it from your perspective. Like you would hear people critiquing the beads and thing and but I never thought about what it would feel like for a designer who put their heart and soul into this thing that when you reach on your road now, people just say there's no creativity. That was that was said a lot.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

Let me tell you something, yeah. The thing is, it's really, and I defending my fellow designers here with that. Imagine being a designer who you are designing for two things part of it is heritage, the other part of it is you are designing a commercial art, you're designing something to sell, you're designing within a framework of trend, of colour palette, of cost, of so many things right now. You're designing for the modern carnival, which is different if you're designing for a competition, an individual, a one-piece traditional mask, etc. You're designing for a specific frame. You have spent so much time investing thought and emotion into what that is there, and I see them do it. Whether you consider it a piece of thing here and a piece setting there, a piece of thing there, whatever the piece of thing is. The fact is, these people sit down and they invest so much time into putting that out there. And I always tell people try it before you criticize them and see if it all look the same, you know. Sometimes you would look at a bra and you will say, Oh, that's a green one, that's a blue one. But the intricacies of the choosing of the gems, the placement of the jewelry, etc., that is design. And you know, maybe one day I would love to invite people into our design meetings with our specifically our bikinian bead mass designers, our lost tribe designers, which is an adjacent design practice to the bikinian bead mass design as it is called. Um, but it's not easy, you know, it's it's difficult. And also I have so much respect for especially young designers, young women who are getting involved in a space that is, you know, it's difficult. Carnival is a loud space. So for you to make a name for yourself as a young designer in this space, you have to come and you have to come good.

Corie 25:35

Yeah, and from the commercial standpoint, I suppose the demand is there because I want I want beads and feathers, whatever my version of that is, I just need to let loose for two, two or three days if I can get it to the squeezing.

SPEAKER_00 25:45

And when you think about that, like you sometimes you speak to people and they speak about the changing nature of Carnival. Carnival at no matter what you consider it to be at its core, it is a space for freedom, it is a space for self-expression and a space for self-discovery. I see mass creators walking inside the showroom intending to buy the green costume, and they walk to the red and say, Call me. And they can't explain it. I have to play mass in that. I see lustri mass creators walking in the showroom and walking in the showroom for five days straight, every day with Google open in front of them, and they're researching because they want to play a character. So no matter what, what you are describing, there is a character. That is not Cory for the other 300 and something days for the year, you know. Back in the day, I used to remember my mother talking about the ban girls. There was always the ban girls, right? So the ban girls, and you know, they're proper, they were, they were, they were, they and the flight attendants were an image of beauty and stature. They were well behaved and they were aspirational. That's right. And then the two days on your road, then the brandy panty, and they're running on your road. Years later, here I am now in the belly, the beast of the brandy panty. And uh I looked at it and I was like, you know what? But there's something, there's something on the reverse side of it true about that. That for all these days of the year, whether you consider yourself trapped in the snow, trapped in a cubicle, trapped in a suit, for two days, you can release yourself and rejuvenate to an extend that no matter what happens for the other 300 and something years that you go back to, that you will be able to survive that positively.

Corie 27:11

100%. And when you bring up COVID, it's one of them times. Well, we saw what the absence of that did to our collective psyche, you know, that that release or reset or whatever people see it as or view it as.

SPEAKER_00 27:21

For

COVID Lessons And Creative Expansion

SPEAKER_00 27:22

sure. COVID was uh I I don't think for the rest of my life I would ever fully understand what COVID was. I think that it was probably one of the hardest, if not the hardest time in my entire life. It really mashed way up, you know, it mashed way up. But the fact that we were able to survive in every stance of the way, from a spiritual stance, an emotional stance, a financial stance, the fact that we were able to bring a master year after. To me, when I saw the band on the road, I was like, you could do this, you know, is weird. I didn't know if it was coming out. And we said, you know, we go in with it. Um, but I look back on it now and I'm very thankful for COVID. Um, I have a painting on my wall in the mass camp. I did a start back painting during COVID. Clearly, I had time on my hands. And I represented COVID as like a goddess, you know, like the idea, the ideology of a goddess as, you know, that goddess of destruction and creation, you know, which I suppose in many many ways may like mirror, you know, my Hindu heritage. And uh, I looked at it and I said, if COVID didn't come, so many things would not be where it is right now. I do not think the mass would be where it is. I think it'll be somewhere else and somewhere way far beyond. If COVID didn't come, I would not be able to order Price Mart online and get delivered to my house. I don't go to Price Mart, it is the greatest thing in my life. I cannot tell you how thankful I was. You don't understand. Matters settle now. I'm talking to you right now and I'm thinking about something I'm going to add to my cart. And then I reach all my groceries are there. You know? But but it it it pushed the mass forward, it pushed us forward as a people. It allowed me to create and produce um Love Way with our team, with our team, which was a movie. I never thought I was making a movie, you know. But the things that went into the creation of Love Way, the things that I drew, the things that I opened a book did, and then I found a sketch and I found notes of something. And I said, Wow, boy, I'm really thankful. I'm happy that it happened. And you know, I can't wait to see what comes in the future because I feel like it's an action that has many reactions to come in the future for all of us.

Corie 29:35

Oh, wait, you, oh, true. And another one of my misconceptions, but because you involved in Lost Tribe and all the bands, really, as well as ultimate events, the production of Love Way. In my mind, I guess because of how visually different it looks on your road, I always feel like if Lost Tribe is its separate thing and everybody who in Lost Tribe in a different space from everybody else. That's not the way it operates.

SPEAKER_00 29:54

So, you know, it's a it's a you you are correct, and there's many layers to it. We are very lucky, I think, to be a family of bands that uh operate as imagine that as like a family of kids, you know, each person has their own characteristics, their own identity, their own everything. But we sit down and we eat dinner together, you know, and that's what it is, you know. Tribe, Lost Tribe, Hearts, Bliss, uh, a band that, as I say, I grew up in that church, you know, and I've seen the birth of all of them. I I grew in the mass camp as Bliss came into being and Bliss grew. Um, I grew and saw what Salange has done for Hearts. I saw what Dean has done from a child playing mass into working with the band. And there's so much that I have learned in this space, and by extension, there's so much that the brands gain from each other, you know. Um, there's so much that we gain from the experience of our big sister tribe, there's so much we gain from the experience of the type of mass creators of Bliss and Hearts. There's so much that we gain from the cultural sensitivity of Lost Tribe. And it's a really beautiful thing to see that when we sit um both as a group of managers and a group of friends, because you know, our management team are people who I have known for the majority of my life, who have sat with me through hard times and good times, and who cheer me on as much as we positively criticize each other. And I think that that's something, there's something really, really strong, really strengthening about that.

Corie 31:19

And the overlap is also on the design side, or is it a business kind of overlap? So, for instance, you as a designer, you work on other things with the other bands?

SPEAKER_00 31:25

Definitely do. So, what we do in terms of design, um, we have individual pillars of design, which I think is important because the mass needs individual projects. I always say that. Um but in terms of design, when we get to a certain point, we invite other heads of design to come and be a part of it, give criticism, assist, you know. Like I am very involved in the later stages of Tribe and Bliss at different stages, you know. So they would start Rihanna would choose a theme, Daniel would choose a theme, they will meet with their designers, they will do all the intricate work, and then when they present to all of us as a team, we will all be a part of it and support each other. Similarly, to when I have my design meetings, Solange comes across, Renee will come across, who's our head of production, you know. And there's an integration that I think is important because uh, as I mentioned, like when you add all of us into the room, you have a powerhouse of experience that is I mean, I don't know anywhere else in the world you could find that in terms of the expertise of Carnival.

Corie 32:18

Yeah, and executing on it at a high level for many, many years. Yeah. So I know I know business is one of the things you did business in school, yes?

Business Training That Grounds Art

SPEAKER_00 32:26

I did, yeah. So you didn't study design, you went to school for business only. No, my mother said she wants a mind for the rest of my life. And she said, go to school. I was to study doctor or lawyer. Of course, she's right. It only had two, it had no other option, needless to say. I I this I have spoken about before, but I love her for it because I look back and I say, you know, mom, there were no examples for me to show you at the time to say, hey, I could be this, I could be that, I could make it make money. No, you don't have to mind, man. You know, basically, I will I could handle myself. Um but we ended up settling on business school, which I firmly believe she only agreed to because she thought it was a segue into law. She's like, should I catch me? You know? She's like, I uh I stronger than you, I will I will keep you alright. But it didn't end up working out so because in my last year of uh university is when I, unbeknownst to her, started reaching out to mass bands. So it actually went from bad to worse because initially I was talking to her about fashion, which was established, you know. Like, oh mom, I could be, you know, the next Gianni for Satji. Who's that? All right, but I couldn't I couldn't give any mass references. Yeah, at least I gave you my reference point for that. So when I started designing in mass, um, she never, we both never thought that that would be the end result because there was no end result, there was no template, there was no model to kind of show, you know. Um, and as it continued and continued and continued, I actually think it kind of now thinking about it. I think I caught her by surprise in terms of one day I'll be like, Oh, I'm going to the mass camp, I'm going to the mass camp, I'm going to the mass camp. And she's like, What do you do in the mass camp? You know, but years later, and anybody with parents who are strict would always uh they would understand what I mean. They don't ever come and tell you afterwards, hey, you did good. You just hear it from the aunties. There's when once you see she's telling her auntie or she's telling somebody else, so I would hear from my auntie, hey, your mother called man say, go check him on the TV, on the TV, go turn on your TV, all the key on the papers, you know. And I say, okay, okay, okay, okay, all right. I did good, you know. Yes, people are the absent on the complaining. When they stop complaining, they're doing well. Let me get a joke now. One time I took her, I think it was to the doctor or something, she was going and she happened to be in town. Now, my mother is not a tongue woman, so she is not coming to town very regularly at all. Right. And I had to, it was very unintentional. I said, Mom, let's go in the mass camp, whatever, like that. So she walks in the mass camp. It was her first, and if I'm not mistaken, the only time visiting the camp. And she walked around, whatever. And it was a big moment for me. Like I remember feeling nervous, like, oh my god, I'm bringing my mom to my office space, whatever. And she looked around, whatever. And I always remember the first thing she asked me is, Who does clean here? Right? The first thing she was very concerned about how it was being cleaned, how it was cleaned, whatever. And then I heard from the aunt afterwards, she called me Vishal at home, right? She said, Vishal office is very nice, it's very big. If you see it, it's so lovely, whatever. And I said, Okay, okay, okay. So that's what she meant. I got the stamp of approval. I got the stamp of approval. I love it, I love it.

Corie 35:28

So, where you study business? You mean or where?

SPEAKER_00 35:31

So I studied at um SBCS with the intention of uh, because in the early days of my life, I did not think I was going to remain in Trinidad. I really wanted to migrate. And uh I studied with the intention of going to London because it was London School of Economics and Political Sciences, and I said, okay, let me start here again, get the me versus mom out of the way, and then in my last year I would go away. But as fate would have it, in the last year, tribe called and say, Hey, come and design two costumes. And I fell in love with Mass. I started partying, started, you know, experiencing Trinidad as an adult, but not with adult money is uh is another time, you know, is uh you're partying. That's important. Well, Zen had just opened, we was in Zen four out to five days for the week. Like we were just having the time of our lives, right? It was really, it was great, it was great, and um I don't know. I I think in this conversation, I've I've spoken about like the power of faith and time and God a lot. And I really do believe in it, boy. Like every single time I said I was going to go, I was going to go to Canada, I was going to go to London. And if I went there, I really believe I would have never come back and go and say, Na na nah, you're supposed to be here and and I'm here. I understand. So that going abroad is to pursue fashion, that's right. I think it was, but also too, you know, in when you grew up in the 90s and 2000s in Trinidad, um, in the way that I did, let me I maybe clarify that, you know. Um, I didn't think that there was a lot in Trinidad for me. You know, I don't think I had that overarching sense of patriotism in those days. There were things about the country that I loved, but uh my closest family lived in Canada. I would visit them all the time, they would come here. I would dream of going to school abroad, I would dream of going away. You know, like it was very much that not pejorative sense of self at all where I am, but very much that, you know, that this was the golden climb. This was the space that you were going to. Like, you know, almost that that that that that 90s essence of away is better to grasp on the other side. And, you know, we spoke about COASI just now. I think COASI helped change that a lot. Like it exposed me to things in a different way from uh not an adult but a growing standpoint. Six form and COSI did that for me a lot. Um, it taught me to, you know, to think with an independent mind and to appreciate Trinal from a different standpoint. Something as simple as um, like my mom, like she I would have a driver to drop me to and from school, you know, because uh just like she's like, Oh yeah, I'm getting somebody to drop my kids to school and going to school in tongue. And I started traveling and I told her, I was like, nah, mommy, I want to travel. So you want to travel? I want to travel. And uh, I mean, I don't know if it's the same now, but uh, the QAC boy experience of traveling and going down tongue afterwards, and you know, I mean it wasn't supposed to, but you know, you're going in the arcade and this and that and you're lyman and yeah, you know, it was uh it really was something that I look back on now, like when I pass through um Port of Spain now, it is like I feel like if I'm home, you know, like there's something nostalgic about it, there's something special about it. My first time experiencing carnival independently, like without my parents, was uh with like my friend Keisha and his mom was a judge, and she would pick us up, uh carry us in the stands on Adam Smith Square, and we would sit down there watching all the time. Like I'm always so thankful to Andy Jeanette for that. Like, she she introduced me to Mass in a different way. And while she's judging, of course, we run way in the back and we're running on the streets crazy, you know. Hello, right? But yeah, and then going to university that continued from there, you know. Um, so I think you know, the phases of growing up and growing up in this space introduced me to Trinidad in a different space and made me fall in love with it in a way that it is just I mean, it's a part of me. Yeah, make anyone to stay, leave the stuff.

Corie 39:12

No, you're saying some things here that God and faith and thing, right? But Lina can never call me to design nothing and nothing. So how when you just say call it where you know it from how you get into design that he knows you to call it to design to the code. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 39:23

Well, okay. So I so basically when I started, um, when I was in business school, I have a very strong will. And so I said, even though my mother has forced me to go to business school, I'm going to get involved in creative ventures. It started off with um getting involved in fashion shows at first. So Diane Hunt, who was radical designs, or is radical designs, she would have these huge fashion shows. At the time, we had a big fashion um, you know, very vibrant industry here where they would have fashion weeks and so, and I would get involved in terms of volunteering and helping and work. And, you know, I made so many friends there who became mentors in my life. Richard Young, Alison Brown, Peter Elias, Bali, Calvin, like they raised me in this industry, you know, in terms of the creative side of things, and gave me a safe space for me to just be myself. I mean, I was loud and I was yourself, plenty, right? Anyway, um, but it gave me a space to say, hey, I just want to do more creative things whilst every day going to school and you know being a good business student for my mom to not put me out of the house. And then I picked up my big A-level portfolio, which for those who did A-level in those days, it was like this huge, bigger than life size booker that basically was a collection of two years of life's worker. Okay. Had nothing to do with art. E-level art. Okay, gotcha. Had nothing to do with mass at all. And I said, you know what, I'm gonna go to mass camps. Right. And let me see. Yeah, I like mass, I like playing mass, I love partying. Let me see if I could work and do something in this space. I didn't think that it would have turned into designing a costume having a section. Definitely didn't think it was turning into having a band, I could tell you that. But I went to a couple of mass camps. Um, in going to a couple of mass camps, I met nice people, you know. So I met um the hearts from the original hearts who were very kind to me because they knew me playing mask. And they didn't accept me as a designer, but they gave me good advice. Uh, I met Mr. Roger from Trinity Revelers at the time, you know, was really, really, really kind to me, Mr. Cameron. No spaces telling them you want to learn, you want to. But I literally pick up and I say, We had her mask camps, boy, and I go away. There was no, there was no thing to it. And then I had a friend, Wayne Sanka, who has now passed away, a really, really good friend of mine, who said, Um, you know, tribe is on the other street, and I do production for them. Let me see if I can get a meeting for you now. And I said, Yeah, I want to go and design for tribe. And I remember the carnival was like the February, and I went in January with my portfolio. And I was like, oh, let me design for the carnival. You know what I was like, this is no, this is when it happens. Nothing happens before now. Of course. Um and since that time, while university continued, I remember keeping in contact with them. And Monique, um, Dean's wife, she is one of my, I mean, I look up to her so much. She's a good friend. She's taught me every single thing I know. I always say, you know, she's a uh a mentor or the mentor of mine in mass. She really embraced me in terms of saying keeping in contact. Like we exchanged numbers. I would message her every at the end when I got like uh after exams, I would message and be like, okay, this is what's going on right now. Congratulations on the pan launch, thing ting ting. You know, like just keeping in contact. And then one day, literally, my phone rang and Dean called and said, Hey, Monique, want to meet you about two costumes? And I said, Okay, cool. You know, um, afterwards, when I talk to him and Daniel, they'll be like, Yeah, you're an annoying. You just keep messaging all the time. That's important. That's important. So, so be consistent, guys. Be determined, it will pay off.

Corie 42:59

100% is a good message. And so, one of the things when I saw you study business, I study business as well, and I know that that is plenty of structure and this and that. In other words, it's it's very difficult sometimes when um in the middle of a business degree, they have a course called creativity and innovation. So I lecture part-time and I usually go to those classes and I ask people I say, by a show of hands, how much people see themselves as creative. And in a business class, very few people put up their hand. And I was like, well, why? So there's a whole thing to unlock the creativity in the beginning because we all creatives. But that balance between the creative and the business, it works for you. Is there's things that you're able to apply now, you benefit from it?

Tech, Access And Band Launch Season

SPEAKER_00 43:35

Boy and I'm Italy, I attribute all my success or perceived success to it, right? Because as creatives, we are hardwired to dream. It has no box. It only has everything around, you just go in. And I actually, like I, from a spiritual standpoint, uh, you know, that unlocking of continued unlocking. Of creativity that continued access to the you know creative consciousness is something that I'm always very very conscious of. Um however, dreaming in itself doesn't lead you to reality, and it's something I see with designers, especially in the carnival space, all the time, where you have great ideas, amazing ideas, but a lot of people don't have the ability or don't have the right structures to be able to help tune it into a reality. Um, it doesn't mean the ideas are bad, quite quite the opposite. It probably means the ideas are even greater, you know. But uh, I think going to business school helped me, helped ground me. You know, it helped give me, it helped give me the ability to be able to dream, dream, dream, dream, dream. And then sit down and look at it and be like, if I want the world to see this dream, what do I have to do for it? So, like when you see the band on your road, when you see any of my designs, when you see anything at all, it always is probably a small fraction of what the overall is. Just like we said with with the speed project, you know, like there are things on our board every single year. Like I like to mood board and draw and stick things all on the wall or whatever. Like those things are always 10, and then you would see like five in reality. Not because I don't want to do it, but because maybe I can't afford it, maybe it's not practical. Maybe, you know, I drew something that can't exist in reality on the human body for them to parade. You know, we we design costumes for a sport. You are on your road running and jumping is Olympics.

Corie 45:23

I guess, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 45:24

For two days. So I need to design something that could stand up to that. But sometimes we design things that when we look at it, I was like, this is for a Broadway stage, this is for a museum, this is not for the road.

Corie 45:34

You know, I understand. Yeah, always say you go back to that from the commercial standpoint. In other words, this is something you had to sell as a business. So I could see the business side of it. Yeah. One of the things I hear uh people say a lot about the tribe group, for instance, is that you launch out a band today, tomorrow it's sell out. And then a lot of people might say they can't get access to the band, they can't get access to the costumes. You have, and I mean, data is runly thing now. You all know now like what percentage of your band is people who live here versus people buying abroad and that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 46:02

It varies from year to year, but generally speaking, in the carnival, I would say that you have about 50% of the persons, 40-50% of the persons would be diaspora or people that are coming into the carnival. Now, the thing is, um, the data sometimes is mixed because sometimes you have people purchasing and paying locally for foreigners abroad. Um, you have people who stay by family, you have so basically your source of data, I think, would give you mixed reviews as to what percentage of them are foreigners and local base. In terms of access, though, I mean I'm not going to lie to you, a lot of it is marketing, you know. In terms of access to a band, like you could walk into Lost Rab at any point in time and we try to make sure that you could access a costume. You may not be able to get into every section because the realities of production, especially with a short carnival like the one we have happening right now, is I had to start producing today. You know, literally, I had a conversation with René yesterday talking about that. I was like, yo, Ren, Carnival is Christmas Day. You know, when are we when you when you start? You know, and she's like, right now, where the costumes, you know, and I'm like, I don't have them. Um, but we try to we try to get it done in a timely fashion. And I think when you see things like sold out and stuff popping up from people, you know, still reach out to us, like still come in the mask because we will try sometimes. You have somebody who isn't able to make it to Trinidad that yet at the office tries to help barter the costume into somebody else's hand, etc. etc. from there.

Corie 47:28

Yeah, I had a little bit of that experience this year, you know. Now that you say that, yeah, because I played with red hands for the first time this year, Juve. And um, it was the same thing. I was trying to get the thing. Somebody sent me the registration must be months ago. Are you probably listening to this now and you know me right something but then?

SPEAKER_02 47:42

Oh, you're one of those, okay.

Corie 47:44

But I'm ready to play maths, I ready to pay Juve morning, right? And then I said, you know what, let me just go in the mask camp. And I did, and I went on the thing and they said, All right, don't worry, and you come by the stadium, and then I went back this Sunday and I did get a get the package full package, and I had a great time. I'll say that.

SPEAKER_00 47:58

Oh my god, this is gonna be a different interview if you didn't get for a while.

Corie 48:00

Yeah, maybe that's why we had some delays, you know what I mean to make sure, you know. Yeah, but it was great, it was great. I I I wonder how much now people depend on that um that phone and that online space because many people don't have the experience you have where you're talking about peeing and curesy and for you just going in mass camps. I uh like we live in a world now where we feel as if if it don't happen online, it don't really happen.

SPEAKER_00 48:24

If the tree um falls before us and nobody knows the tree fall, yes, no, I with you, I with you. Yeah, I think though, like both in terms of production, in terms of design, but also in terms of communication, technology is our friend. That's the way I look at it, you know. We are able to reach a far greater number of masqueraders, a far greater number of spaces because of technology, because of the internet, than we would have been able to before. Many years before our times, mass camps would put drawings out. There wasn't even like pictures, right? So they'll put the drawings out, which I mean now when you go to exhibits and you see these drawings, you're like, wow, they're so beautiful. But those drawings sometimes will come out in October, November, later in the year. So they're now thinking about purchasing later. But if you think about the modern-day carnival, the realities of production, I can't advertise my band in October, November to produce the band for January and February. There's no way it would work. The numbers are not going to work, you know. And this is just beyond the business of it. This is just reality, you know. Um, we have moved the registration date or the launching date earlier on to what we now very fondly call band launch season. You know, it's July into August. And we have seen positively that other bands have kind of followed suit. So all our other big bands, smaller bands, would participate in that band launch season around the same time. And what it does is it gives the economy an extreme jolt at that point in time. So we hear from our partners in hotels, in you know, hospitality generally, in flights, in what do you call it, yeah, the airlines, etc., talk to us and say, yeah, like by June, July, we know people have booked, they booked their costume, they booked flight, they booked this, they booked that. Makeup artists booked a year and a few years. I think everybody booked a year and a month. But once they do that, you have to put things in place. We're talking about imagine you could guarantee what your first quarter next year is looking like in the second quarter of this year. You know, like that is uh, I think there's something very special about that, and something that you've seen start happening on the other islands. So many of them who had later registration dates started moving it upward so that people could plan better. A big part of that is technology. People can easily go online and they could make payments, people could easily go online and register. They could also go online and they could reference things and email and have communication with the mass camp in terms of, okay, I lost weight, I want to change a side, I put on weight, I want to add a size, I want to add a backpack, I want to take away a backpack, you know? And we do live in a world that, you know, dollar, convenience, and our day-to-day existence is inextricably linked, you know? And so the the carnival experience in terms of what they're paying for, I think has to follow suit in terms of that. It makes sense. So that'll continue to evolve, I guess. It's a really difficult conversation, though, I think for me sometimes, because I tend to dance that line between, you know, what I suppose in our spaces is considered heritage and culture and business for modern carnival. But I always encourage my masqueraders, not my masqueraders, sorry, my designers, my team to think about it from a standpoint of they aren't enemies, you know, modern carnival and old carnival, traditional and new bikinian bead mass and clothe mass, you know, they have to be able to work together for us to be able to move somewhere else. The mass is bigger now, more people are coming. The mass also has a role and responsibility to diaspora, to people who are Trinidadian, they are from the Caribbean, and this mass belongs to them as well. And what it does for them in these spaces that they are, it gives them a space where they are the majority. It gives them a space where they feel that they are seen for two days in a different way than is our living in Trinidad reality. And I think there's something very, very important about that.

Corie 51:55

Yeah, it's good that you stand in Nagap. So that's what maybe why I enjoyed the speed thing so much. It was it was to me the perfect balance between that commercial. So he had KFC, but he had doubles and he had this and he had that, and yeah, and you know he he sees lost try, but he come out right outside and see stick fighting, and then Adam Lorraine talking to him on the way up the road, and then you see mention, but you see, you know, so I felt like if it felt deliberate, it couldn't be by chance.

SPEAKER_00 52:18

But to be honest, too, like if you were not playing in one of our bands, right? And you were walking the streets of Carnival on Carnival Monday and Tuesday, that is your experience. You are literally walking away from Tribe Cross in the Savannah stage into a gorilla band going to the other judging point, into somebody running by their other band, into somebody still covered in pain because they get drunk and they fall asleep at the bar, you know, and they just never reach home. Yeah, you know. So when you think about it, like the culinary is the same kind of they just eat whatever eat fancy food eat doubles, eat eat whatever. Like literally, sometimes I love walking out onto the avenue or well, the the avenue space, or the Woodbrook space from the mass camp during the weekend of carnival because that's when all the bars and food spaces and stuff open up. And I literally walk there, I might not even be hungry, but then you smell something, you're like, my boy, I had to buy a Pallory, I had to buy something, you know. I'm not going to order no food, I'm going on the avenue to buy you food, you know, because you have that experience. And you know, those were some of the things that you know may not be in your face expressed, but the essence and the underbelly of it that we wanted to express in that experience for him. I with you, I with you, I with you.

Corie 53:25

Another thing

Carts On The Road Debate

Corie 53:26

on the commercial side, and maybe maybe add that gap at our crossroads, and you see all the complaints, right? So one of the things I've seen people complaining about more and more, and I guess try being the size it is, just be at the forefront of them complaints, is the cards on the road. You hear people talk about it from several different standpoints in terms of what the disturbance it might be deemed to be on your road, but also the idea that you have people pulling these people who seem to be elite versus the people who on the ground pulling the cars and the optics of it.

SPEAKER_00 53:52

What was your thoughts on it? So I think it's an ongoing and continuous conversation. Um the cards or the elements of a cart started in hearts, right? It's where it was families, because in those days the bands were not all inclusive. So a family would have, in essence, what would be a moving cooler. A big cooler, it has wheels on it, and they're pulling it, it has their drinks, it has etc. It might have a house keys, it might have whatever, you know. Like if somebody needs a towel, they have that inside there, change of shoes, hook up on the side. It was basically a moving cooler, you know. We go to cooler fets with it too. How that has evolved over the years is the carts have moved into what we personally now call smart carts, right? They're bigger, they are 10 times the size that they were before, and it's a different space. So many things have changed in terms of what the perception of the cart is and what the reality of the cart is from them. The cart has now become a branding opportunity, right? Now, I should really start by saying the horse far out the gate. We far away this cart conversation. Um, but now imagine you have consumer brands, you have promotional brands, you have marketing sections, you have people who are looking for a space in the carnival that cannot necessarily be on a truck. The trucks are the next biggest thing, right? That have branded on these carts that now they may not even be thinking about the reality of the movement of the cart, but they're thinking, my brand is here. I am in the carnival, I'm actively a part of this mass. This is a business of mine, and my brand is there. So, my my conversation about it is analyze the purpose of the cart in the modern day, analyze the reality, but the size of the cart is now because it's different, and think about ways that it works best or it doesn't work for you. And it changes from brand to band. In Lushri, we do not have any cards. I ask my committee about it every single year. I don't take my ideology and take to them at all. I ask them, you want cart or you don't want cats every single year? No, we don't want that, we don't like it, you know. From the committee. From the committee. And so it's because of the committee. And to be honest, some of the conversation isn't even about the people pulling it. Some of it is, some of it isn't. Some of it is about the masquerade experience. They're like, no, we want to lele. You know, we don't want to have this cart around us. In other circumstances, I have friends who they really enjoy the cart. It's not being pulled, it might be pulled by a uh a tractor or a machine, but now the carts have gotten so big that people are standing up on top of it and they're, you know, so they they're almost like mini truck trailers in the band moving. And so I think the cart conversation, as we speak about it, sometimes is almost dated in terms of how it is spoken. The language is dated because you're talking about the cards from back in the day, how they were pulled, but now these things have become something totally different that we can't speak about in another bubble at all.

Corie 56:35

I wish you, I wish you. And yeah, what I tend to find drive this discussion is one you just need the right photo, kind of all the time. With enough light-skinned people on that card and one dark skinned person pulling the cart, and then it blows up inside. But I'm not sure if that photo is representative of what happens in every band. So the purpose of the card knows it's still a cooler, it's still on drinks and that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 56:54

It's still a cooler, but it's a branding opportunity more than anything. I mean, they've gotten very fancy. Let me tell you. So it's not only cooler, it's cooler, it's drinks, is sometimes they have food in them, there's a bartender, there is a, you know, so when you think about the evolution of the carnival experience, um, like we were talking about people paying money, they come in here for something. What what what is their experience? You know, the idea of feeling like I'm part of this roll-in-road party on the road. The cart brings the drink to them, the cart brings service to them, the cart brings somebody handing you something to you. So I do think it has an important role to play. But uh, me personally, I feel like if there are other ways for us to navigate the movement of a cart, there are other ways for us to navigate the the placement of a cart. Um, but it's unique to every single band. Oh, it too. Yeah, it's not is not a broad brush. I can't talk about how I operate with carts in Lost Tribe and then apply the same thing to hearts, apply the same thing to Bliss, you know. Hearts still has family carts that are heritage cards that they had since donkey years now. Um, to know where the family still plays and they spend time together and there's a sense of community around each of them, which I think is a very special thing.

Corie 58:01

Yeah, and I suppose that masquerade wants that experience, you can't you can't deny them.

SPEAKER_00 58:05

Correct. Oh with you to the point that I remember many years ago, um Salange introduced it, introduced like a truck, she called it the fire experience. Ideally, it's a you know a 40-foot cart, you know, like uh you like how we have our trailers. And yeah, you know, like culturally, some people like it, some people didn't like it. Some people stay with their cart, some people bought into, you know, so it was interesting to see the reverse. Whereas carts were introduced to the rest of the carnival in that space, the truck was introduced to them, you know.

Corie 58:33

I suppose, yeah, and the truck would have been introduced at a point too. People forget that it wasn't always trucks at all. When you say trucks or drink trucks or anything.

SPEAKER_00 58:39

Because the 40 for a trailer, you know, Dean invented it. It didn't exist before Tribe. He took it, he makes us as an old noise in Valcine. He had the trailer there, cutting the top, measuring. Even to now, like, I am amazed when I sit in in meeting rooms with him and Jared and the two the inch to the centimeter measure and plan these trucks, shift this welding that happens every single year to make sure that it is the right height for a masquerader, to make sure that you have a place to be able to rest your cup, to make sure that it isn't too difficult on the back of the um of the bartender. You know, like all of these things that you don't really even think about. Like, no, this isn't just I cut two holes in a trailer and I rest it on top of the back of a truck. No, this is this is an experience for you to be able to have, and you should feel just as grace as I feel going to any bar and sitting in front of it and just enjoying myself.

Corie 59:29

Yeah, yeah. And it's one of them things that, like you say, you went to the mascam the January to try to design. We we may not pay attention to as a masquerade. I just want to show up. And I guess the better you do it is the less attention.

SPEAKER_00 59:39

But many of my family members still see me in carnival and ask me, How does Carnival thing going? You start yet for the year?

Corie 59:46

Let me say we're in Carnival 2027 now, February.

Planning, Workshops And Storytelling Craft

Corie 59:49

What was your start point of planning for?

SPEAKER_00 59:51

Oh, long before boy, I really start a year and a half in advance. A year and a half? Yeah, so right now I am planning what are we now? 2026. Okay, so last year, October, November, September, I started planning Carnival 2027. So 2025, I started planning 27, 2026 would have started in 2024. What?

Corie 1:00:10

Wait, yeah. So wait, you and you run up to 26 and 27 on your mind.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:14

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I am 26 is is done. It's done for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that gave me a headache.

Corie 1:00:21

I can't imagine. I cannot imagine. Don't be stressful, don't we get more stressful as it comes closer to deadline date?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:28

I think it does because as Chinese, we love, we are addicted to drama. We love. So even though I may be operating so far in advance, I operate so far in advance because I have a lot of people who don't operate so far in advance. So it's good to plant the seed, it's good to start thinking about things. The lust stripe design process is, I think, a lot more, it's a lot more integrated, tedious, if you will, um, but also interesting. So it takes longer to get to the finish line, I think, for many designers and people involved. Our design process also doesn't involve costume designers alone, you know. My design meetings, um, Bridget comes to the design meeting, who's our choreographer, Shari Petty, who is our filmmaker, comes to the design meeting. I have other members of the team who's part of my media team who come to the design meeting because when I explain a culture to you that we are studying to be able to present as a story, you all are all part of the storytelling. So the design process is not this alone. The design process is everything that you see we present. So your starting point is usually the cultural thing that you want to represent. Yeah. So for example, um, I'll give like use Island Circus as an example, right? Island Circus was a marriage of the auspices and respect for our heritage and the legends that are our traditional characters, but placed in a context of the circus, which is something on a channel that I think could connect to so many different spaces. Many of our diaspora kids during COVID. I I just got so much of this, you know, they've never seen a Midnight Rubber, they have no idea what it is. Perfect example speed watching midnight rubber on ball. What do you bet, man? I suppose many of our kids never saw him before, they don't know. And when I say our kids not locally, locally, did they see them? But abroad, when everyone said, locally as well. Locally as well. You're right.

Corie 1:02:14

If you're not getting feedback from speed, some of the youths that watching speed, like my son, might have learned a lot from that stream that they just don't know, they're just not growing up that way.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:23

Attila did a post about her, and she spoke about the kids that were around her. She said it was not about him, it was about for her showing these kids something intimately that they had never seen before. And I was so thankful that somebody else saw it in that way, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, but in the in the in the and along the journey to Island Circus, to the final of what you saw, there were so many things that needed to be discovered and discussed. And I had a workshop in the mass camp that invited everybody who I mentioned before to come to it that was run by Attila and Kimi Sloud Robinson. So we wanted to do one that was more historically set and one that was more movement set. This workshop was supposed to be maybe two hours, you know, where they would sit down and talk, discover things, excuse me, have questions afterwards. It turned into them being there from like 10 in the morning to like 8 p.m. at night, just talking, talking. Kimmy ended up coming, and the two workshops ended up becoming one workshop because they just could not stop asking questions and discovering and having conversations about things that were, you may have not even considered it related to the costumes, but it was part of the entire perspective that went into the costumes. And we have so many of those types of discussions. Sometimes they take the form of workshops, sometimes they take the form of informal conversations in the mask and personal conversations when I discuss with them, you know. Um, things that translate into parts of the costume, parts of the experience, parts of the showroom that could never fully and truly be said to the masquerader, but the essence of what it is is there. I understand. And when you say workshops, you might just bring a subject matter expert to come and expose you all. Many times it's that. So, like in the past, we've done different versions of this workshop. It might be me bringing books to the mascam that people read for a while and we meet together almost like a book club. It might be me sending videos to them and then we meet afterwards. But it's always a group discussion, you know. This year, for example, as we prepare for 2027 and our launch that is in July, um, I was very lucky to have, again, subject matter experts to be able to come in and sit and have conversations not only about a culture, you know. Basha doesn't only produce um or present um segments of culture, but we present stories with a storytelling band, you know. And the the the the cornerstone of uh storytelling is authenticity, authenticity in terms of what the story is, but authenticity in terms of how you tell the story, I think is important.

Corie 1:04:42

Yeah, I want to get back to that that idea, the the storytelling, right? But I saw um not Trinidad Killer,

Ending The Old Versus New Split

Corie 1:04:49

Mr. Killer. I see he taking some fire too because you know they ask Speed asked him, uh, what's the difference between Trinidad Carnival, Grenada Carnival? And Mr. Killer from why here say Trinidad Carnival big and it's commercial. As well, what as ours was uh in grenader is a grassroots that it's grown. Yeah, but I feel like if that we discuss that that way here sometimes too, as much as he's taking fire for it. We treat the commercial or the beads and feathers carnival as one thing, and then our traditional characters and what we call traditional mass as another thing. You you you don't have that in your mind?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:20

I do, and you know, exactly what you said there led me to to do Island Circus. Like Island Circus for me came from a space of, you know, for the past couple of years, I've I've had the opportunity to sit on the TTCBA board, that's our Carnival Bands Association, and being there allows me on a weekly basis to interact with the width and breadth of Shannon and Tobago's carnival practitioners. That that means everybody from traditional mass bands to individual traditional practitioners to wirebenders and decorators, you know. It includes people who are modern day mass designers to people who are old mass designers, if you will. And over and over and over, I suppose for the purpose of discussion, people use the term the us and the them, they use the old and the new, whatever. And I don't like it. You know why because it's create and divide. And I told myself in speaking to traditional mass mass men, that they felt so sidelined and they felt so dejected and rejected by the carnival from spaces from the commercial mass that they want the support from the commercial mass. So they don't look at the commercial mass in a negative way, but sometimes they feel like, oh, that's a it's an us and them, you know. And there are many layers as to the why that happens, you know. When I sit down and I really think about it. But I told myself, you know, there's certain things that I could do as a board member, there's certain things that I could do as a stakeholder, but as an artist, I feel is my that's my that's my biggest strength, you know, I could put a message in outside there. And so to me, Island Strickers was about bringing the traditional mass, but putting it in on center stage. Literally, the centering is where you are going to be for our mass presentation. Um, the messaging was really important. And, you know, sometimes you do you do messaging in the mass that is subliminal as an artist. You know, it's intended to be abstract. And I spoke to our judge um way after Carnival randomly. We met in an interview and we were talking, and he was talking to me about like what we wrote in the actual presentation and how we spoke about how I was saying, you know, traditional car, like me as a traditional character, I am you. Like, don't feel like it's a me and as a you. Like we are each other. My history is your history. And I was just so thankful that uh, I mean, as bad as it sounds, that somebody paid attention, you know, that they heard the messaging, yeah, they got it. Yeah, so that was important to me. And I always so I always remind myself, you know, if our messaging reaches one person, it's worth it. If it reaches a hundred percent, is it worth it? It don't matter the number.

Corie 1:07:45

Yeah, yeah, and it's something I hear here at this table a lot because there is that we versus them. Like them people making money and we struggling here. And I I wonder, I don't think Mr. Killer can make a statement like what he makes without all the pieces of our thing being together.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:59

But let me tell you something, yeah, perspective is important, and uh I know people blazing them, but at the same time, it's sometimes you need somebody from outside to look at you for you to really look at yourself. And so I don't see what he said as right or wrong. I see it as one aspect of us, which I mean you could say a little bit more, Mr. Killer, but uh that was me walking me it's not wrong, but he's saying no.

Corie 1:08:24

No, he didn't have to say that. Oli don't outshine everybody all up the islands only gonna say good thing about no, it didn't happen. But I feel as though the commercial, because it is commercial and we we do have which is good to me. But I feel like if we have a such a strong foundation in the traditional and the history and where it came from that it allows us to be to be commercial and allows the masquerader to make a choice or the not just the masquerader but let's assume Carnival starts from July, August. It allows the the customer to make a choice as to what they want to experience for Carnival.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:56

It does. And I think that you know, if I am to judge the Carnival by the loudest voices in the Carnival alone, you know, it would be naive, you know. I I think when you look at the NCC's roster of events, everything is listed there. Is it the best marketed? No. Is it the most colourful? No, is it the biggest font? No, no, it is very small, right? But it says something, but it's there, and so even internally with TTCBA, like we have this program called um Savannah Talks, which basically, similar to my workshops in the mass camp, is a talk shop designed space to bring the information, know-how, skill set, whatever you call it, to our membership for them to be able to gain knowledge, gain perspective, gain experience without being intimidated by an academic setting classroom, basically. You know, we have people from all different walks of life. And in those settings, one of the first things we spoke about was branding and communication, you know, and it was so heartening to see people came, older mass men, with their grandkids and their nieces and their nephews, and they said, Well, I know what his phone thing and his laptop thing, but we're never gonna know what to do. So I'll talk to him. And they both sat in the class and they understood. And I was just so, so thankful for that, you know. But I wanted them to understand don't don't say that the mass is leaving you behind. You you have a loud voice, talk more, you know. 100%. And you know who was in one of those? Um, you remember Dragon? Ray Dragon was there and he's passed away now, God rest his soul. And he was such a great guy. And I remember he came up to me afterwards because I have you know so much respect for him. And he came up and he um he looked at me and Mark, who's the president, and he shook our hands and he said, All the young boys doing good, all you're doing, this is the work that's needed. And you don't get that often in in our mass community, you know. So when we did get that, I was very thankful to him. His son came, he was able to stand up and and contribute as well in the conversation. Um, and uh, you know, there's a lot of hope for the mass. There's a lot of open spaces here.

Corie 1:10:56

Well, Valley, I think you're the space, you know, because um, for instance, when you talk about our technology and our traditional mass, it does not, I don't see it as diminishing it or replacing it that will enhance it. Because the first person, I'll say it here, the first person who get an Instagram page and just do midnight roboting every day on that page will be one of the biggest pages in trend. And so harmony for it. I see harmony do some things with traditional characters that they say young people forget and they don't like canting. And she has them in droves coming to her to learn. What is this? So sometimes you had a you had a meet, you had a meet you to there. I I believe so. I guess just my belief. Now, with that storytelling, I grew up in a time again St. James and Children in Chester say the band coming. That was we, I think you take that from we as little children because you know you're running audio road, the band coming. But we've in a time where that band would have been Barclay or Minchel or so. The band came with something more in terms of that story. Again, deliberate for you, those those are things that you you looked at in terms of your content. That's all we are going. Yeah, but what I'm like a or take away. This is a lack of lack of alcohol in this um in this recording. I'm only coming back here if it's 6 p.m. again. Yeah, for sure. All right. Yeah, but yeah, but yeah, yeah. So with that storytelling, we had run out on the main road. We want to see not just the mass and hear the music, but we want to see like what Menschel did. What it was a spectacle. And I I from KFC side of St. James, and we could watch down the road by courts that used to be Juicy Factory, and you see them coming down. Deliberate for you in terms of how you're creating looking at those.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:25

Definitely. So I think what you're talking about for me is what like I talk about you know, the layout and the science of the road. Like when you see the band coming towards you, you're supposed to see something, feel something, hear something. Um, the mass is it's a living, breathing, moving thing. When you, even if you don't see the mass, you are supposed to feel the energy of the band coming towards you. What you see as the first section is supposed to flow into the rest of the band in terms of, you know, height and feel and colour and texture and even size, you know. The way we lay out the band is related to so many different things. Yes, logistically, but also in terms of the storytelling of it is important. Oftentimes when we sit down, we talk about it, we talk about it in terms of the judge and stations. But I believe a lot in terms of the balance in Carnival. You know, imagine Carnival has a scale like, you know, like uh the Justice Lady, what's anybody? I don't know what's up, right? But imagine it's a scale like that, and you have the experience of the masquerade and the experience of the spectator. And oftentimes in the modern-day Carnival, the experience of the mass masquerade greatly outweighs the experience of the spectator. And that's something I'm conscious of. Um, our design team speaks a lot about making sure the mask does not look like a sea of shoulders and heads. Because when people get together, if they don't have backpacks, all you see is hair and hair, you don't see anything else. So, you know, I want to see the costume explode from here. I want to see enough backpacks in the section. We try to make the backpacks as affordable as humanly possible so that the majority of people can achieve purchasing if they need to purchase it. The bigger ones, the smaller ones, you know, make them sizable, make them wearable so that you don't throw it away by 10 o'clock in the morning. Those things, you know. And it's all for exactly that. Like it's interesting that you would talk about or your reference point would be you as a child, because that's like my goal moment of it was a successful year. Like when I see the Sharon, I decided, oh my god, ah, you know, you see them in all like that's a big moment for me.

Corie 1:14:17

Yeah, you know, I see now other masqueraders and other bands in all. I was coming down with another band at Day by Corner, Damien Street, and I don't know if that's Mukara Puro, just after Fatty Murder, and uh a real majestic school. And after you reach Benny Junction, when you reach Benny Junction, Los Tribe had stopped. And I saw how all the other masqueraders watch. I mean, actually, just take a moment and just walk through, just to see it. Because the I guess now that you say it's deliberate what you put in front, because that real stopping power is like, okay, I had to see what the rest of this is, you know. So I guess it's your experience as a child in the square, so they had something to see.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:52

Yeah, I mean, I don't know if mass creators do that as much anymore. But uh, you know, if I go into C mass with my mom and my aunt and I I watch any mass, I'm excited by it, but I also want a piece of something, you know, like uh I want a headpiece, I want an armband, I want something. And, you know, like all that was part of my experience. Uh I had an aunt, um, she used to work at presidential insurance, and so she would take like all her nieces and nephews, my mom, me, like basically village kids, you know, and everybody goes together and we'll sit in the office, not seeing anything, no TVs on or anything. And then they would all come out and everybody's instructed to line up in a line, do not move from here as the ban is passing, because that was part of the route, you know, would pass there. And so between that, between seeing um my other aunt, Auntie Anna, who was the first person I know playing master, when she went to pick up her costume, she brought it home. I would be so excited to see what was in her hands, you know. I don't think it was boxes in those days, I think it was like a bag of costumes, you know? All right, yeah, yeah. And she would see it and you know, she would make sure and she would bring home the headpiece for me, and I would keep them in my room for years and years. So, you know, even though looking back on it and talking about it here, even though my family was not a mass playing family, not necessarily carnival people at all, you know, my mom would make sure we have we had cultural experiences, and I was exposed to so many different elements that really shape my interest into you know what my design language is right now.

Corie 1:16:13

Yeah, we maybe you should talk about that because you grew up Hindu, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:16

You were the Hinduest Hindu that ever Hindu.

Corie 1:16:20

Is it still so? Is it issues?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:22

Yeah, I'm real as playing my mass harder, let's play harder.

Corie 1:16:25

Right?

unknown 1:16:26

Yes.

Corie 1:16:27

Oh, wait, yeah. So them days, you have no childhood days growing up home.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:30

You ain't envisioning none of this at that point. Not a thing. Mass to me was very much, you know, this thing that I saw on TV. Um, but what we saw, what what my parents were real involved in is they were locked into um all the clips of competitions, all the spectacular forum, all the extempo, all the everything. I remember um even though I was not as interested in it, because I suppose, you know, I didn't understand the nuances of what they were saying about, you know. As soon as somebody goes up and they sing something political, my mom is on the phone with her sister, you ain't hear what you say? Tink, ting, tick, tick, tink, whatever, because they're all in their individual houses watching it. It was a night that was prepared for the mashcraft night in my house was a big, big, big night, you know. I ain't playing Marcy next day, but you're on to see who won, what's happening, you want to see the big costumes. Of course. Yeah, it definitely was a part to play.

Corie 1:17:19

Yeah, as really as that. And you're artistic and thing from then you could draw your you had you had design on mind from small.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:24

For sure. I was always a um a creative child, I suppose you could say, drawing in my books. Um and you know, that was very encouraged by my mom. Like I look back now and I I feel like not only her alone, but my father, my cousins, they always uh, you know, really, really, really encouraged me in terms of doing more and doing more and doing more in terms of design, in terms of I and you know, I look back on it now and I feel like it was just for he's a creative child. Like, just encourage him, you know. And until it's the true subjects, then it's a whole different story.

Corie 1:17:58

Yeah, yeah, it's just science is and things.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:00

Where's the physics? What is going on?

Corie 1:18:03

That's important. Nice Caribbean parents. You had to do that. You had to do that. Now, in terms of that creation, it's something I heard you talk about in the first year of Striber believe, in terms of you going out there to prove or disprove that you could do all the production here. Because again,

Production Reality And Outsourcing Myths

Corie 1:18:16

growing up in St. James, a mass camp was wirebending. I I grew up in a time where I guess I'm maybe assuming that, but most of the costume, if not all the costume that people wearing was made in the mass camp. People were making them day to day. Your first year, you went into to attempt to do that yourself?

SPEAKER_00 1:18:31

Went to attempt to do it. Um the first year of Lost Tribe, the first couple of years of Lost Tribe, there were a lot of things that happened or that were intentionally done in relation to the critics. Critic criticism of master, I mean it continues to be big, but it was uh, you know, it was it was unnecessarily vicious, I would say what's a meal. And maybe it comes from the standpoint of I was designing bikini and bead mass, and so I felt it dig deeper than maybe I look at it now, you know. Um one of those things would be speaking about uh, you know, China, what what they would call the big bad China production. And I said, okay, we bring out this new band. I sat with Dean, I sat with Monique, sat with uh Rennie, and I said, Okay, let me do this thing, but I really, really, really want this thing to be a hundred percent uh Trinidad made, designed, produced. We did it. It was a gigantic disaster. Let me tell you something. I'm never gonna do it again. It was so terrible. Um, and if you look back at those costumes too, like they were so they were so simple, they were so simple. And they were designed simply for local production, but uh even though it was what it was, it was the greatest learning experience.

Corie 1:19:48

I literally say it was bad, what make it what was it?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:51

Carnival Sunday night, I am giving giving people costumes and giving back money to people. I never felt more defeated in my life than looking at a masquerade and saying I couldn't give you a pair of wings because the wings are not finished. And I literally told myself Sunday night halfway into saying this this is not tribe, you know, this is not me, this is not Val, this is not us. I will never have another masquerade feel like that again. Because I felt what they were feeling, and you know, I'll tell you something, huh? We sat down there at Mass Camp and we were making things, giving it to people because things were not finished, it was not ready. But I mean, so many things happen. Um and I looked at it and I said, this is a learning experience. I said, I know that the realities of our industry right now do not match demand and supply. The realities of our industry right now, it needs technology support. And I need to approach this thing differently. And from the second year, again with our production team, we sat down and we said, okay, we are going to do a made-in Trinidad campaign where we would strategically bring in elements that are produced to be able to put the final stitch on in Trinidad. And so over a couple of years, we were able to explore different production avenues to make this work well because Losher's production is vastly different from Tribe and Vist. You know, it doesn't look the same way because our materials are vastly different from year to year. Now, Trinidad is not a material, a material-producing nation in this way. You know, we don't produce gems, we do not produce fabric, everything is imported. And so sometimes we have to be very smart in terms of what we bring in, you know. Sometimes it might be as simple as saying, I'm bringing things produced in segments so that I could, you know, put it together in Trinidad. Uh, other times it might be this just not making any sense to produce here at all because uh I can't produce anything more than 50, you know. If we want the mass to grow, we need to use the technology that's available to us. At one time, somebody was sitting down and cutting, you know, with one type of scissors, another time somebody started cutting with a cutter, another time somebody started using a machine. I don't see it as anything more than the evolution and development in that journey.

Corie 1:22:00

Yeah, I wonder how come sometimes people see it as such a threat. The whole even back then, the whole discussion around China, maybe I was studying business at the time and I understood even when they were teaching us outsourcing. Like, for instance, I use an iPhone, you'll see it saying assembled in the US, it is it is a US product, but I'm not sure that many elements of it or many uh components made in the in the states. Correct. You think it's the way people see it here?

SPEAKER_00 1:22:24

I think you know, at the end of the day, um when you lived in a world that so many things are just moving so fast to the to the to the average mass man, and this mass is yours. It is something that is not it doesn't belong to you, it belongs to your lineage, you know, it belongs to your family, it belongs to your people, you know. It is something to hold on to. And when you look at it and you feel a sense of this thing is moving too fast away from me, it is scary. As Caribbean people, we are very doubtful and we are very suspicious of technology, we are suspicious of science, you know. Um, sometimes when you speak to people, they say it comes from our colonial past. There's so many reasons that we we think about it in this way. But I think that uh the discussions of the big bar China and the big bad anywhere else, you know. I mean, they're first being made over to China and always go to plenty of other places, right? China just gets erupted. China's getting a bad name, right? But the the big bad anything and any places we go to is to be able to do more. The mass would not be at the size that it is right now and continue to grow and continue to be an income-earning opportunity for the people who are a part of it if we do not have those pieces of technology. That being said, I do think that we actively need to and need to continuously do more to develop skill sets into our spaces because we are a source of energy, a source of perspective, a source of generation for all the carnivals around the world that have been modeled on our carnival. From design to production to just approach, they learn from us. We put something outside there, we put something outside, sorry, in our carnival, like in Trinidad Carnival, and you see it replicated, you see it explored, you see it perfected when it goes to other spaces around the world. I think that's a very beautiful thing to see.

Corie 1:24:11

Yeah, I feel it's important too. It's something we should pay more attention to because we have a Trinidad Carnival that lasts a time period. But the truth is that we have a running Trinidad Carnival, if you ask me, in several different countries all over the world.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:23

Yeah.

Corie 1:24:24

Maybe it's a question I should ask you because it's another debate that people have all the time where they say, for instance, bands and promoters and so on who export the product or do it in foreign countries, they're eventually gonna make Jamaica products so great. Jamaica is always the post-up child for it. It's gonna become so great that it will overshadow and outgrow a carnival because they have other areas of capacity that they have, like hotel rooms and transport and so on. What's his thoughts?

SPEAKER_00 1:24:46

I think that you know, like I was very lucky during COVID to do uh what was it, boy? A panel discussion um with Jamaica Barbados and Trinidad. So it was um Kamal Banke had had been on it from Jamaica. And, you know, we sat and Carol from Carol Refer from Barbados and we had the most amazing discussion that at the end of it, maybe even unintentionally thinking it was going to go in this direction, that we saw all the the Caribbean carnivals as, you know, a lineup of fruit. It's not all oranges, it's not apples, it's each of us next to each other. And if we did a Caribbean carnival calendar, you could literally encourage people to go from carnival to carnival to carve because each one is so different, you know. When you experience Jamaica Carnival and you're even hear people speak about it, there's something there that is unique to the Trinidadian Carnival experience. When you experience Trinidad Carnival, there is something that is unique to the Bayesian Carnival experience. And I could go on and on and on from there. And, you know, looking at that speed toil this week, where I'm seeing traditional costumes that maybe by name are the same from island to island, are uniquely different from island to island. The sound is different, the drumming is different, the the hand that they play on the drum is different, even though you may you may argue, oh, there's an African drum and an African drum and an African drum. And I think that if we look at ourselves as competitors, as a region and as a carnival, a global carnival industry, we will never progress. Um, Trinidad is a real unique thing by itself. Trinidad has, we have very we have a lot of and very little restrictions. You know, like when you go to some carnivals abroad, I remember my first time experience in Caribana. And I was just confusion about why is this why is this barrier in front of me? And I kept jumping to people's barrier, and the police kept putting me back out the barrier. I was like, I'll lucky luck up. But it was a child in those days, and I get you know, but uh, you know, I was just there as a carnival, make for me to jump behind this truck. I also couldn't understand why the truck was so soft. You know, I was like, this truck, it had no bass, it has nothing, like what's going on, you know. Whereas, you know, like when I talk to my son, and I was like, I want my ancestors to hear the music inside my soul. You put your head in that speaker box, look at the gas stop with that. You know, I'm sorry, it's all about the president. They have to shake it, you know, like uh Monday and Tuesday is the one time we can make noise in this place. Come on, man, let people hear themselves, you know. And you know, so when when you look at these things, that there's certain things that are just uh almost the unset structural foundation things about Renard Carnival. The fact that our entire city shuts down for two days. I try to get to my own barn on Carnival Tuesday morning, and I was running late and I could not get to the bar. I had to drop by the stadium and walk. Nice, the whole city shuts down. That doesn't happen anywhere else in the world. You're talking about an entire country, literally stops whether you participate in the carnival or not, you are impacted by the carnival. That's right. You had to go and you had to go in a church camp on the beach stuff. Yeah, you know, you're moving far, you're doing something, but you have two days. You have two days, vacation. You know, right, yeah. Yeah, maybe schema.

Corie 1:27:55

Two days to get away from it. Right. As the people who create in this thing, and we we in a we'll know where. For exercise, you we have we have a hundred different issues, right? I wonder if your experience with those first two years in Lost Tribe you feel we could build the production capacity here, like enhance it or for sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:10

So over the years, and you know, I could speak or I should say I will speak from the what we are doing standpoint. So from that time, we started building um a small in-house production team that we very jokingly call Little China. Let me tell you. Little China was on Rosalino Street. And let me clarify for anybody who's watching, because a lot of people think that, you know, mass camps operate like your St. James Reference operates where they produce mass in the mass camp. But the majority of mass camps now, mass producers, they prefer to produce in their homes. So they have their own little shops, maybe for convenience, you know. So I have somebody in Barataria, somebody in Kenopia, somebody in Karani. But they produce in their own spaces, and the mass camps liaise with them to be able to go pick up wire bending, pick up feather work, pick up thing by the seamstress, pick up this by the decorator, whatever. And so the mass camp is the center of operations, but it's not necessarily the center of physical production. I see.

Corie 1:29:04

So it's more like our office is a warroom. It's more like our office is a warroom, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:07

So, like for us, we have had different versions of our production space, our mass space over the years. Now, in terms of our in-house production, so we have we started developing that and started working with different practitioners, you know, very much run by Monique and Rennie over the years. And as that idea of that in-house developed, developed, developed, it just had something in the back of my mind all the time. I was like, nah, we need more people because people come to me all the time and ask, you know, I want to get involved in RAS, but I just don't know how. And I realized that some of them would end up going to learn to wire bend, maybe somewhere. And then it'll be full stop. I don't know where to go after that. Some people will go and they will do carnival studies at the universities and then it'll be full stop because the carnival studies is a prospective injection, it's not a practical injection, you know. I can't work in the industry after that. And I told myself, you know, I had to do something. And coming

Carnival Campus Building Careers

SPEAKER_00 1:29:57

out of COVID, 2023, we started this program called um Carnival Campus. Um, it took a while to get off the ground because uh, you know, I I never saw myself as no teacher. I feel I do even think I'm an adult. I tell you, right? I used to feel still running behind trucks right now, just having a great time. And uh, so the whole idea of teaching anybody to me was just wild. I was like, nah boy, that's not me. That's a surprise. That is, yeah, like so I used to be moving on vibes, you know, like right.

Corie 1:30:25

I was not used to talking like a teacher. That's surprising. You talk like a teacher? Yeah, you still like a teacher also.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:30

No, that's because of the cameras like a chance, just to understand me, you know. So the carnival campus space is still So the Carnival Campus Space was designed for that. Basically, um I felt that we needed teaching, we needed skill set training, but you just didn't need skill set training, you needed skill set training that was needed in the industry at the time. That's real important to me. Because I have people coming to me and saying, I've just given an example. I learned to make this bottle, but what I need in the industry right now is cops. And it's basically that. So Carnival Campus is intended to um devise and present courses that are based on the present needs of the industry. One, two, it's designed to put you in the right network so that you could get jobs afterwards and put you in line to take you from skill set training into income-earning opportunities. I don't want somebody coming inside here and saying, I just come in for vibes. Don't get me wrong, they come in for vibes is real important. They're coming to explore your creative side is extremely important. But what is really important to me about Carnival Campus is if I am unhappy in my job, I could look at Carnival as a space and say, this is a real income-earning opportunity. I want Carnival Campus to do for us what I didn't have when I was speaking to my mom, you know, in those days of university. So, in many ways, the idea of Carnival Campus started how many years a donkey years ago when I didn't know what I was doing, you know. So, campus had started. We were fortunate um to be able to produce our pilot first year last year. Um, Regina Seaburin, very good friend of mine. She's the project manager for the project. And together we sat and we worked with a team of facilitators, inclusive of all of those many names I would have mentioned for the interview thus far, who were able to teach. And these are the people who are going to be hiring you afterwards. As the course um was completed, we were able to hire a number of interns, um, apprentices, if you will, from the class into the carnival space. So we would have finished in July-ish of last year, and basically going into the rest of the year, whether it be ultimate events creative projects, you know, talent bank projects, into the carnival itself, we were able to hire a lot of people. And I was really happy about that. Some of them have, you know, definitely risen to the top. Some of them are, you know, household names in the mass camp right now. They are a part of our team. And I look forward to this year. So this year we opened registration already. We're gonna um kind of give more details about the types of courses, expanding it this year, and we are gonna be running Carnival Campus from July to August. So, similar kind of timing after the band launch season, or in the band launch season, rather. But I really, I really, you know, almost I'm excited about being both a teacher and a student in this situation because I am learning from what from it, from what it could be. Yeah, you know, and it runs for two months. Is July, August is a period? July, August is it right now, but we try to condense it as far as we can into a shorter period. Because what I find is um when it goes for too long, sometimes you lose people. And I don't want to lose people, you know. I want to give you enough to start and then let's move again into something else.

Corie 1:33:34

Yeah, yeah, it's interesting what you say about the university because that's the truth that's the truth about most degrees. There's a real gap between learning all these things in theory and being able to come. Like businesses like that. You can't go and run. I thought I could have been a CEO today I graduate. Thank God nobody takes that chance on wise enough. But that gap, you're talking about something very practical, introducing them to people, creating the network. As you say, things that wasn't there for you. I wonder if um there's opportunities to connect with universities because they need something like that with the UTT and UE.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:04

Definitely. We have been um speaking to UTT so far, they are an amazing group of people, and I hope that those conversations continue with them and with other institutions so that we can be, you know, just the right arm that might be needed to add that extra something to the courses that they offer. Perspective, history, theory that is discussed and explored right now from them is extremely important, and I think that there's a space for it. But in saying that, I'm also saying that there's a need and a space for today's industry of what we are doing.

Corie 1:34:34

Yeah, I guess, because one of the things is um, as you say with the cup and the bottle analogy is a good one. It has to be industry driven.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:41

Yeah.

Corie 1:34:41

If if it's not industry driven, you'll just be creating people who get frustrated because they're jobless. The industry don't need need the people.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:47

And that's the hard part too. Like, you know, sometimes people get involved in mass, and you know, I don't like when people look at mass men as oh, there's a hustle, or there's a side job, or there's a dislike. I mean, I don't like when people think that is the eye hustling, you know, when I did all that. I don't know why I'm doing, you know. I I want them to look at it and I want them to respect mass men as artists. I want them to respect mass man as businessmen. You know, even for me, perspective-wise, again, it took a long time for me to consider myself a businessman. I didn't, I didn't think it. Yeah, I would say I'm a mass man, I will get in this, I will get it. I would say everything except the word, wow, I am a businessman. Wow, I am an entrepreneur. You know, it took me a while to get to there. But yeah, I dare, I dare, I recognize it.

Corie 1:35:27

So David gave me all kinds of signals, but that one question too much. Selfish question. It's usually me. Once you signalize your problem. Just a random question, uh selfish question from me. Because I've heard the discussion before, right? And again, going back to growing up in St. James, the mass was so similar to me to Hussey. Because that was what we used to do. We used to go in Husayard. The same way we went to the mass camp. I grew up in Husayard. I went, I learned to beat, I learned to make little things, and it's just part of the community. And I wonder if um, as somebody grew up Hindu as well, we have so many festivals here. Carnival is what it is, but they have so many festivals that are rooted, some of them in religion, some of them just culture, and so on.

Festivals Beyond Carnival And Closing

Corie 1:36:04

You feel like we have opportunities to expand what these festivals mean to us and attract tourists in the same way?

SPEAKER_00 1:36:10

So much. So I mean, like, you know, sometimes I get frustrated. I just feel like my hands are just tied based on the resources I have. Like, I feel like I want to do so much. This is the um the business student fighting, the artist all the time, everyday fighting, everyday fighting. But I feel like, you know, like when it comes to our culture, like I am so genuinely excited by every part of it. Like you mentioned Hussey just now. And when people, when I speak to people or people around Hussey time here, like a I don't know, like an info documentary, whatever like that about it, and they say, wait now, this thing is real unique, you know, this thing ain't happening all over the world, it's happening here, it happened to be a little bit more. It's culturally rich, culturally rich, you know. And when you think about the different pockets of Alan Shannon, you know, there is so much opportunity for activity, for self-discovery, for awareness. There's something so unique about our ability to be able to celebrate. You know, as always talk about, like, you know, when when when Camboli happened, I said the right for the ability to be able to celebrate your culture and express your religion. It wasn't unique to one facet of the society, it bled into the overall side of society. That's why we big and we loud, so we just loud people. We earn the right to do that. So Lush Ride started this thing called um Lush Tribe Field Trips. It really started honestly as a um a committee activity because my committee liked align plenty, but community they love to go out anything, right? Um, so Lush Hype field trips um led by Ajala would basically take them to different experiences. So one year we would do festivals, one year we might do activities, whatever. So they would go to Diwalinagar, they would go to this, they would go to that, they went to Paramount, you know. But the effort is to have something that is, I suppose, campaign encapsulated um to give the committee and our wider community, whether it be online or physically, the opportunity to be able to be exposed to those things, you know, to be able to say, I didn't, I just didn't remember when Hussein is, you know, but I saw it on Lost Tribe's page. Okay, I put into my calendar to go to it next year.

Corie 1:38:09

Of course, of course. Yeah, and it's something that I see because um I heard the discussion around Ramley, different festivals. For for St. James, I know people is flying for Hussey. Yeah, so I just see it as we could just have festival only, you know. If Lost Tribe committee like the lime all it might be the right people to do it, you know, just line up the whole calendar after carnival, Easter, blah blah blah blah blah and just let people fly in your whole year.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:29

Let me tell you something, Tuna. So I I I I don't know if it's stuff and if I can get too technical, right? But the hand that they play for Hussey is different to the hand that they play on the drum for like Indian weddings, right? Like what you know. So I remember reaching out to Ryan, who was the drum and guy who played for speed, and my first approach to him was like, um, coming out of St. James, when you see the St. James sign, I want to hear the Hussein hand, but I want the big, the lineup of um of the bases, you know, so they want to play and whatever. Because there's something very rhythmic and very cyclical about it, and there's something that I find is also very trans inducing, you know, which is what it's designed to be. And there's something very ritualistic about it. And I felt starting at that point was this is one of the things that we had to adjust, you know, because we weren't able to get the amount of tassed dramas we wanted. But you know, Ryan is such a sport, you know, he was able to have so many discussions with me and the team. Um, and we ended up changing the hand that was played to welcome him. But uh, the conversation being there is something, and you're mentioning this today. I wanted to do somebody who said we're excited about it.

Corie 1:39:30

Yeah, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it. But congrats. And I feel like I mean, I knew before, but uh I feel confident now that we're in good hands with you. The the the things that you all did. I feel like if that journey would speed is like a microcosm of the way you all see the culture, even Juniely doing it. I felt so good to see he's why is he so funny? I don't know why. I think something wrong with the fella, it's telling that.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:50

Well, let me tell you something, yeah. You know, you have those things that just remind you how should it argue. When does man say I'm not feeling good? And Juniely, watch him all warm to you. It's the greatest moment. No, I was on the floor, they had to call EHS. I was like, pass out, Val. It's over. It is over. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm laughing. I enjoy it. I enjoy it.

Corie 1:40:08

I see people complaining about the fact that you're talking like a trinia. It's like, yeah, that's what you should do. Let people discover who we are. Yeah, yeah, this this constant adjusting to everybody else is time for us to change in my very, very humble.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:19

No, no, no. I agree with you, I agree with you. And I say, you know what? When you when you're an artist and you build something, you always I always recommend that we approach it from a standpoint of uh, I know I'm and I'm not I'm not gonna please everybody, but also I'm not designing this to please everybody. I'm doing this to do my best to represent this in the best way that I think that we can, based on so many different things. You are never going to hit every single point, but uh aim for it. I appreciate that, I appreciate that.

Corie 1:40:46

Thanks very much, bro. Thank you very much. Thanks for making me think better. I learned that you put it too in that one.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:53

I'm just looking every day.