Greetings to my faithful readers. I'll be celebrating 4,700 views soon after posting this page. So I'm thanking all who'll visit and give me that distinction.😊
Now for the roll call to you who hailed from Barbados, Canada, Cayman Islands (and at least one of the visits may've been me 😁), Germany, Ireland, Israel, Sweden, Turks & Caicos, United States and Vietnam.
One of my readers reminded me recently that I've not posted in a while. It's true. Blame it on the Chinese dramas I began watching this summer. One episode is not enough. Maybe I'll share the OSTs in a future post. I even binge on reading the recaps. Also with all of the copyright issues at play, I have to be careful sourcing wallpapers or other images and the videos I want to use on the page.
So a big thank you to Gerald Walcott, wire-bender par excellence, who in his own words goes for days without sleep during the Crop Over season applying his craft. He was good enough to share these images of costumes from Colorz Entertainment's 2024 Kadooment Band featuring his wire work. They don't need Red Bull to give them wings. Colorz got Gerald Walcott to give them. 😉
Note that I've chosen images with "fluffy" gals as they deserve to jump too. Of course there are many who will still wear the monokinis or 4 triangles covering the essentials.
Credit: Gerald Walcott
While costumes are one aspect of the Crop Over Festival, they're only worn one day. It is the music of the festival that rules for nearly 3 months. There is the soca (up-tempo party music) and the kaiso (slower songs usually focusing on social commentary). Among my faves this year was this calypso penned by our maestro, Dr. the Honourable Anthony "Mighty Gabby" Carter and rendered by the teenaged sensation Tae. Check out her wonderful final calypso competition performance. She is the future of kaiso in Barbados.
The competition winner was Adrian "AC" Clarke - one of my fave calypsonians and no stranger to my blog. He had a big, big tune last year and was outsmarted in his performance by the eventual 2023 winner. He made up for it this year and was as close to flawless for a final performance as I've seen. I was very happy for him.
As for my party song of the season - H.O.T.P. (Heart of the Party). Once I'm at a red traffic light and I hear it on the radio, you'll see my hands in the air and I'm bouncing around in my car seat. Remember only at red traffic lights. Even now my shoulders are shaking as I listen to it again.💓💓💓💓💓
And the song that I only noticed the week before the Crop Over season culminated - Tomorrow by Brucelee Almightee. He won the People's Monarch fan vote competition and the 2024 Road March title (his was the most played song on the road). Kudos to him.
I trust you'll enjoy this glimpse of Barbados' Crop Over 2024.
'Til next time.
