Samp­son Nan­ton

The Lost Tribe has copped the cov­et­ed Band of the Year ti­tle for Car­ni­val 2023 with its pre­sen­ta­tion of 202WE, the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) an­nounced yes­ter­day.

It is the first time the band has tak­en the over­all top ti­tle, al­though it won the Large Band of the Year cat­e­go­ry in 2019 with its pre­sen­ta­tion Taj.

Af­ter two days across sev­er­al judg­ing points in north­ern Trinidad, judges gave The Lost Tribe 1,303 points, well ahead of Ron­nie and Caro’s ‘This is Par­adise (1,257 pts), and Show­time Car­ni­val’s ‘Meta­mor­pho­sis’ (1,213).

Pa­parazzi Car­ni­val, Trinidad All Stars and Mar­di Gras TT were third, fourth and fifth re­spec­tive­ly in the same cat­e­go­ry.

The band’s cre­ative di­rec­tor Valmi­ki Ma­haraj, who cel­e­brat­ed the vic­to­ry yes­ter­day with band mem­bers at their Al­ber­to Street, Wood­brook camp, said he was sur­prised but over­joyed by the win.

“I am shocked...the most shocked that could be shocked. I think go­ing to­wards the road, the com­pe­ti­tion def­i­nite­ly was not what we were think­ing about. Af­ter three years of not be­ing there to­geth­er with the en­tire team, every­body pro­duced every cos­tume with the mas­quer­aders, you on­ly think about the road ex­pe­ri­ence, you know, you think about the hap­pi­ness of the mas­quer­ad­er and af­ter hav­ing two days of ab­solute per­fec­tion on the road, this is just the cher­ry, the ic­ing on top the cake if you will,” Ma­haraj said.

The 2,300-strong band con­sist­ed of nine sec­tions - Free, Dawn, The Wash­ing, True, Wish, Dreams, Glo­ry, Pow­er & Light - each one with a spe­cif­ic theme to match the artis­tic de­sign be­hind them.

The de­signs were ready two years ago in 2021, but Car­ni­val was can­celled due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

The theme was meant to sig­ni­fy free­dom and the band promised to “paint the road blue” to sym­bol­ise its essence.

Hav­ing won in the process of do­ing so, Ma­haraj con­grat­u­lat­ed the en­tire team of de­sign­ers, pro­duc­ers and just about every­one else who had an in­put in mak­ing the band a win­ning choice.

“I’m so thank­ful to every­one who played a part in this. We are 1,000 per cent ded­i­cat­ing this to every sin­gle pro­duc­er, wire ben­der, road man­ag­er, if you packed the ice...if you did any­thing at all for us on the road this year...and I ain’t talk­ing about Lost Tribe alone, I mean the whole in­dus­try...I con­grat­u­lat­ed every sin­gle ven­dor who made it to the road. I felt like that was the win for us, you know, we sur­vived. It was our sur­vival cel­e­bra­tion par­ty, so thank you, thank you for that,” Ma­haraj said.

Ma­haraj re­flect­ed on the range of feel­ings he en­dured to get the band back on the road while be­ing in­ter­viewed by Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day evening.

“It was def­i­nite­ly an emo­tion­al jour­ney and more emo­tion­al than I could ever have imag­ined. There were many break­ing points along the way. If the pan­dem­ic wasn’t hard enough, the restart­ing of Car­ni­val, I think, was even hard­er.

“It was teething in a dif­fer­ent sort of way, in a way I don’t think many of us could have ex­pect­ed at all. Yes, the mas­quer­aders were there; yes, more mas­quer­aders were there; yet it took a dif­fer­ent shape and took a dif­fer­ent form and felt like a dif­fer­ent crowd al­to­geth­er.”

He said there were many times dur­ing the pro­duc­tion of this year’s Car­ni­val pre­sen­ta­tion that he stopped and won­dered whether they were go­ing in the right di­rec­tion, but he felt the “Car­ni­val fam­i­ly” came to­geth­er and as­sist­ed.

He was hap­py to see mas­quer­aders come to­geth­er al­most “like a fam­i­ly re­union,” which he said made win­ning this ti­tle even more spe­cial.

“I think win­ning this ti­tle the first year com­ing back out of the pan­dem­ic, this is some­thing that I will nev­er for­get,” an elat­ed Ma­haraj said.

The Lost Tribe, cre­at­ed in 2015, is part of the Tribe Car­ni­val group, which al­so in­cludes the more par­ty-type bands in Tribe, Bliss, Pure, Rogue and Harts.

The band was borne out of a de­sire to go back to a more tra­di­tion­al type of mas, with cos­tumes rem­i­nis­cent of ‘ole time mas’, meant to ap­peal to the cre­ative and artis­tic mind­ed, as well as those who seek a dif­fer­ent type of cos­tume as none of the band’s pre­sen­ta­tions in­cludes feath­ered de­signs.

Just hours af­ter it was an­nounced as the win­ner, in­ter­na­tion­al fash­ion mag­a­zine Vogue pub­lished an ar­ti­cle fea­tur­ing The Lost Tribe, de­scrib­ing it as “Car­ni­val’s Most Fash­ion­able Car­ni­val Band.” It re­ferred to the 2023 cos­tumes as “dis­tinct­ly the­atri­cal yet flat­ter­ing.”

Oth­er win­ners

The NCC al­so an­nounced K2K Al­liance & Part­ners as the win­ner of the Medi­um Band cat­e­go­ry, with its pre­sen­ta­tion of ‘World Wars - In The Time of Sa­lome!’ yes­ter­day. The band beat Ke­net­ic Mas’ ‘Cy­ber Na­tion’ and Im­age Na­tion’s ‘Lim­bo’ which placed sec­ond and third re­spec­tive­ly.

Trib­al Con­nec­tions Cul­tur­al Pro­mo­tions won the Small Band cat­e­go­ry with ‘Na­tive Pride’ and Moko Somokow’s ‘Car­ni­val’ was ad­judged the win­ner of the Mi­ni Band cat­e­go­ry.

In the Ju­nior Pa­rade of the Bands, the Large Band cat­e­go­ry went to Ze­bapique Pro­duc­tions’ ‘Dance Know Your Icon’, the Medi­um Band ti­tle was won by Spoilt Kids Rot­ten’s ‘Ubun­tu’ and the Small Band cat­e­go­ry was won by Ac­tive Lead­ers Acad­e­my with ‘Let There Be Light’.

BOX

NCC Re­sults

Large Band cat­e­go­ry

1. The Lost Tribe - 202WE

2. Ron­nie & Caro Mas Band - This is Par­adise

3. Show­time Car­ni­val - Meta­mor­pho­sis

Medi­um Band cat­e­go­ry

1. K2K Al­liance & Part­ners - World Wars - In The Time of Sa­lome!

2. Ki­net­ic Mas - Cy­ber Na­tion

3. Im­age Na­tion - Lim­bo

Small Band cat­e­go­ry

1. Trib­al Con­nec­tions Cul­tur­al Pro­mo­tion - Na­tive Pride

2. The First Cit­i­zen Orig­i­nal Jab Jab - Fes­ti­val of De An­ces­tors

3. Bel­mont Ex­ot­ic Styl­ish Sailors - Cel­e­bra­tion The Di­a­mond Ju­bilee of Panora­ma - 1963 to 2023

Mi­ni Band cat­e­go­ry

1. Moko Somokow - Car­ni­val

2. Clown in Tongue - An­gelie Fan­cy Mu­si­cal Clowns

3. Cheyenne Peo­ple - Cheyenne Sun Dancers