3Canal: A ritual. A living vibration.

I first met John Isaacs, Wendell Manwarren and Roger Roberts as they performed in the theatre or as they worked long days and nights at the Peter Minshall’s Callaloo Company mas camp.

It was the early 90s and I was coming from Arima to Port of Spain where I had only encountered tv images of them in ads, tv dramas like Who the cap fit and No Boundaries or televised plays, I was definitely star struck. I remembered them from watching them cross the stage with Minshall too and I was always captivated by their portrayals. There was a natural magic that seemed to hang in the air around them. They carried this charisma around and shared it up.

I started hanging out in Port of Spain after work at Showtime magazine and then for Vox magazine where I encountered them over and over in the theatre and on the savannah stage on Carnival Tuesday.

Stanton Kewley was working in the Callaloo mas camp too. I knew Stanton from Arima. I remembered seeing him in the streets in his North Eastern College uniform.

I had made friends with other artists like Melvina Hazard and Lisa Mendes who were contributors to The Zone and I met Steve Ouditt through them. I spent many nights on their Alexandra Street sofa, having covered events in town and being too tired or it being too late to travel to Arima by myself.

At Carnival time I usually stayed in Arima and played with paint on a Monday afternoon and “army” mas on Tuesdays with a small panside from our neighbourhood. As a child I thought Jouvay was scary and I remember running away from a man in a monkey suit who demanded money from me one Jouvay morning while standing on Broadway with my grandmother.

I didn’t know it then but around that time Wendell and Roger were collaborating with Steve to take the road on Jouvay morning with Jocks-Tuh-Pose.

Wendell told me about it when I interviewed him for Caribbean Beat in February 2008.

“The second year we did Jocks-Tuh-Pose Black With A Vengeance, which we launched downstairs the Trinidad Theatre Workshop. There were holes in the roof and in the floor but we chanted and ranted and Steve did these really big drawings and put them up, Ataklan did a [Midnight] Robber speech and Redman and the Natural Culture Drummers came with their drums. [The late playwright] Godfrey Sealy swore it was the most powerful theatre he had ever seen. I suppose in some ways it was the first 3 Canal shows.”

In 1996, I moved over to radio and started working at 96.1 WEFM.

I remember attending the launch of Blue in 1997, released as a single on CD and with an accompanying video directed by Walt Lovelace. Wendell, Roger, John and Stanton united their energy and Blue was like a blessing. The event was held at the restaurant run by Roses Hezikiah and Allison Hennessy, at the time, Veni Mange. I covered the story for the radio station and also wrote a story for Vox magazine. The song made everybody dance. Watching the images flicker on the screen I decided I was going to play mas in town, on jouvay morning, for the first time. I wanted to be one of the 10,000 blue devils coming down. NONE SHALL ESCAPE!

Occasionally Rituals Music, which published the release, hosted events to share the music of other artists recording and hanging out at their studios like Black Lyrics, Kindred, Brother Resistance, and Mungal Pattessar.

I convinced a few of my cousins to come play with me because I did not want to be alone navigating the streets of Port of Spain by myself to get to the meeting point. The WEFM offices were at Express House. I stashed a change of clothes there so I wouldn’t have to use public transport covered in blue paint when everything was over.

As we walked through Port of Spain at four in the morning I got more and more excited with each step that took us closer. We practically flew to the meeting point which was near the St Ann’s Roundabout. Hundreds of people were already there.

There was a massive fete at the Boy Scout’s Headquarters about to be let out. Tony Chow Lin On of Chinese Laundry was hanging out of a truck, holding on to a microphone. His hair was dyed blue. The speakers on the Big Truck started to spark to life. Machel Montano’s Big Truck was also released that year but it was 10,000 Blue Devils Comin Down!!! Blueeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Turn the world upside down!

That is the song that came blasting out of the speakers.

People gathered around from every direction and by the time the band was ready to start heading around the savannah and into downtown Port of Spain the crowd was mammoth.

As we chipped past Jerningham Avenue Ataklan swung out of a truck, wearing a short blonde wig, cut in a bob and his grandmother’s nightie singing: Flambooooo! Children flash up yuh lighter give them the warning!

Third Base was also on the truck, waiting to sing the first soca song he ever recorded. He wrote High in a matter of minutes before going to sing it in the booth at WEFM where we both sometimes worked the same shift.

Thousands of people joined the band that year as it curled and caroused through Port of Spain that morning in the semi-darkness. I lost my cousins early on and I remember feeling a little anxiety but by the time the band turned up Frederick Street I had seen so many friendly eyes shine back at me in the dark. Those eyes turned to familiar faces as the light grew into the day. Familiar faces expressing euphoria. I was feeling it too. The anxious fluttering butterflies in my stomach were skipping with joy. I felt like I was expressing my true self and at the same time I was in union with a body of people and we were all being transformed by the fact that we were being present with each other. Everything was a blur of love and joy.

I haven’t played jouvay with any other band since although I have missed a few years because of travel and once or twice I skipped Carnival altogether and went to the bush, camping on the North Coast.

In 1998, when the band came with Mud Madness and we covered each other with mud, I chilled for a while on the truck which carried the barrels of mud. Occasionally someone would come up to the truck to be “baptised”. This was another special experience. I felt privileged to be able to initiate someone else into the experience of jouvay and the band in that way. I remember being filled with pride as I stood on the truck and looked down Frederick Street to see a sea of people covered with mud. Everything is mud, from mud and back to mud again!!! Everything is mud from creation to jouvay morning!!! Ya listenin?!

In 2007, 3Canal released an album called 3:10 and the 3Canal show at Queen’s Hall was called Bacchanal. I went to the bush on Carnival Friday and decided I would play Jouvay. I would come out of the bush to play it. Farewell to the flesh. Carni. Vale.

I was living in Port of Spain at the time and remember walking out of the forest that Carnival Sunday evening feeling like I was about to bring a whole other energy to my jouvay experience. I made a little feathered headpiece that year. I took the stick I walked through the forest with, with me that jouvay. I always feel like I am walking with my ancestors in the forest and I wanted them to walk with me that jouvay morning.

I make or remake a headpiece every year, building on a simple base and choosing colours based on the way I feel and the message I want to transmit by using them. Everything has meaning.

In my interview with Wendell for the same Caribbean Beat article, he explained: “It was never to make money. It was to make a space to do our thing and for people to join in and share our vibes.”

I feel so blessed to have been able to share in those vibes over the years. 30 years. My experiences on those epiphany filled Jouvay mornings have all been very life changing. It became the real start of the new year for me. Those jouvay mornings birthed me.

Every year we would go right up to the Savannah to cross the stage, to claim the space. If you know 3Canal’s music you will understand. We have been singing slogans of freedom and empowerment, equality and justice, joy and liberation for hours, together. A chorus of hundreds bringing the good news of togetherness to their neighbours and each other. From dark to light.

From the very first time, I always felt: this is the way the revolution begins.

One very well may have. Many people have been changed by their experience with the band. Inspired. Healed. Transformed. Liberated.

Naturally, after we cross the stage the group begins to break apart. Some make it back to base.. Some go back home for two sleeps to come out again for pretty mas. Some return to their homes all over the island - all over the world - with a story to tell and a message to share. A song in their hearts. Some forget all the pledges made, fists in the air at dawn, calling for a new world. Go home to sober up. For some this ritual has been a way of life and in that dawn there is a flicker of a vision of possibility, unity. The world in all its glory: Raw. Passionate and true.

Here is a link to the piece I wrote for Caribbean Beat: Wendell Manwarren: none shall escape