SOUNDS OF NORTH AND SOUTH
Ska, rock steady, reggae, lover's rock, soca, merengue, salsa, highlife, kwelaLondon's ever-enlarging love affair with ethnic musics lured the largest crowds ever to her 17th annual Notting Hill Carnival. Originally a pre-Lent festivity with calypso roots in the Trinidad of the 1780s, Carnival's two days of parades, costumes, toasting contests, open-air concerts and street dancing provide one of the vear's most populer celebrations.
SOUNDS OF NORTH AND SOUTH
LETTER FROM BRITAIN
by Cynthia Rose
Ska, rock steady, reggae, lover's rock, soca, merengue, salsa, highlife, kwelaLondon's ever-enlarging love affair with ethnic musics lured the largest crowds ever to her 17th annual Notting Hill Carnival. Originally a pre-Lent festivity with calypso roots in the Trinidad of the 1780s, Carnival's two days of parades, costumes, toasting contests, open-air concerts and street dancing provide one of the vear's most populer celebrations.
For the black community who organize its events round North London's Ladbroke Grove area, it s a source of great pride—an extroverted contribution to the life of the city to which white revellers are also welcome. In 1977, police-precipitated riots left the streets of the Grove shattered and charred, but at this year's Carnival raindrops were a bigger threat than police batons; only 23 arrests were made.