Kennedy ‘Boots’ Samuel is known for playing ‘Ole Mas’ in drag. Will his first year as CDR director be happy and gay?

The opening event which was supposed to be Saint Lucia’s carnival on Monday June 1, 2009 dragged on and on, boring several patrons in the process.  The event seemed to have been poorly managed and lasted more that nine hours. It was produced by the Cultural Development Foundation. Since then, Saint Lucia’s carnival, many have opined, is not living up to its grand billing and excitement as in the past two years, when government announced that it was injecting EC$1 Million dollars into the event. (Can the public please have an audit report as to how their taxpayer’s funds are spent?)
From that point the bar was raised, with prize monies for competitive events increasing as well as the sponsorship and interest from the private sector. More money, many in the music industry say, helped raise the quality of Saint Lucian music and in the last two years the island has produced a large volume of Soca music on par with that of Barbados and Trinidad. In fact, Saint Lucian producers like Courtney Louis and Ace & Penn, responsible for many of the island’s Soca hits, have gone on to produce hits in other islands including Grenada, Saint Vincent, Antigua, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados. The music has also been linked to an increase in visitors to our Carnival.

This year, however, the music for Saint Lucia’s carnival is not living up to what many expected would be another bumper year.
Today the CDF ship has a new captain, Kennedy “Boots” Samuels, a cultural activist who once headed the Folk Research Centre. All eyes were on the new director, who has since acknowledged that some critics see him as someone who would push the old time mas and calypso and suppress new movements like Soca and the party bands. Something he denies. But there are those within his organization who have quietly renamed the CDF to the BFF, the Boots and Fish Foundation and think that the body is in need of fresh enablers and I am not here referring to flying fish fresh.
The music creators are not helping either, since there are few songs this year, one can point out as great. Even the presence of the Saint Lucia Tourist Board who played a key role in the past two years, is not readily felt.  And as far as regional campaigns and marketing of the event, there is an unimaginative television advertisement running which looks like it was pulled out of a 1970’s reel.
The community carnivals which had really grown recently seems able to take up the slack.
Imagine driving all the way to Vieux Fort, for the opening of their carnival two weeks ago, to encounter yet another drag. For the greater part of the program there was not much to see on stage, unless of course one finds great fascination in seeing a male MC called Pandora on stage dressed in drag. The
popular figure from Vieux Fort played the role of MC, model and organizer as some looked on stunned whilst others who came simply for a pappy-show cheered. Was he taking a page out of his carnival leader’s book, who has found great joy in the past playing ole’ mas dressed up as a female?
As of today July 4 there are 17 days left to the carnival climax on Monday July 20 and Tuesday July 21. With at least 15 mas bands ready to take to the streets, and ready to unleash the beast and anything else from within, the question is will they get their money’s worth, or will just enough rum in their glass make them forget as they shake and wine their . . . ah isn’t life sweet in Saint Lucia or is it just another drag?

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