Is Notting Hill carnival in danger of losing its soul?

The steel pans are being prepared, the choreography perfected and the final flags pinned. Bank holiday weekend is an exhausting time for the community groups who make carnival happen.

2014 is the start of a three-year celebration commemorating 50 years of Notting Hill carnival.

The reason for the three years of festivities is largely due to a dispute amongst carnvalists as to when the rightful anniversary date is.

Journalist and leftist activist Claudia Jones organised an indoor carnival in King’s Cross following the Notting Hill riots and the racist murder of 32-year-old Antiguan carpenter Kelso Cochrane in 1959.

In 1964, a steel pan procession began in Ladbroke Grove. There are claims there was a costume parade in 1965, but some contest it ever took place. In 1966, community activist Rhuane Laslett organised a summer fete in Notting Hill, merging pan, costume (mas) and processions to heal racial divides in the area.

‘Getting nothing back’

Despite the uncertainty over its birthday, what is beyond debate is the impact Notting Hill Carnival has made.

Over 1 million people attended in 2013. However old carnivalists are worried the event is losing its soul.

Carnival is political. It's about taking to the street, your rights as a citizen, and telling your story. Adela Ruth Tompsett

Wilfred Walker OBE, who led the Notting Hill carnival between 1973-1975, described carnival today as “unrecognisable” and said the constraints placed on it, such as curfews and route restrictions, were “humiliating”.

Walker ran three stages which, according to him, gave early platforms to a number of bands such as Gorillaz, Aswad, Burning Spear and Musical Youth.

He said the groups who founded carnival “are getting nothing back” and that, despite the party continuing to grow, it has lost its way.

‘Mas in the ghetto’

Carnival began as a protest and social movement, according to academic Adela Ruth Tompsett: “Carnival is political. It’s about taking to the street, your rights as a citizen and telling your story.”

The 1973 carnival was called “mas in the ghetto” because of its vocal protest for better housing in the area, which was referred to by Leslie Palmer, a former Notting Hill carnival director, as “one of the biggest slums in London at the time”.

However, the area is a world away from the impoverishment and conflicts of the past. The changing demographic of the area, combined with an influx of wealth, have presented several challenges to the future of carnival.

Unique diversity

According to the 2011 census, the largely African Caribbean population of Kensington and Chelsea behind the event has halved since 2001. This is mirrored in the carnival as the number of steel pan bands that form the Caribbean centrepiece of carnival is also down by 50 per cent. Sound systems are playing more commercial music, from house to pop.

However for some Notting Hill carnival has always been both an evolutionary marriage of cultures and “quintessentially British”. Ansel Wong of the ELIMU mas carnival group said of Notting Hill carnival:

“Where else would you have the Folkestone Rock ‘n’ Roll Club complete with Pink Cadillac and then, 500 yards behind, the New Testament Church of God, and then another 500 yards behind that a steel band? That kind of diversity and presentation is unique.”