Carnival Dispatches: Benjamin D from The Heatwave

Are you nursing a hangover and attempting to remember which part of All Saints Road swallowed your dignity this weekend? Thought so. We spoke to a couple of faces who were running the show in and around Notting Hill this weekend. Shouty man extraordinaire for The Heatwave, Benjamin D, educates us on how to make new friends and why it's never clever to vibe with people with weak bladders.

Mate, there were a lot of tunes this weekend! We can play those old bashment tunes that just get left aside, that get a bit dusty. We can just bring them back. At carnival itself I heard a lot of hip-hop being played. I’m used to hearing all different genres at carnival, that’s why I love it. There’s always been jungle, garage, grime, all those different sounds. Obviously there’s always been hip-hop and R&B, but this year it was like hip-hop was running things.

On Monday I was basically just wandering. I love the floats, so I spent a lot of time just trailing them. It’s moving, so I love the motion, and you meet people. That’s what I love about carnival, everywhere you go, you’re making friends. I must have made about a hundred friends yesterday, but I spent about three minutes with each of them. You connect over a tune, have a little hug, and move on. It’s all about the quick eye contact, quick hype. There might be some people who I wouldn’t normally chat to, it could be anyone. It could be the most gangster looking dude, it could be a nerdy person I’d never talk to, but if you both know that tune, then boom, you’re done. If they know the words, you’re just singing along together. You get people to sing along, that’s spiritual! I’m thinking campfires, back in the day, when people would just sit around telling stories and singing and that. It’s like church!…Maybe I’m going over the top here.

Carnival and New Year are the same thing to me. You can’t get stuck in that mentality, thinking “I should be there, I should be there”. You need to think “I’m here. I might hopefully bump into them, but I can’t really plan it”. Even in groups, man. Come on! That’s a death. Someone’ll be like “let’s do this”, or someone’ll want to go toilet. LONG. The momentum doesn’t work.

I remember going out there the first time, it was a bit of an eye opener. You’re out and about, this was about the time that you could smoke weed and that in clubs. I wasn’t even going to clubs, so I was like, this is nang! All the things that are still exciting now were ten times as exciting then. I had my eyes wide opened, going near the soca truck and thinking “what is going on here?!”. Dyu know what I mean? It’s the wickedest thing.

The worst thing about Carnival is the early closing, but it’s been like that for a good few years. Of course it gets more commercial, things change, but it is what it is. It might not be what you remember it to be, but I can’t really say “Oh, Carnival’s shit now” because I love it. I get there, and I’m like, YES. Every year I tell myself that I’m not going to go, for whatever reason. I think “Oh, I’ve got stuff to do” or “it’ll take long to get there”, but then on the day I’m like YES. It still has the magic. It’s important to have people out and about and being reckless, doing what they’re doing, and not being overly controlled.

There’s always a lot of dancing, scandalous dancing. You see men and women in some compromising positions — if you keep your eyes peeled for that shit you will have a lot to see. I think social media makes it worse. Back in the day, you’d just be able to get away with that. People would be slipping, doing whatever sort of naughtiness, being drunk or making a mug of themselves, but now you’ve got to be more careful. Nowadays you could get turned into a fucking instagram thing. Next thing you know everyone’s sharing that shit. You don’t want that man. You’ve got to be careful, you could be Miley Cyrus…the Notting Hill Miley Cyrus. That could happen!

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