Today is Kadooment Day in Barbados. It marks the finale of the six-week Crop Over festival and is one of the most colorful and energetic of the Caribbean carnivals.
The Crop Over Festival is the traditional end of the Sugar cane season and has been celebrated for over 200 years. Sugar cane was first introduced to Barbados at the end of the seventeenth century. It made Barbados home to one of the world’s biggest sugar industries. This meant a large workforce was needed and slaves and indentured servants were brought from Africa. It was these workers who also brought the traditional harvest festival of Crop Over from Africa.
On Grand Kadooment, a parade of Masquerade Bands with about 1,500 revelers takes place on the streets cheered on by the throngs of onlookers trying to make themselves heard over beat of the the calypso music. At the end of the parade the bands are judged and while there is a keenly contested Designer of the Year prize, for most the focus is on having fun.
Today is the birthday, in 1928, of Herb Reed, bass singer from American vocal group The Platters who had the 1959 UK & US No.1 single ‘Smoke Gets In Your Eyes’. The Platters were one of the first African-American groups to be accepted as a major chart group and were, for a period of time, the most successful vocal group in the world. Reed died aged 83 on June 4th 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAUJSc6unAg
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