By: Ricardo McRae
The tradition continues to this day in Trinidad and around
the world. It’s really dirty, a little scary and embraces the
abandoning of all social restraint, when you’re completely
blue, something changes, and you’re allowed to be a bad as
you want to be, that is exactly why it’s done at night.
The prince and the popper are both covered from head to toe
in mud and you cant tell the difference, and that is the
whole point. When we remove all of the trappings of society
we are all the same, and at J'ouvert nothing else matter
except the mud. This experience is J'ouvert
It was late July 2004 when my friend Darren Baptiste said: “
Ay Ricardo! We keep talking bout doing dis Blue Devil ting.
Yuh want to do it fuh Caribana this year?” My Immediate
reaction was “Yeaa dat soundin’ nice... Leh we do it!” So
without much more thought than that we were off to the races.
Within 24 hours all it took was a few phone calls, peppered
with some fly by the seat of your pants excitement we were
now a section in a band with Mas Players International. We
had a spot in the parade, now all we need are some people who
are willing to dress like devils and blue up in broad
daylight. Sounds easy right? We’ll it was very easy! We put
the word out and the die hard Trini’s were ready to blue up
for Caribana, and 4 brave souls stepped up.
We had no idea how the general public would react to seeing
“Blue Devils” in the Caribana parade, well they loved it! We
were immediately mobbed by photographers and people wanting
to take pictures with us. The crowd went mad when we took the
stage at the EX. They were screaming as we were acting
like... well, like devils. We were waving our flags, throwing
powder and blue on everybody, even the judges were ducking
for cover as we crossed the stage. On the road the old timers
caught on right away came running from the sidelines asking
us to blue them up. They could not believe it was J'ouvert
Blue Devils in Toronto in broad daylight.
That was the first year in 2004. We made every
local and national
newspapers, Blue devils were featured on
websites like Toronto lime, Trini Jungle Juice
and too many to
mention. We even did a live to air broadcast on Flow93.5
from the Blue Devils mas camp on Caribana morning. Over
the years we have grown from a small band of six to more
than 45 Blue Devils.
We have since expanded the experience of our culture beyond
Caribana, and were proud to announce that Blue Devil Mas has
been in the Luminato Arts festival, Gay Pride Parade and The
Fire walk on Toronto Island.
We do everything to maintain the pure traditions of J'ouvert
and we boldly declare that you haven't played Mas until you
have played J'ouvert Blue Devils... It’s really dirty, a lot
of fun a little sexy and an experience of a lifetime! If you
are brave enough you can join us any time, we are always
looking for a few bad men and women to play de devil.
For more
information, call Ricardo McRae 416-944-3101
