Colourful costumes, dancing and music have filled the streets of London for Notting Hill Carnival.
The carnival, Europe’s biggest street party and an annual extravaganza over the summer bank holiday weekend, helps celebrate Caribbean culture and history.
The festival began early on Sunday with the J’ouvert celebration where people covered each other in paint, coloured powder and chocolate. Children’s day took place on Sunday and is followed by the main event on Monday.
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The festivities kicked off on Sunday morning in Great Western Road, where judges stood in a stall to watch the colourful float procession. A woman on glittering golden stilts walked past as an enthusiastic soca MC had the crowd jumping with their hands in the air.
Festival chairman Ian Comfort told the crowd he was pleased the carnival was happening after its future was in jeopardy because of funding challenges earlier this year.
And the Mayor of Kensington and Chelsea, Tom Bennett, welcomed “friends” from across the Caribbean and said: “It’s one of the greatest street parties in the world…celebrating today Caribbean culture -from dancing, music, costumes but also everything the Caribbean community has done in this borough and country.”
Fast-paced drumming could be heard and felt before the first parade arrived, decorating the street with flutes, brass instruments, steel drums, dancers and costumes including giant colourful wings.
Flags from Venezuela to Trinidad were draped across the shoulders of people who danced and cheered down the road.
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A mixture of adults and children adorned in jewels, glittery wings, belts and headdress danced and leapt down the street followed by floats pumping out bass and music.
As the Paddington Arts float drove past, the side of the lorry reading Let’s Dance Not Fight, the MC spoke of connection to the crowd and the dancers dressed in iridescent purples and blues for its Under The Sea theme.
Along the side streets were rows of food and drink stalls serving fragrant jerk chicken, curry goat, Red Stripe and rum punch cocktails.
On other streets, towering sound systems and stages, including one for BBC Radio 1 Xtra, had been set up playing reggae, dub and drum and bass, with groups of friends, some in costume and others wearing their country’s flag, dancing around them.
Locals leaned out of their balconies and windows and watched the celebrations below.
“Multiculturalism is important,” said Big Zuu. The TV chef and personality, 30, was partying with his friends and said he had been coming to carnival since he was one years old and has taken part in the floats.
When asked what he liked about carnival, he told the PA news agency: “Everything. It’s a celebration of black culture in England which we need right now. We have got these idiots putting up English flags. We’re all British, we are part of Britain, this is a multicultural country. This is the best celebration of multiculturalism in the country.”
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Claudette Sparen, 61, has been coming to Notting Hill Carnival over the last 25 years and says this year is her eighth. Originally from Curacao but living in Holland, the medical worker said she loved everything about the festival.
She said: “The people are so nice, so polite, so happy – they are the best people I have ever met. We love to be here.
“It’s bigger (than before) and there are a lot of young people. Everybody is having fun and you see different culture together; I love that. I have never seen anything dangerous.”
Lucky Thomas, 50, from Hackney, designed and created the costumes and organised the Perpetual Beauty float for children and adults.
He told the PA news agency: “I have been making costumes for 40 years.” He has also personally paid for children to take part in the Hackney Carnival.
All major music and sound systems were switched off at 3pm for three minutes to honour those who were killed in the 2017 fire in Grenfell Tower, which is still clad in scaffolding and towers over the carnival route, and Kelso Cochrane, who was murdered in a racially motivated attack in Notting Hill in 1959.
About one million people are expected to be on the streets of west London for the event, the Metropolitan Police said previously, with about 7,000 police officers on duty across the capital on Sunday and Monday.
The annual celebration has been running for more than 50 years.
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