2012 West Indian American Day Carnival Parade Highlights | New York
Julianspromos was on the road in Brooklyn for the 2012 West Indian American Day Carnival, capturing the Soca, mas and Caribbean pride of New York City’s annual Labor Day celebration.
The 45th annual parade took place on Monday, September 3, 2012, filling Eastern Parkway with masqueraders, music, flags and Caribbean culture as bands traveled through the heart of Brooklyn.
For the 2012 road experience, Julianspromos joined Sesame Flyers International for its presentation “Fire & Ice.” Original video coverage was shot and edited by Julian Hackett, with Intrigue Lane on the mic bringing viewers directly into the Carnival experience.
2012 West Indian American Day Carnival Photo Gallery
Alongside the video highlights, Julianspromos also documented the 2012 West Indian American Day Carnival through photography, preserving another look at the costumes, masqueraders and atmosphere surrounding New York’s annual Labor Day Carnival celebration.
The photographs were taken by Maria J. Hackett for Julianspromos. Maria, Julian Hackett’s sister, had studied fashion and photography at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) and occasionally helped Julian with photography during the early years of Julianspromos media.
Her images added a different perspective to the video coverage. While the highlights captured the movement, music and energy of the parade, the photographs preserved individual masqueraders, costume details, feathers, colors and moments that could be appreciated frame by frame.
Together, the photography and video provide a fuller record of New York Carnival in 2012, during a period when Julianspromos was steadily expanding its original Carnival media archive.
Photography by Maria J. Hackett for Julianspromos
On the Road With Sesame Flyers
Sesame Flyers brought its dramatic Fire & Ice presentation to Eastern Parkway with colorful mas, large costumes and Soca accompanying the band throughout the Labor Day parade.
The original Julianspromos footage documents the presentation from inside the road experience, with Intrigue Lane interacting with the celebration while Julian captured the masqueraders, music and atmosphere surrounding the band.
Sesame Flyers went on to place second in the Adult Large Band of the Year competition with Fire & Ice, adding another strong showing to the organization’s long history in New York Carnival.
Fire & Ice
The 2012 presentation contrasted the visual worlds of fire and ice through Carnival costume and design.
One of the year’s standout individual presentations also came from Sesame Flyers, with Daryl Cox winning Adult King for his portrayal “The Black Ice Warrior.”
Together, the band’s large presentation and individual characters helped make Fire & Ice one of the recognized mas presentations of the 2012 Carnival season.
The Sound of Eastern Parkway
Music is one of the strongest historical elements preserved in the original Julianspromos footage.
The soundtrack features Soca from artists including Machel Montano, Kes, Benjai, Fay-Ann Lyons, Patrice Roberts, Kerwin Du Bois, Lil Rick, Blaxx, Alison Hinds and others.
Songs heard throughout the coverage include “Mr Fete,” “Head Bad,” “Where Yuh From,” “Pump Yuh Flag,” “Misbehave,” “I Am Soca,” “Go Dung,” “Bottle of Rum,” “Carnival Jumbie,” “Precision Wine,” “Iron Bazodee,” “Togetherness” and other releases that capture the sound of the period.
The video also preserves an extended stretch of music from Alison Hinds, reflecting the mix of contemporary and classic Caribbean music heard on Eastern Parkway.
West Indian Carnival in Brooklyn
The West Indian American Day Carnival has served as one of New York City’s largest celebrations of Caribbean heritage for decades.
The 2012 parade began at Schenectady Avenue and Eastern Parkway, with masquerade bands and spectators celebrating Caribbean music, food, national identity and Carnival traditions throughout Labor Day.
That year also carried special cultural significance as Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica celebrated 50 years of independence, with Soca artist Machel Montano and legendary Caribbean-American entertainer Harry Belafonte among the parade’s grand marshals.
An Early Julianspromos Carnival Production
New York Carnival 2012 represents an early chapter in Julianspromos’ development as a multimedia Caribbean entertainment platform.
Only a year after the company’s first artist interview helped expand Julianspromos beyond music promotion, the platform was already documenting Carnival from inside the road experience.
With Julian Hackett producing the footage and Intrigue Lane on mic, the Sesame Flyers coverage demonstrates the early development of the on-location video and correspondent format that would become increasingly important to Julianspromos over the following years.
That multimedia operation would continue expanding through 2013 and 2014 before developing into the company’s formal international Multimedia Carnival Tour in 2015.
From the Julianspromos Archives
New York West Indian Day Carnival 2012 Highlights is preserved as part of the Julianspromos Archives, documenting years of original Soca, Carnival, artist performances and Caribbean entertainment coverage.
Explore more original footage, interviews and cultural moments from throughout the history of Julianspromos.
