Inside Karma Mas Camp Ahead of New York Carnival 2012

Weeks before the music trucks rolled onto Eastern Parkway, New York Carnival was already taking shape inside Brooklyn’s mas camps.

In the summer of 2012, Julianspromos visited Karma Carnival Band at its Brooklyn headquarters, capturing the costumes, personalities and preparation happening behind the scenes before the West Indian American Day Carnival.

Sheniele “Vivaa” Dodson hosted the on-camera coverage, while Julian C. Hackett shot and edited the footage.

The surviving video was originally uploaded as “KARMA MAS BAND 2012 Mas Presentation: LOST @ Karma Mas Camp,” giving viewers a look inside the space where Karma’s Carnival season was coming together.

Inside Karma’s Brooklyn Mas Camp

In 2012, Karma’s mas camp was located at 926 Clarkson Avenue in Brooklyn.

Contemporary Carnival listings identify Ricardo Beausoleil as band leader and Claude Desir as co-leader, placing them at the center of Karma’s preparations for that year’s Parkway season.

The mas camp was where the polished spectacle of Labor Day started in a much more intimate form.

Costumes were fitted.

Sections were prepared.

Masqueraders came through to see what they would be wearing.

And the work continued long before anyone stepped onto Eastern Parkway.

The footage captures Carnival before the road — when the feathers, colors and individual costume pieces could still be seen up close rather than surrounded by thousands of masqueraders and spectators.

A Mas Camp With St. Lucian Roots

Karma had strong roots in New York’s St. Lucian community.

As early as 2009, coverage surrounding New York Carnival identified Karma as a St. Lucian carnival band preparing to make its presence felt on Eastern Parkway.

That connection was still evident years later, as Karma continued attracting masqueraders from St. Lucia and across the wider Caribbean community.

But the band was never limited to one island.

Like Carnival itself in Brooklyn, Karma brought people from different Caribbean backgrounds together around mas, music and the shared experience of taking the road on Labor Day.

Why People Remember the Karma Experience

A firsthand account from the 2011 Carnival season gives a glimpse of what visiting Karma’s camp felt like.

After touring several Brooklyn mas camps, the writer described Karma as particularly organized and welcoming and highlighted Claude Desir’s costume-design work. The experience convinced the group to join Karma and play mas with the band on Eastern Parkway.

That kind of interaction mattered.

Choosing a mas band is about more than picking a costume from a photograph. Masqueraders spend hours with the same group on the road, depend on the band for organization and refreshments, and become part of a temporary Carnival family for the day.

The experience begins in the mas camp.

Building Carnival Before Labor Day

The finished spectacle on Eastern Parkway can make it easy to forget how much work happens before Carnival morning.

Designers create the concepts.

Costumes are assembled by hand.

Feathers, gems, fabrics and headpieces are prepared.

Masqueraders come in for fittings.

Sections slowly move from drawings and individual pieces into something ready for the road.

Karma’s 2012 footage catches that quieter part of Carnival.

Instead of seeing only the finished band surrounded by crowds, viewers get to step inside the preparation.

Karma’s 2012 Carnival Season

The original Julianspromos video carries the “LOST” name from the mas-camp presentation.

A 2012 Carnival preview later listed Karma’s Eastern Parkway portrayal as “Tribal Warriors 2012,” with Ricardo Beausoleil and Claude Desir still identified as the band’s leaders.

Rather than making the naming the focus of the story, the footage is most valuable for what it clearly preserves: Karma Carnival Band inside its Brooklyn mas camp during the 2012 New York Carnival season.

From the Mas Camp to Eastern Parkway

Once Labor Day arrived, everything changed.

The individual costumes that had been handled and fitted inside Brooklyn mas camps became part of a much larger moving spectacle.

Music trucks rolled.

Flags went up.

Masqueraders filled the street.

And bands that had spent weeks preparing behind closed doors finally entered Eastern Parkway.

For Karma, the road was the payoff for everything happening inside the camp during the weeks before Carnival.

A Different Side of New York Carnival

Concert footage captures the artist.

Road footage captures the party.

Mas-camp footage captures something else entirely.

It shows how Carnival is made.

The surviving Julianspromos visit to Karma offers a glimpse into the community spaces that keep Brooklyn mas alive — places where designers, volunteers, band leaders and masqueraders turn ideas into something that can eventually move down Eastern Parkway.

From the Julianspromos Archives

The 2012 visit to Karma Carnival Band’s Brooklyn mas camp preserves New York Carnival before the crowds arrived.

With costumes being prepared and the band getting ready for Labor Day, the footage captures the anticipation that exists before a presentation reaches the Parkway.

Years later, it remains a look inside one of the most important parts of Carnival that spectators rarely get to see:

the mas camp before the road.