Miami Carnival 2011: Girl Power & RAVE | Julianspromos Highlights
In October 2011, Julianspromos traveled to South Florida for Miami Carnival, expanding its growing Caribbean media coverage beyond New York and documenting some of Soca’s biggest artists during one of the diaspora’s most important Carnival weekends.
At Girl Power Miami on October 6, 2011, Sheniele “Vivaa” Dodson interviewed Machel Montano, Fay-Ann Lyons, Bunji Garlin and Skinny Fabulous, capturing artists who were helping define the Soca landscape at the time.
The surviving Julianspromos footage also includes an unused on-camera preview filmed by Vivaa for RAVE: A Real Artist Vibes Experience, preserving another piece of the platform’s early Miami Carnival history.
Girl Power Miami 2011
Girl Power was already an established Miami Carnival tradition by 2011.
The event took place on Thursday, October 6, 2011, helping launch a packed weekend of fetes and Carnival events across South Florida. Contemporary event records place the 2011 edition at Calder Casino and Race Course in Miami Gardens.
Girl Power and its sister event RAVE were presented by Absolute Adventure, Big and Strong, Islands United and Party People, with Islands United president David Fredericks among the figures involved in organizing the events.
Advance promotion promised an international Soca cast and positioned both events as major attractions surrounding Miami/Broward One Carnival.
Machel Montano at Girl Power
Among the biggest artists interviewed by Julianspromos was Machel Montano.
The original footage captures Machel speaking with Sheniele “Vivaa” Dodson during Miami Carnival Week 2011.
His appearance came during a particularly important year.
Machel had returned to Trinidad and Tobago Carnival in 2011 after sitting out the previous season and immediately reclaimed a dominant position in Soca.
His hit “Advantage” won both the International Power Soca Monarch title and Road March, making it one of the defining songs of Carnival 2011.
By Miami Carnival in October, Machel had spent much of the year carrying that renewed momentum through international performances.
The Julianspromos interview therefore captures him during a major comeback period rather than simply another year on tour.
Fay-Ann Lyons Interview and Performance
Fay-Ann Lyons was another major figure documented by Julianspromos at Girl Power.
Unlike some of the interview-only clips from the weekend, the surviving footage combines an interview with live performance material, preserving both sides of her appearance.
By 2011, Fay-Ann was already one of the most important female forces in modern Soca.
Her historic 2009 Carnival season had seen her become the first woman to simultaneously capture Power Soca Monarch, Groovy Soca Monarch and Road March, dramatically strengthening her place within a genre where the biggest competitions had historically been dominated by men.
She remained a major Carnival performer in 2011 and had finished fourth in that year’s Power Soca Monarch competition.
Her presence at an event called Girl Power was therefore particularly fitting.
Bunji Garlin at Miami Carnival
Julianspromos also documented Bunji Garlin during the Miami Carnival weekend.
The surviving video combines Bunji’s performance and interview, giving the archive another substantial piece of footage rather than a brief artist appearance.
Bunji entered 2011 as an artist already recognized for bringing lyrical complexity and Ragga Soca into the Carnival space.
Earlier that year he had competed against Machel, Iwer George and Fay-Ann Lyons in the International Power Soca Monarch final, eventually finishing third.
His Miami appearance also placed him alongside Fay-Ann Lyons, his wife and musical partner, during a period when the pair were increasingly appearing internationally while continuing to maintain individual careers.
Skinny Fabulous Represents St. Vincent
Skinny Fabulous added another island and another branch of Soca to the Julianspromos coverage.
The St. Vincent and the Grenadines artist spoke with Sheniele “Vivaa” Dodson at Girl Power during Miami Carnival 2011.
By this point, Skinny Fabulous had already built a reputation as one of the most explosive performers coming out of Vincy Mas.
His presence reinforced the wider Caribbean character of Miami Carnival.
Although Trinidad and Tobago artists traditionally formed a major part of the Soca circuit, Miami provided a meeting point for artists and audiences representing islands throughout the region.
That broader reach was becoming equally visible within Julianspromos’ coverage.
Vivaa Takes Julianspromos to Miami
The 2011 Miami Carnival trip represented another early expansion for Sheniele “Vivaa” Dodson and Julianspromos.
Only months earlier, Vivaa had conducted her first Julianspromos artist interview with Young Devyn.
In July, she and Julian Hackett had traveled by bus to Six Flags Great Adventure for the first event Julianspromos ever covered as media.
By October, the coverage had expanded to Miami.
The Girl Power interviews show Julianspromos beginning to move beyond the New York and New Jersey Caribbean circuit and follow artists into other major Carnival destinations.
That geographical expansion would become an increasingly important part of the platform’s identity.
Girl Power and the Women of Soca
Girl Power itself had a concept that distinguished it from many other Carnival fetes.
The event placed particular emphasis on women while still featuring major male Soca performers as part of the wider entertainment experience.
The originally announced 2011 cast included Fay-Ann Lyons, Nadia Batson, Michele Xavier, Selena Serrano and Kes the Band, with additional artists added as Carnival approached.
For Julianspromos, interviewing Fay-Ann at the event was particularly valuable because her own career had already challenged long-standing gender barriers in Soca competition and performance.
Miami Carnival in 2011
Girl Power was only one piece of a much larger Miami Carnival season.
The official Miami Broward One Carnival culminated on Sunday, October 9, 2011, with more than 20 masquerade bands and six steelbands participating in the festivities before a concert at Sun Life Stadium.
Miami Carnival had developed into one of the Caribbean diaspora’s major annual gatherings.
Patrons traveled to South Florida not simply for the Sunday parade but for several days of fetes, concerts, breakfast parties, J’Ouvert celebrations and cultural events.
For artists, DJs and media platforms, the weekend created opportunities to connect with Caribbean audiences from throughout North America and the wider region.
RAVE: A Real Artist Vibes Experience
Another major event associated with the same promotional team was RAVE, short for A Real Artist Vibes Experience.
Promoters announced RAVE alongside Girl Power as part of their Miami Carnival programming.
The early announced cast included Rikki Jai, Kes the Band, Benjai, Iwer George, Bunji Garlin and Fay-Ann Lyons, demonstrating how heavily the event was built around live Caribbean artists.
Julianspromos’ surviving archive includes a unique piece of footage connected to that event.
Vivaa’s Unused RAVE Introduction
A surviving JulianspromosTV video preserves an unused RAVE preview featuring Sheniele “Vivaa” Dodson, filmed during Miami Carnival Weekend 2011 at Millionaire’s Row in Miami Beach.
Unlike the artist interviews, the clip offers a glimpse into the production side of early Julianspromos coverage.
It shows Vivaa preparing an on-camera introduction for another event during the weekend, preserving material that was never originally used as part of a finished feature.
Years later, that unused footage has become valuable precisely because it shows the process behind the finished content.
The outtake adds another layer to the archive: not only what Julianspromos published, but how the platform was beginning to develop its on-camera presentation and event coverage.
Four Major Soca Interviews From One Fete
The surviving Girl Power footage now brings together interviews and performances involving:
Machel Montano
Fay-Ann Lyons
Bunji Garlin
Skinny Fabulous
Each artist represented a different part of the Soca landscape.
Machel was in the middle of a major comeback year.
Fay-Ann had already broken historic barriers for women in Soca.
Bunji Garlin was one of Ragga Soca’s defining voices.
Skinny Fabulous represented the growing international strength of Soca from St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
Together, the footage provides a compact snapshot of the genre in 2011.
Building a Wider Julianspromos Media Network
The Miami trip also shows how quickly Julianspromos’ media ambitions were developing.
The platform had moved from a single Young Devyn interview to its first event coverage at Six Flags, and then into a major destination Carnival within the same year.
Miami meant traveling farther, navigating multiple events and working in an environment filled with established Caribbean media outlets, promoters and artists.
Every successful interview helped establish another relationship.
Every piece of footage added another city and another artist to the archive.
The process was gradually turning Julianspromos from an event-promotion platform into an independent Caribbean multimedia outlet.
From the Julianspromos Archives
Miami Carnival 2011: Girl Power & RAVE | Julianspromos Highlights brings five surviving pieces of early Julianspromos footage together into one historical feature.
The collection captures Machel Montano, Fay-Ann Lyons, Bunji Garlin and Skinny Fabulous at Girl Power Miami, alongside an unused RAVE introduction featuring Sheniele “Vivaa” Dodson.
Together, the videos document Julianspromos during its first year of original artist interviews and event media coverage, as the platform began expanding from New York into other major Caribbean entertainment markets.
What began earlier that year with a single Young Devyn interview was becoming something much larger.
By Miami Carnival 2011, Julianspromos was beginning to follow the culture wherever the artists, audiences and Carnival took it.
