News / st Pauls carnival
Reclaiming St Paul’s Carnival for the community
The streets of St Paul’s will be packed with people on Saturday as the community once again holds a St Paul’s Carnival despite the official organisers pulling the plug on the event.
“Everyone is invited,” said Kutty from the Qualitex sound system on a recent afternoon.
“There may be a lot of negative spiel about sound systems and partying. But I want to show them that it’s not about that. It’s about people enjoying themselves, enjoying the music, enjoying the food culture.
“I want to see people enjoying what we know as a carnival and our culture; just to see what we can offer.”
Kutty will be helping to celebrate the Qualitex sound system’s 40th anniversary on Saturday at the Malcolm X Centre; with DJs from Qualitex past and present playing rub-a-dub, roots, reggae and dancehall.
For Kutty and others, Saturday is just one step along the journey to reclaiming the carnival for the St Paul’s community.
Talking alongside Kutty outside the St Paul’s Learning Centre on Grosvenor Road was musician and filmmaker Clive Smith.
“I want to see our people from the community respected and appreciated as the first stage of where it’s going to go next,” Clive told Bristol24/7.
“To experience exactly what our elders said: who we are, where we’re coming from, what we’ve achieved and what we’ve done despite the persecution.”
Both Clive and Kutty were both involved with the 2025 carnival which also took place following the cancellation of the official event.
“They kept promising and promising and promising,” Clive recalled. “So last year a lot of people decided if they want to cancel it, that’s their business. We’re going to do what we normally do…
“I want to see a peaceful carnival this year. That’s the main part. I want to see an incident-free carnival.
A peaceful celebration.
“I want to see people enjoying themselves and going back to what we knew from 40 to 50 years ago.”
Volunteers are still needed for St Paul’s Carnival on Saturday. If you can help, please email [email protected]
Main photo: Martin Booth
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