I'VE DONE BOTH. THEY ARE NOT THE SAME. HERE'S WHY.

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]If you've been anywhere near Caribbean social media in the last little while, you already know that Machel Montano, the Grenadian Soca King himself, made a comment about Trinidad Carnival being big and commercialized. And the internet, well, the internet did what the internet does. People were offended, people were defending, people were commenting who had never been to either Carnival in their life. And then Machel Montano came back and clarified. And when I listened to what he actually said, I sat with it for a minute because what he said was not a diss to Trinidad Carnival. What he said was actually one of the most thoughtful, culturally grounded explanation of the difference between the two Caribbean Carnivals that I have ever heard. Because here's what I want to do today. I don't want to debate. I don't want to pick sides. I don't want to rank either Trinidad or Spice Mas or tell you which one is better. What I want to do is sit with you and actually explore what makes these two Carnivals different. Not just in size and production, but in the essence of each Carnival. In its origin, in what they are asking of each of you to feel when you show up. Trinidad Carnival already passed for this year.

[00:01:06]And if you were there, then you know.

[00:01:08]Spice Mas is in August. And if you've never been, this might be the conversation that makes you go. So, let's get into it for real. But first, lip gloss.

[00:01:21]>> [music] >> This is Icon from the Face Candy Studio Beauty Collection. Grab yours at the link below. I want to start by actually giving Machel Montano his flowers because once he explained himself, he said something that I think deserves to be repeated slowly and clearly. He said, and I'm paraphrasing here, that Trinidad Carnival is one of the greatest cultural expressions on the planet. That it is marketed as one of the greatest shows on earth. That millions of dollars go into the band and the production. The sound systems are world-class. Celebrities from across the world travel just to participate in Trinidad Carnival. And then he said, "Is that not a commercialized product?" And the answer, the honest answer, is yes. And that is not an insult. That is a fact stated with respect. He then went on to say, "Spice mas is something different in its expression. It's more raw. It's more spiritual, more ancestral, rooted specifically in jab jab, a tradition that is not just a mas experience, but a living representation of freedom and resistance and social connection that Grenadians carry in their bodies when they participate." And then he ended it off by saying something I think is the most important part of everything that he said, that when he speak of Carnival, we don't speak of one expression, one product. We speak of many different expressions throughout the Caribbean and now the world. And each of them is authentic in its own way. That is not a controversial statement. That is wisdom.

[00:02:49]And that is the frame I want us to hold this entire conversation. Two Carnivals, two souls, both extraordinary, both authentic, and both deserving of our respect and curiosity. Let's talk about Trinidad first, because if you've been watching this channel for any amount of time, you know that Trinidad Carnival holds a very special place in my heart and in this community. Trinidad Carnival is the mother of Caribbean Carnivals as the world knows. There's no debating that. It's the foundation, the blueprint. What started as a celebration by the enslaved and African population of Trinidad, a reclaiming of joy and identity in the face of colonial oppression, has grown into something that is by any measure a global phenomenon. And Mr. Killa is right. It is a global product. But let's sit with what he actually means. When you arrive in Trinidad for Carnival, you are stepping into a production that has been refined over generations. The mas bands are elaborate, extraordinarily designed, and breathtakingly beautiful. The sound systems on the road are world class.

[00:03:49]We're talking music that hits your chest from miles away. The fete draw thousands of people from across the Caribbean, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and beyond. Soca royalty is performing live multiple times a week.

[00:04:03]Every corner of the global Caribbean diaspora finds its way back to Port of Spain for those two days on the road.

[00:04:10]The costumes alone, the designs, the construction, the artistry represent millions of dollars of investment and decades of creative tradition. And the experience of being on the road in your costume with thousands of masqueraders moving to the music as one body, there is nothing like it on Earth. And here is something that I need to make very clear. The commercialization of Trinidad Carnival has not stripped it of its cultural identity. The culture is still there, deeply. The history is in every costume, every beat of the steelpan, every Soca song. What the scale and investment has done is amplify that culture to the entire world. And that amplification has meant that people who would never otherwise encounter this tradition have been moved by it, changed by it, and welcomed into it. That is not a small thing, and is not something to just turn a blind eye to. And if Trinidad Carnival is on your list, whether you went this year and are planning your return, or you've never been and you've been watching from the sidelines and you're finally ready to make it happen, my 12-month Trinidad Carnival planning guide is where you start. It walks you through the full timeline, when to budget, when to register, the beauty prep, everything you need to go from "I want to go" to "I am on that road." The link to download it is in the description below. Now, let's talk about Grenada. Spice Mas takes place in August. And if you've never experienced it, I want to try to help you understand what you will be walking into because it is not what most people who only know Trinidad Carnival would expect. Where Trinidad Carnival meets you with grandeur, Spice Mas meets you with something more intimate, more ancestral, more raw in the most beautiful sense of that word. And the heart of it, the thing that Mr. Killa was speaking to when he said that it is spiritual ancestral, is Jab Jab. Jab Jab is not simply a character you play for 2 days. Jab Jab, derived from the French word diable, meaning devil, is one of the most powerful traditional characters in Caribbean Carnival. The Jab figure is covered in grease, paint, or mud, black, blue, sometimes red, and it moves through the streets in a way that is primal and deliberate and ancient. It is noise and darkness and movement and community all at once. And the history behind it matters enormously. The Jab tradition is rooted in the experience of enslaved Africans in Grenada, who, during the Carnival season, used the disguise of the devil figure to mock and subvert their oppressors, to say, "You may have power over my body, but you cannot have my spirit." The blackened grease body was a symbol of resistance, a way of saying, "I am free in this moment, even if only in this moment."

[00:06:46]That history is not forgotten at Spice Mas. When Grenadians participate in Jab Jab, they are not just playing mas. They are connecting to something their ancestors fought to preserve. And let me be very clear, Spice Mas holds on to the experience of the Jab Jab. You understand? Where you would see that same character played during Jouvay in Trinidad, Grenada has embodied that as their experience during their Carnival.

[00:07:11]So, for Spice Mas, Jab is a specific unrepeatable cultural footprint. And that deserves to be named and celebrated just as loudly as the grandeur of Port of Spain. If conversations like this, the real deep cultural conversation about Carnival that go beyond the costumes and the photos, is what you come here for, please make sure to subscribe and hit the notification, because this is the kind of content I love making most and I have so much more of it coming. Now, let me put these two Carnivals side by side for a moment. Not to rank them, but to help you really see them both clearly. Trinidad Carnival is massive. It is an international event by every measure. Spice Mas is more intimate, rooted in community, in neighborhood, in the people of the island celebrating together. Both are beautiful. One is a stadium concert, the other is a house party where everyone knows each other's grandmother, and sometimes a house party hits deeper. At Trinidad Carnival, the costumes are elaborate, designed by professional mass bands, and represents a significant financial investment. At Spice Mas, the jab jab, the grease, the mud, the paint is deliberately stripped back. The power is not in the embellishment. The power is in the tradition itself and what your participation in it represents.

[00:08:24]Trinidad's road experience is high production, sound systems, trucks, professional photographers everywhere.

[00:08:31]Both carnivals are deeply cultural, but they connect to that culture differently. Trinidad's culture is expansive. It has absorbed influences from Indian, African, Chinese, and European communities and created something uniquely Trinidadian from all of it. Spice Mas draws a more direct, concentrated line to African ancestral tradition and the specific history of resistance in Grenada. At Trinidad Carnival, the tourism infrastructure is robust. Mass bands designed for visiting masqueraders, fests marketed to the diaspora. It is set up to welcome the world. Spice Mas, on the other hand, is growing in its international visibility, but it still retains that feeling of being let into something local, of being a guest at someone's real celebration rather than a customer at an attraction.

[00:09:18]Again, neither of these descriptions is a criticism. They are just different, and different is not lesser. Different is just different. I want to come back to Mr. Killa's word one more time because I think the reaction to his initial comment revealed something important about how we sometimes talk about Carnival. We have been conditioned by social media, by tourism marketing, by the sheer visibility of Trinidad Carnival globally to think of Carnival as one thing, as one experience, as one standard against which everything else is measured. And when Spicemas or Crop Over in Barbados or Carnival in St. Vincent or any other island celebration doesn't look like Trinidad's Carnival, there can be a tendency to see that as less than, as smaller, as not quite there yet. And I want to believe there was some pushback on that notion with the premiere, meaning Spicemas is not trying to be Trinidad. It is not a smaller version of Trinidad Carnival. It is its own thing with its own intention, own spiritual weight. And when you understand that, when you stop comparing and start actually seeing each Carnival on its own terms, you realize that the Caribbean has not given the world just one Carnival. It has given the world many, each one a different window into the African diaspora experience. Each one a different form of the same fundamental human act, the act of saying through music and movement and community and color, we are still here. We are still free and we are still celebrated.

[00:10:47]That is what Carnival is in all forms and that is worth protecting, worth discussing, and worth celebrating loudly. If this video has you thinking, maybe I want to experience both, maybe Spicemas is calling my name, or maybe I'm still figuring out how to plan my first or next Trinidad Carnival experience, that is what my Carnival Clarity Consultations are designed for.

[00:11:11]We sit down together and figure out what your Carnival journey looks like, how to prepare, how to budget, all of it.

[00:11:17]Because informed masqueraders have better experiences, period. The link to book is in the description. Let's talk about your Carnival. And whether you are heading to Spicemas in August or you are already planning your return to Trinidad for next year, your face is going to be ready. My airbrush Carnival makeup is built for the heat, the road, the long days, and the even longer nights.

[00:11:39]Long-wearing, gorgeous, and made for exactly this kind of celebration. The link to reserve your experience with My Face Candy Studio team is in the description below. So, we discussed two Carnivals, two expressions, two different experiences. Trinidad Carnival, the mother Carnival, the global stage, the world-class production that has carried Caribbean culture to every corner of the planet and welcomed the world into something extraordinary, massive, magnificent, and still deeply, proudly cultural all at once. Spicemas, intimate, ancestral, spiritually rooted in the Jab Jab tradition that connects its people to their history of resistance and freedom. Raw in the most sacred sense of that word. Machel didn't start a debate, he started a conversation, and you know I love a conversation over here. And the best thing we can do with that conversation is actually have it. With a willingness to see the full richness of what the Caribbean has created and shared with the world. Each Carnival is authentic.

[00:12:38]Each one is extraordinary. Each one is worthy of your time, your presence, and your reverence. And if you've only ever experienced one, maybe it's time to experience another. If this video gave you something to think about, something to feel, something to share, please subscribe and pass this video along to someone who needs to hear it. Because these conversations matter. And this community, the people who love Carnival deeply enough to want to understand it and not just attend it, this is exactly the community I am building here. Drop a comment and tell me, have you been to Spicemas? Are you considering Spicemas this August? Or are you a Trinidad Carnival devotee who's now feeling called to expand your Carnival world? I want to hear from you. I'll see you in the next one, and wherever your Carnival takes you, show up fully. Stay beautiful.

[00:13:25]>> [music] [music] >> Mhm.