Every July and August, Barbados erupts in a kaleidoscope of sound, colour, and energy as we celebrate Crop Over. For many, it is a season of revelry, music, and national pride. But beneath the sequins and soca lies a deeper set of questions about who we are, what we value, and how we imagine our future.
As we near 60 years of independence, it is time to get serious about our culture, not just as a spectacle, but as a living force that reflects our
history, challenges our present, and shapes our future.
First, we must confront the commodification of our culture. Crop Over, once rooted in the post-Emancipation cane harvest celebrations, has been reshaped into a commercial product. We sell tickets, costumes, and experiences — often at the cost of meaning.
The festival has become a brand. While this generates economic activity, it flattens our cultural expressions into exportable entertainment. What happens when the mask becomes more valuable than the story behind it? The recent decision to remove party bands from stage judging due to logistical concerns — traffic, no less — exemplifies how easily symbolic
cultural practices are sidelined for efficiency.
Second, the urgency of “development” has brought both growth and distortion. State and private investments have expanded the festival, supporting artists, designers, and small businesses. Scholars have described this as part of the “carnival industrial complex” — a
network of businesses, cultural players, and global markets that shape and profit from Caribbean carnival culture. Yet this same drive sidelines intangible cultural benefits: community memory, identity, and self-understanding. The result? A popular frustration summed up in the refrain: “We don’t got no culture.”
Development shouldn’t replace ancestral knowledge with market logic. It should ask how we build a society where culture is lived, not just sold.
We must also remember that Caribbean culture has always travelled — and transformed — in spite of scarcity. The Notting Hill Carnival in London, for example, was born out of resistance. Following the 1959 racially motivated murder of Kelso Cochrane, a young Antiguan, activists like Claudia Jones organised an indoor Caribbean carnival to affirm the dignity and visibility of the West Indian community. That act of cultural defiance laid the foundation for the first outdoor Notting Hill Carnival in 1966 — the same year Barbados gained independence. These were parallel movements: one in the colonial metropole, one on newly sovereign soil, both asserting that Caribbean identity could not be erased. As former Barbados Governor General Sir Elliott Belgrave reflected, this was a renaissance in West Indian consciousness: “It could no longer be business as usual because our very
humanity was at stake.” This is the legacy we invoke when we wukkup and cross the stage.
Finally, we must rethink how we teach our culture. The stories we pass down shape what we value and what we forget. Since independence, historians, writers, and thinkers have worked to deepen our understanding of who we are. Scholars like Marcia Burrowes remind us that Crop Over is not just about celebration, but survival and spirit. How many of
us truly know this? How many children leave school knowing what soca is — where it came from, or why it moves us? How many realise that Square One and Alison Hinds’ hit Faluma is a Surinamese cover — and that we’ve been singing in another language all along?
Imagine a Barbados where everyone knows our cultural history. Where children can name not just Rihanna, but also Kamau Brathwaite, Dr Karen Lord, or Ras Ishi Butcher. Where Shakirah Bourne’s books like Josephine Against the Sea are in every classroom. Where our curriculum includes the tuk band’s political roots and the art of masquerade. That Barbados
is possible — if we treat culture as a foundation, not an accessory.
In the race to build the future, we cannot leave culture to chance. It takes intention, and it takes structure. A fixed government budget for the Ministry of Culture is a start — one that supports not just Crop Over’s big moments, but the everyday work of cultural education and research. We already have frameworks like the Cultural Industries Development Act (2005). What’s missing is meaningful action.
And when we talk about success, let’s go beyond profits or visitor numbers. Tools like the Arts Vibrancy Index remind us that value also means participation, connection, and impact. How do we measure a vibe? Start with what it makes us feel, and what it helps us remember.
Culture, like energy, cannot be destroyed — only transformed. Into smoke? Dust? Fire? That transformation will happen either way. If we care, we must choose what to carry forward and what to let go. Culture can change — it must. That’s not a threat, but a responsibility.
As CLR James wrote, “There must be new material, new in that its premises are the future, not the past.”
We honour our past not by reenacting it endlessly, but by letting it inform a bold, dynamic vision. And that vision doesn’t end with the festival season. It begins with a question: What kind of future do we want to imagine?
Let that be where we begin.
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