Volcano: Keny and Courtney

Hi, my name’s Bigz, I represent Volcano sound. 

Hi my name’s Keny and I represent Volcano sound.

Notting Hill Carnival is really important to us. We’ve been doing it since 2008. 

The future of carnival what I’d like to see happen is, we’re obviously the youngest sound system in the carnival, I’d like to see a few more doors open for the younger sound systems to come through and have a feel, because at the end of the day it’s the youngsters that are going to carry on carnival. Our parents started it, then they’ve pushed it down to us. And we’re taking the lead on that now but, our time is soon going to be over. We’re gonna have to pass it down to the younger generation. So, I just hope in the future that a few more younger people can get more involved in it to keep it going.

It’s part of our life, in the sense it’s like a ritual. Every year, we’re there. This year unfortunately we can’t due to covid etc, so we’re kinda heart broken about that, but you know moving forward next year hopefully things will be bigger and better.

I just miss the feel right now how normally this time right now we’d be doing so much organisation just to prepare for the one 2 day event which is a lot for us to do but we love doing it because we love the music.

Carnival is important to London, I believe, for what I know of talking to the older generation, a lot of people came from the Caribbean in the 1960's and they all settled around this area, and obviously, I think they started carnival in Ladbroke Grove. They started bands and everything, they started the sound system on All Saints Road, where Mangrove is, and from then it branched it out and then it just got bigger and bigger from there. So, it’s a big part of the heritage of London as well.

And you see for us, obviously like I said, the older generation; my dad, my grandad, they used to all play in Carnival back in the 1980’s. So, it’s a big cultural thing for us as well. I feel like we should pass it down to the younger generation, we should keep it going for the younger generations and the further generations to come to see what carnival’s about because we can’t keep taking away lots of the different experiences from these kids, because the more we take away, it’s not going to have nothing. Carnival is a vibe where all communities, all walks of life can get together and party. Even though it started in a West Indian culture, every culture is welcome.

It’s like a good event to bring everyone together, where everyone from different walks of life are all together, like you said, partying in the same place. It’s just a very nice feeling that, everyone from all walks of life can be in one place, and everyone’s having fun and enjoying themselves.