Crop Over Heats up! | Festival Fridays

Last week I barely catch a glimpse of the Opening Gala’s parade. While I was in town, we went shopping and almost forgot. But I do have some pictures of the bits that I caught, as well as some video (coming a bit later).

Land Ship and Tuk Band performing in the street.

The Barbados Landship is celebrating 150 years of existence this year.

This week things are heating up for Crop Over, more and more events hosted by the NCF and private persons are scheduled. I’m hoping that before the season is out I go to a Pork Lime!

Today is actually a big event, the Sweet Soca Semi Finals, taking place at the Party Stand from 10 pm. I’m not going to be attending this event sadly, but you can see the list of performers here. Early bird tickets are $20 and patrons will pay $30 at the door. This would be a great after-work event to attend because you can lime while enjoying live performances.

Tuk band (a bit blurred)

The sweet sounds of pan also serenaded on-lookers.

Also coming up this weekend is the Junior Monarch Semi-finals, and it’s not to be missed, these kids are definitely holding the future reigns of Calypso in their hands. That’s this Saturday at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre at 8 pm.

Cars for the winners!

Anyway, this weekend and next week you can look forward to…
Saturday, 6th July- Junior Monarch Semi-finals at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre
Sunday, 7th July- Official Opening of the Crop Over Visual Arts Festival at the Grande Salle
Monday, 8th July- Visual Arts Exhibition at the Grande Salle (runs from 8th July to 9th August)
Thursday,11th July- Pan Fusion at Illaro Court
All week- Various Calypso/Soca Tents will be open.
Next weekend will be filled with Steel Pan events….here’s a teaser:

If you want to know more about Crop OVER, you can visit the OFFICIAL website.

Disclaimer: I am by no means affiliated with the NCF, I just like Crop Over and think it’s great to share.

What is Crop Over and the Opening Gala? | Festival Fridays

So if you don’t live in Barbados, you may be wondering what’s the “Crop Over” I keep talking about. Well, it’s a month long festival celebrated in Barbados from about 1st July until 1st week of August. In the past, it was a celebration of the end of the harvesting of crops, hence the name “Crop Over”. You can refer to my previous blog post (from 2011) for more details on how it came about and changed over the years, as well as the top events to look out for.

Source

This week is the Opening Gala, signalling the official start of the Crop Over season. For the past 2 months, our airways (radio) have been pumping out both new and old calypso and soca music. Along with the number of  Summer fetes and cruises with crop over themes  to warm up the bajan crowd for what’s to come, the “Crop Over fever” as they call it is imminent.

Here’s what you can look forward to this weekend and next week!
Saturday, 29th June- Opening Gala & Ceremonial Delivery of the Last Canes at Queens Park
Thursday, 4th July- Crop Over Gospel Concert at the Lloyd Erskine Sandifor Centre
Friday, 5th July- Sweet Soca Monarch Semi Finals at the Party Stand
All next week- Various Calypso/Soca Tents will be open.

If you want to know more about Crop OVER, you can visit the OFFICIAL website.

OR, you could watch this video I made 2 years ago when we spotted Rihanna on a music truck, haha. (I’m like really nervous here, so be warned.)

Disclaimer: I am by no means affiliated with the NCF, I just like Crop Over and think it’s great to share.

30 Day Song Challenge 25-30! Final DAYS!

Finally, I’m at the end of this series, it took me forever, I’m sorry, but I hope you enjoyed it!

Day 25: A song that makes you laugh
For Trinidad Carnival 2011, there was this song called “Wine to the Side” and the story told by Benji is hilarious. I cannot help singing, dancing and laughing along with this song.

Another one is actually from Barbados, Crop Over 2011 “I carry my Sheep in Town”. Totally hilarious story, the guy (Stiffy) didn’t know his girl friend was a sheep! HAHAHAHA!

Day 26: A song that you can play on an instrument
I can actually play piano, but I don’t know any really fun songs. I can play parts of Asian drama themes and I know a bit of classical music that I had learnt for exams. This classical piece is one of my favourites.

Day 27: A song that you wish you could play

I always wished I could play Alicia Keys’ “No One”. I had actually started to learn it, but it’s pretty hard, or I’m a noob.

Day 28: A song that makes you feel guilty
I think this is a hilarious question actually. I had to think hard on this one. I don’t think is this all the relatable to me, but I really like Rihanna’s “Unfaithful”.

Day 29: A song from your childhood
I remember the days of Primary school dancehalls and hearing this, Lil Rick’s “Dollar Wine”.

Day 30: Your favourite song at this time last year
There’s a lot of Lil Rick mentioned in these song posts, and here’s another one to add to that list. “guh Down” by Lil Rick.

30 Day Song Challenge- Day 9 & 10

I soooo did not forget about this challenge.. I promise I didn’t! I will not be using exams as my excuse either, I just kinda put it off for too long. So I’ll be picking up where I left off. BTW for those with exams, I wish you the best of luck, study hard and pray that you do well too!


Day 09: A song that you can dance to

Well for me there’re tons of those and since I’ve showcased American, Asian and just a snip it of Caribbean, I think I’ll choose a song straight from home, Barbados! One of the more recent tracks from one of my favourite Soca artistes though, in my opinion his songs aren’t as good as the years past. Guh Down by Lil Rick (the Hypa Dawg)

Day 10: A song that makes you fall asleep

 Ok I couldn’t pick, I have 3 songs for this one, all slow, all Asian. The first one is Korean, sung by the gorgeous Son DamBi and is named “Invisible Man”. The lyrics in this song are very meaningful and beautiful.

I can only find these lyrics on this page with the video attached. It auto-scrolls a bit annoying but at least you see the lyrics

The next song is from the Taiwanese drama, It Started With a Kiss by Lara and is called “Kao Jin Yi Dian Dian” or “Come a little Closer” in English. It’s really soothing on the ears.

Lyrics in Traditional Chinese, Hanyu Pinyin & English

Finally the last song of this post is taken from the sequence to It Started With a Kiss, which is called “They Kiss Again”. This song is sung by my favourite character, Xiang Qin who is played by my favourite Taiwanese actress, Ariel Lin ^___^. She sings this at the end of the show, it’s such a sweet song. This is Ni by Ariel Lin.

Lyrics in Traditional Chinese, Hanyu Pinyin & English

Listening to these now has me sleepy… -__-ZZzzz

XOXO