Soca Moca and Soca Massive Dominate Carnival 2022
The winners of the Carnival 2022 Road March have been declared. After months of arduous work, two mas bands came out on top. In the senior category, Soca Moca Mas Band prevailed. In the junior category, it was the Soca Massive Band that rose to the occasion. A News Five team was out on Saturday to catch all the live action. Today, Paul Lopez visited the band leaders of the winning groups. He filed the following report.
Paul Lopez, Reporting
Soca Moca Mas Band is the Carnival 2022 Road March winner among the senior bands. Audrey Bradley, the leader of the band, is celebrating her second victory.
Audrey Bradley
Audrey Bradley, Band Leader, Soca Moca
“The theme that I use this year I have that from 2019. I had thought about it from 2019 and I just kept it and I said, whenever they have carnival back I will use the same theme. I really wanted to do that theme Caribbean Soca Diary, because I wanted to do from the different Caribbean countries that have carnival. A lot of us don’t know the different Caribbean countries that have carnival. A lot of us think Trinidad and the basic ones that we know, but it is a lot of them. Like, people don’t know Grenada has carnival.”
In the junior band category, Soca Massive came out on top. Their band leader is Pauline Bradley. She is Audrey Bradley’s younger sister.
Pauline Bradley
Pauline Bradley, Band Leader, Soca Massive
“With me I am somebody that loves dancing from I was a little girl. I love entertainment, the stage, and so even though, I moved to the US so all of that came to an end. Then I came back to Belize and started over. My girls, I have five girls and they are all the same. For me dancing is something natural for us. When I decided to do a junior group, same way I raised them to be that is how I try to have my junior group to be. I have the girls at practice putting in their hundred percent, even though it was not carnival day and road march as yet. I made them practice the same way they would practice on the road.”
Belizeans were out in droves along the carnival route on Saturday, as spectators to the array of colors and various choreographies on display. It was the judges who were stationed on Youth for the Future Drive and the Marion Jones Sporting Complex that had the difficult task of judging each group.
Pauline Bradley
“I knew I was in the top two from camp night. What a lot of people and spectators don’t understand about carnival, carnival is not just the road march on that said day. It has a lot to do with your costumes from camp night. The revelers, the hype, the energy from camp night. Camp night plays a big role in the points for road march. That is what a lot of people don’t know. So when they see you out there and the kids they look tired, I mean you guys can’t expect these kids to go from point A to B and not be tired. They are human beings, not machines.So the whole entire score and everything comes from camp night unto road march.”
Audrey Bradley
“Everybody mih and think deh deserve the win, but I wah speak fih myself, and I know everybody gawn through the same thing. The preparation never easy. You always hear sleepless night and ih still the happen, sleepless nights, we work hard honestly. I think I work twice as hard as I ever work since I had my carnival group, a hundred and eighty one people I prepare fah, so that dah like double the amount. That dah like almost three time the amount weh deh ask fah. Mien, I nuh know weh the people deh come from.”
Second place in the senior category went to Mother Nature Creation, and third place to Trenchtown Masqueraders. Second place in the junior category went to Jump St Posse, and third place to the Collet Royal Revellers. Reporting for News Five, I am Paul Lopez.
