A carnival is a festival of music, culture, dancing and celebration that historically started with Roman Catholics a week before lent. Carnival came to Jamaica in the late 20th century and today Carnival in Jamaica fiercely competes with Trinidad as being one of the best places in the world to experience a Carnival parade.
Carnival season begins as early as January with a multitude of carnival events and Soca fetes leading up to the culmination of the season, the Carnival Road March Parade. When attending Carnival in Jamaica, it is always important to decide in advance the fetes and the band that you will be jumping with, so as to make the experience even more memorable. The Xodus band, since its inception, has been the biggest band in Jamaica and has grown year on year in size and grandeur. In 2023, Xodus partnered with Bacchanal, one of the oldest carnival bands in Jamaica. But how did Xodus get here, and what is their story?
Chairman of Dream Entertainment parent company of Dream Weekend and Xodus Carnival, Kamal Bankay gives a short version of the band’s conception and how Xodus got its name.” A few years before we started Xodus, Dream Entertainment actually had a section in Bacchanal, our core friends and followers loved the idea of us being on the road… In 2016 after 7 years of doing our mega-festival Dream weekend in Negril, we thought our time had come to start our own band for the carnival celebrations in Kingston. We then partnered with Stefan Monteil and Sean Burkett from Yuma in Trinidad and decided to start our own local band in Jamaica. Myself and Pierre Goubault, Xodus’ Festival Director, were strategizing at his house on how we were going to change the game for Carnival. I said “this movement needs a powerful name…we are going to name it Xodus! Pierre said let’s start it with the ‘X’ and then the rest was history,” he explained.
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A carnival is a festival of music, culture, dancing and celebration that historically started with Roman Catholics a week before lent. Carnival came to Jamaica in the late 20th century and today Carnival in Jamaica fiercely competes with Trinidad as being one of the best places in the world to experience a Carnival parade.
Carnival season begins as early as January with a multitude of carnival events and Soca fetes leading up to the culmination of the season, the Carnival Road March Parade. When attending Carnival in Jamaica, it is always important to decide in advance the fetes and the band that you will be jumping with, so as to make the experience even more memorable. The Xodus band, since its inception, has been the biggest band in Jamaica and has grown year on year in size and grandeur. In 2023, Xodus partnered with Bacchanal, one of the oldest carnival bands in Jamaica. But how did Xodus get here, and what is their story?
Chairman of Dream Entertainment parent company of Dream Weekend and Xodus Carnival, Kamal Bankay gives a short version of the band’s conception and how Xodus got its name.” A few years before we started Xodus, Dream Entertainment actually had a section in Bacchanal, our core friends and followers loved the idea of us being on the road… In 2016 after 7 years of doing our mega-festival Dream weekend in Negril, we thought our time had come to start our own band for the carnival celebrations in Kingston. We then partnered with Stefan Monteil and Sean Burkett from Yuma in Trinidad and decided to start our own local band in Jamaica. Myself and Pierre Goubault, Xodus’ Festival Director, were strategizing at his house on how we were going to change the game for Carnival. I said “this movement needs a powerful name…we are going to name it Xodus! Pierre said let’s start it with the ‘X’ and then the rest was history,” he explained.
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