A good number of musicians have been selected to perform at the International Junkanoo Festival which seeks to bring together diversity of cultures and traditions, music, dance, exhibition and culinary delights from around the world.
Scheduled to take place from October 24th to October 29th in Canada, Toronto this year’s festival will feature talented musicians like Bob Pinodo (Ghana), Santrofie Band (Ghana), Ras McBean ( Guyana), Molina Mohammed( Mexico ), Pierre Noel Steel Band among others.
Guest speakers for the event are Dr Mohammed Awal, Minister for Tourism, Arts and Culture – Ghana, Prof Kimani (PhD)( a brief info on his work) and other invited guests.
This event is being organized by the World Junkanoo Festival Foundation, and World Carnival Commission.
The event is expected to attracted trevellers from around the world, as revealed by the organizers.
The Junkanoo festival originated from Africa, depicting Slaves hiding their faces under a flour paste during it’s celebration.
The festival is one of the caribbean’s street parades with music, it is often celebrated with colourful costumes to exuberant dance routines, participants spend months preparing for the pageantry of this street parade accompanied by the steady beat of whistles, cowbells, horns, and drums hours after midnight.
History has it that, the origins was named after John Canoe, the theory surrounding the name is that, John Canoe was an African trader on the West African Coast during the era of slavery and was often portrayed as a rebellious slave, while at other times as a successful Black merchant in Africa countries whose story was carried over to the Bahamas through oral tradition (Sands, 2008).
The Festival was originally celebrated in the evenings, after the slave owners had gone to bed. Today, Junkanoo is seen as the celebration t of costumes, music, and dance to reunite Africans lost culture and a step towards conserving our heritage.
The maiden edition of the famous Junkanoo Festival notable among the Caribbean was launched in Accra in 2022 to put a spotlight on the country’s culture and heritage.
This is to bridge the Caribbean-Africa gap and to draw lovers of Carnival to the country to witness the better heritage that has been established Ghana
