Glen A. Fahie Turnbull, the co-band leader and president of the Brooklyn-based D’Midas International New York, had predicted that his mas band would capture the top prizes in the 2022 West Indian American Carnival.
“We don’t come out unless we come out to win,” Fahie Turnbull, a native of Tortola, British Virgin Islands (BVI), told Caribbean Life, as he prepared costumes at his mas camp on Nostrand Avenue in Brooklyn, ahead of the massive Caribbean Carnival Parade on Labor Day, Monday.
“We don’t prepare mas to come last,” added Fahie Turnbull, as the Trinidadian couple, Horace and Cheryl Johnson, co-band leaders, assisted with the production.
Well, on Wednesday, Fahie Turnbull’s prediction came true, as D’Midas International NY copped the top prizes in this year’s carnival.
The West Indian American Day Carnival Association (WIADCA), the Brooklyn-based organizer of the annual spectacle, announced that D’Midas International New York won Junior Carnival Band of the Year 2022, Junior King of Carnival, joint Adult Band of the Year and Adult King of Carnival.
For Junior Carnival Band 2022, D’Midas International NY portrayed “Then and Now, D’Past, D’Present and D’Future.”
Vincentian Francis DeSilva — who portrayed “Pitch Lake on Fire,” reminiscent of last year’s explosive volcanic eruptions of La Soufriere Volcano in St. Vincent and the Grenadines — won Junior King of Carnival for D’Midas International.
“It’s good!” exclaimed De Silva tersely, when asked, during Monday’s parade on Brooklyn’s sprawling Eastern Parkway, how he felt about portraying “Pitch Lake on Fire.”
Nearby, Fahie Turnbull himself carried a huge costume, “The Magnificent”, eventually winning Adult King of Carnival 2022 for D’Midas International NY.
“It’s nice,” Fahie Turnbull told Caribbean Life then. “I’m posing for pictures today.”
D’Midas Internationaal NY also shared Adult Band of Year 2022 with SkyMaxx, Sesame Carnival, Cocoa Diamond, Antoine International and Branches/Mango Tree Productions, according to WIADCA.
WIADCA also announced that Madison Jones – portraying “Reine de Beaute”, presented by Kaisokah Mas – snatched the Junior Queen of Carnival 2022.
Ann Nelson, portraying Antoine International’s “African Queen”, won Adult Queen of Carnival 2022, WIADCA said.
The five-day, in-person West Indian American Carnival returned this year after a two-year hiatus because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Monday, thousands of masqueraders and revelers converged on Eastern Parkway for the mammoth Carnival Parade, which culminated the five-day extravaganza.
Millions more watched the pageantry from ubiquitous police barricades, with soca, reggae, kompa, zouk and other Caribbean rhythms filling the air, as WIADCA celebrated 55 years of Caribbean Carnival in New York.
