It’s a sight that may cease you useless in your tracks. Brown our bodies lined in black oil from head to toe. Shining like onyx stones within the solar. Helmets adorned with horns curved upward, generally accompanied by pink, bloodied mouths, by no means removed from a drum with a hypnotizing beat. Whether or not you might be terrified or intrigued, there’s just one place on earth the place these cultural masterpieces stroll freest of their aspect: Grenada. Welcome to the land of Jab Jab and Spicemas.
As a journalist and storyteller, I’d lengthy heard about Spicemas in Grenada. I knew it because the weeklong cultural custom throughout carnival season — a time for revelry, heritage, and economy-boosting tourism. With one of the best fetes (events) on this aspect of the equator, stadium-packed concert events, and island-fresh meals from eating places to the road, 1000’s of tourists pour into Grenada in quest of a superb time. This 12 months, as a part of the Spicemas Press Posse, I joined them for a number of facets of the celebration.
I’ve visited many carnivals through the years, however coming to Spicemas to see the lads (and ladies) in black, often known as jab jabs or “devils,” was on my lifelong bucket record. In a world the place individuals are bombarded with ads to lighten and “brighten” their pores and skin, the place little Black women in basic literature want for bluest eyes, and kids are nonetheless instructed to not play within the solar too lengthy lest they tan, right here within the universe of Grenada, the foundations have been reversed like Uno. The blacker the higher.
I’d seen a jab earlier than I knew what a jab was, again in 2000, in Jay-Z and UGK’s “Huge Pimpin” video, as they floated throughout the TV display screen by way of Hype Williams’ lenses on one other Caribbean island (Trinidad).
His all-black pores and skin and horns have been hanging.
As quickly as I touched down in Grenada, I used to be on a mission to see jab jabs in movement, to know the historical past behind how Blackness turned supreme right here, and to unpack the generally misunderstood custom of dressing up as a jab. Was this actually about devils or one thing deeper?
From banned to Black supremacy
To know “jab jab,” it’s essential to perceive the celebrations they arrive from. Within the early seventeenth century, enslaved Black folks in Grenada and different elements of the Caribbean watched their European masters partake in fancy carnival celebrations throughout Lent with lavish costumes and dancing. After brutal workdays within the fields, Black folks discovered themselves forbidden from becoming a member of festivities, in order that they determined to create their very own.
Carnival turned a time of each mocking their oppressors and discovering private pleasure, full with political pageantry, the place they dressed as varied characters and wore costumes with particular that means and critiques. There have been “fancy” carnivals, the type many Individuals are acquainted with thanks partly to the commercialization of rhinestone and feather costumes, typically bikini-style with headpieces. (At present, these are open to anybody from world wide who pays and be part of a band, and these “fairly mas” carnivals seize the genuine fantastic thing about Caribbean music and other people.)
Then there was J’ouvert, derived from the phrase “dawn,” the place those that aren’t afraid to get soiled would come out in the dead of night of evening, blacken their pores and skin with mud or oil, play drums, and social gathering till the solar got here up. Drums have been typically used to summon non secular fortitude for revolts (which have been frequent within the Caribbean, together with Grenada). Whereas many trendy carnival celebrations embody j’ouvert, the true originator of j’ouvert within the spirit of Jab Jab is Grenada.
At present, trendy J’ouvert celebrations enable anybody to affix a band and get plastic helmet horns, skin-safe oil, and a drink cup to take part. However nobody does true J’ouvert with jab like Grenadians, and that’s as a result of Jab goes far past enjoying costume up.
“Jab is a masquerade — you’re shrouded in resistance and revolt,” says Ian Charles, a historian and influential artist who performs Jab music, who got here to talk with our group of journalists on the Sandals Resort in Grenada. “The colour of the jab, which is black, is extra than simply being darkish and black. [It is] what was demonized, as a result of being black was the incorrect factor. It was destructive.”
Charles defined how every side of the Jab costume has that means — from the horns on their head to the chains they drag behind them on the streets the place the masquerading takes place.
“That’s the look. However you aren’t the satan. You might be simply utilizing the nonsense through ridicule, satire, to point out this. Bear in mind, you don’t don’t have any gun, you don’t have any knife, you don’t have any bomb, you had nothing. So it’s important to use the intangibles proper now to essentially resist,” he says.
“The chains on J’ouvert morning is a large symbolism of freedom. These identical chains have been used on the transatlantic slave commerce coming to the Caribbean. Many 1000’s misplaced their lives. J’ouvert morning, the chains on the street characterize freedom. Break away. Bodily but additionally mentally… See, we’re nonetheless engaged on the psychological facets of it due to 200-plus years of slavery.”
It’s a thought that caught with me as I watched on-line debates emerge in actual time whereas folks ready to play jab and take part within the streets of Grenada. As “jab jab” trended, some extra spiritual and superstitious corners of the web questioned aloud whether or not folks have been really making an attempt to be or summon devils with their costumes.
The reply from the Jab Jab practitioners I spoke with was clear: completely not.
“It’s essential proper now to rewrite the Eurocentric narrative of what jab is. You can not inform me what my tradition is,” Charles says.
“My whole household is staunch Catholics. You recognize, however my uncles sing, sang, and produced insurgent music. They produced Jambalasee, and even earlier than that, they have been singing some critical Afro-centric music. So, regardless of my grandparents and whatnot, who’re heavy Catholics, you simply have the vitality.”
Charles nonetheless cautions in opposition to those that take part in Grenada carnival with out appreciating the historical past. From hypersexualization within the celebratory facets of “liberating up” oneself to stripping the masquerade from the that means, he believes extra revelers ought to take time to study earlier than placing on paint.
Does everybody ‘Play Jab’?
Like each nation, there’s a range of thought and perspective about even probably the most long-held traditions. Not everybody in Grenada essentially participates in enjoying Jab through the carnival season of Spicemas.
Whereas roaming by way of the city of Paraclete visiting a standard Jab Jab camp as they ready for the upcoming J’ouvert celebration on Carnival Monday, I met a Christian pastor who defined that he snuck out of his extraordinarily spiritual family as soon as to play jab a long time in the past and by no means did once more after a scolding from his mom.
“Tradition is dynamic. The meals you eat is the tradition, the best way you work together with folks is the tradition, since you put on the tradition. And what’s not culturally accepted immediately is tomorrow.”
For him, Grenada’s tradition is embodied in a distinct type of Afrocentric resistance: maroonage. Maroons have been escaped enslaved Africans who left plantations and located their option to freedom throughout the Caribbean. There have been maroons in Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and plenty of international locations, together with Grenada, every with a definite manner of being on the planet.
“The maroon was, I’ve my lands to work, so that you include me this Saturday or this Sunday, and I am going with you,” he remembers. “We stroll one another’s lands and we reap with one another, and that was the type of comradery that happened. You had a gaggle of younger individuals who would be sure that the aged had help. They might go round, assist them clear the yard, clear the home, assist them to cook dinner, put within the water. The neighborhood life.”
After listening to the pastor, I turned my sights again to the Jab Jab camp and watched because the locals laughed, lined themselves in oil, sang soulful songs with drums and conch shells, and paraded on beat by way of the city. I watched as they helped one another minimize greens, season meat, and group as much as make a large pot to make “oil down,” the nationwide dish of Grenada, which they generously shared with us all. I stared over a big material signal that they had simply unfurled with phrases painted in pink and black and smiled as I learn it:
BLACKA DAN BLACK.
Group. With or with out black oil on their our bodies, that is what Grenadians stood for.
Enjoying Jab on J’ouvert morning
A number of days later, waking up at 3AM on Monday morning for J’ouvert and getting by way of the thick crowds of individuals enjoying Jab right down to the streets of St. George’s, I noticed that worth in observe in every single place. Whether or not dancing in sync by way of the streets or beating drums, or making statements about politics and present affairs with indicators on their costumes, folks made noise even when they didn’t utter a phrase.
Because the Grenadian warmth grew extra intense, folks prolonged a hand if somebody wanted a drink of water, a spot to sit down, or a fast snack to gasoline themselves for the miles forward. Misplaced telephones have been returned shortly. Whether or not scantily clad or totally clothed, straight or queer, male or feminine, you could possibly stroll free. It felt secure.
Blackness shrouded the roads and have become extra pronounced because the solar rose greater. Folks danced and marched to the beat of DJ’ed jab jab songs like “Payroll” by Muddy or “Capital Anthem,” by Capital Jab. However additionally they moved to the literal beat of their very own drums.
There have been revelers from all around the world, however this was unquestionably a principally Black celebration — Black Individuals, Black Brits, Nigerians, Bajans and extra — the African Diaspora all converging with our varied accents on the roads. The range prolonged to class and titles: politicians, ambassadors, and professors partied alongside employees. Youngsters dragged chains, and aged women and men chipped down the street. Irrespective of our variations, at Spicemas we have been one.
That j’ouvert morning, we seemed like a pulsing jet-black heartbeat. Once I danced, I felt the familiarity of my very own cultures’ merengue beats and hip hop rhythms within the Jab Jab music I heard.
Strolling by way of the streets, once I picked up on American accents, we gave head nods and waves to one another, excited to know that another person had discovered the best-kept secret of carnival was proper right here at Spicemas. In a commercialized journey tradition the place it could really feel like solely the richest celebrities and largest influencers should buy their manner right into a carnival expertise, there was a purity about Grenada’s jab jab expertise that reminded you of our oneness as a folks.
We didn’t want a lot however ourselves and Black oil to have a superb time. Jab was for the folks.
As I assumed again to strolling the hills of the Grenada countryside and now the streets of the capital, making ready to board a ship to the seashore and wash off my oil within the ocean water, I couldn’t assist however consider one man who quietly bridged Black America and Grenada for generations: Malcolm X.
Malcolm’s mom was Louise Little, native-born to Grenada earlier than she moved to Canada after which the USA. She was a Pan-Africanist who married an African American man and raised one of the influential Black males in historical past.
“You’ll be able to’t hate the roots of the tree with out ending up hating the tree… You’ll be able to’t hate Africa with out ending up hating ourselves,” Malcolm X as soon as stated. “We can not consider being acceptable to others till now we have first confirmed acceptable to ourselves.”
Right here in Grenada, I noticed firsthand what it meant to be acceptable to your self.
To see your self as stunning. As worthy of revelry. As a part of a beloved neighborhood.
As Black. Nearly as good.
I imagined how transcendent it should’ve been again then for our ancestors trapped by chains. And it was in that second, I understood why freedom have to be celebrated.
Natasha S. Alford is the Senior Vice President of TheGrio. A acknowledged journalist, filmmaker, and TV persona, Alford can also be the writer of the award-winning e-book, “American Negra.” (HarperCollins, 2024) Observe her on Twitter and Instagram at @natashasalford.
