Lost Tribe’s beaver trick a ‘special win’

Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ke­[email protected]

Lost Tribe has se­cured the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion’s Large Band of the Year ti­tle and the over­all Band of the Year crown for Car­ni­val 2026 with its pre­sen­ta­tion of Is­land Cir­cus.

Massy Trinidad All Stars, por­tray­ing Sailors Ashore In Japan and Pa­parazzi ‘s Elope placed sec­ond and third in the Large Band cat­e­go­ry, ac­cord­ing to the re­sults an­nounced yes­ter­day by the T&T Car­ni­val Bands’ As­so­ci­a­tion.

The vic­to­ry marks Lost Tribe’s fifth Band of the Year ti­tle and its fourth con­sec­u­tive win. Cel­e­bra­tions erupt­ed at the band’s Al­ber­to Street head­quar­ters as mem­bers gath­ered to mark the achieve­ment.

Di­rec­tor Valmi­ki Ma­haraj said the mile­stone does not di­min­ish the sig­nif­i­cance of each win.

“No, no, no, it could nev­er be­come run-of-the-mill. I mean, every time you achieve not on­ly a win in terms of the Car­ni­val, but a win in life, it’s kind of a push to go for­ward, you know? It’s not nec­es­sar­i­ly an­oth­er win, it’s an­oth­er move­ment in life. It takes us an­oth­er phase and that’s how we kind of feel about it here.”

This year’s theme, Is­land Cir­cus, drew heav­i­ly on tra­di­tion­al Car­ni­val her­itage. Ma­haraj said the band used the cir­cus mo­tif to re­flect the foun­da­tion laid by ear­li­er gen­er­a­tions.

“It was par­tic­u­lar­ly spe­cial for us be­cause it gave us as a brand, as a band of cre­atives, the op­por­tu­ni­ty to be able to cel­e­brate the her­itage that, you know, walked so we could run.”

He added: “We didn’t win the win. You know, the tra­di­tion­al char­ac­ters won the win. The her­itage and the sto­ry that de­vel­oped those char­ac­ter­is­tics won the win.”

Dur­ing the pre­sen­ta­tion, per­form­ers held up a mir­ror to the crowd as part of the script­ed mes­sage.

“You may see us as char­ac­ters. We may per­form on a stage in front of you, but we are you,” he said.

On the pos­si­bil­i­ty of break­ing fur­ther records, Ma­haraj said: “I wouldn’t say that it’s nec­es­sar­i­ly a goal, but what I would say is if it’s in front of me, I’m go­ing to go for it.”

He ac­knowl­edged the band­lead­ers who came be­fore him, adding, “I nev­er thought in my life I would ever be in the same room or con­ver­sa­tions to these leg­ends that were be­fore us.”