Carnival Checklist: Red Fox’s 7 Things You Must Do At NYC’s West Indian Day Parade

Words by Kieran Meadows, Red Fox, Photos by Reid Van Renesse, Yofray Ray, Mario Tama-

This Monday is Labor day and of course that means it’s time again for the annual West Indian Day Parade along Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. The parade (along with the whole weekend of events) draws millions of revellers and West Indian ex-pats from all over the region to take part in the Carnival celebration.

We spoke with veteran Jamaican dancehall deejay and Brooklyn resident since ’86, Red Fox (pictured above), to find out seven things you must do at the parade. Red Fox has usually spent his time at the parade as a performer on one of the dozens of floats that pass by to entertain revellers with music, dancers and costumes from all over the Caribbean. But in the early ’90s, you could find him set up with one of the sound systems that also used to line the parade route during the pre-Giuliani era. In fact, Red Fox’s classic 1993 dancehall anthem to the girls in the pum pum shorts, “Pose Off”, was written with Screechy Dan at the parade near President St and Rogers Ave. Red Fox says that the idea came from Screechy joking around and singing when some girls passed by looking sharp in their carnival outfits. Listen below to the song to get in the spirit of the weekend while you make a checklist of the following seven things, in no particular order, that you must do at the parade.

Click here to begin the countdown.

Make sure you have a flag

“Be sure you have a flag,” says Red Fox, so you “can jump and wave and represent one of the West Indian islands.” This is at essence what the whole day is about. Being proud of West Indian heritage. So represent! If you don’t have a flag by the time you arrive, you can buy one from one of the numerous vendors surrounding the parade route on Eastern Parkway. Red Fox says some people have lots of different flags to wave, so choose the appropriate one when a truck goes by representing that specific country. “Party with everyone,” Red Fox says. So consider that an option too. We recommend you get creative with how you represent; you’ll find lots of folks wearing flags or their colors, showing off with a sort of “only-at-the-parade” Caribbean fashion sensibility.

Find a comfortable spot

With millions of people packing the parade route, Red Fox recommends finding an area where you feel comfortable with a good view of the floats. While he personally prefers the Rogers Ave area, he said one of the most important things is to find a spot where the police officers are “doing their job with a smile.” He’s all for the good security and understands it’s a difficult job due to the large crowds — but he cautions that some NYPD cops are very hostile i.e. they don’t do it with a smile. We, along with Red Fox, recommend finding a spot near a cop that might be open to getting into the spirit and doing something like this:

Hold a wine

“You have to find the fattest girl you can find in her Carnival outfit and get her to dance with you,” says Red Fox. “If you don’t get a big fat girl, I don’t think you did it right,” he says with a laugh. Do it right in the middle of the street. “You only get to do that once a year in New York,” so take advantage and enjoy. Red Fox says pretty much everyone is open to it — especially the Trinidadians, that’s just how they party and enjoy themselves. Keep in mind Trinidad holds a pretty famous Carnival each year in February/March so the bacchanalist attitude is especially prevalent with Trinis (yet still true for everybody). So look out for the red flag with the black & white diagonal stripe and “jump and start wining on her — she’ll give you good workout.”

Look out for these 3 floats

Try to see at least one of the following — if not all three — floats. The first is the VP Records truck, which usually has all of the current dancehall entertainers aboard working the crowd. The second is the Hot 97/Massive B truck (Which may or may not be rolling this year, so stay tuned to Massive B’s Twitter for any updates—Ed.). The third is Wyclef’s Haitian truck which is always exciting and, usually, one of the loudest floats on the parkway.

Eat some Caribbean food

There are tons of vendors out and about selling all types of food to satisfy the hunger of revelers. “There is A LOT of food out there,” says Red Fox. Therefore it’s a great day to sample some roti or curry from Trinidad or some authentic Jamaican jerk chicken “street-food” style. Again, Red Fox is partial to the President St and Rogers Ave area for some of the best jerk chicken available at very affordable prices. If meat is not your thing, there is lots of delicious healthy Ital food available as well.

Drink something

It’s not legal to drink open containers containing alcohol, but it’s safe to say that there is quite a bit of drinking rum (the most common alcohol made in the West Indies). Therefore, Red Fox recommends you mix it up with something and “make sure you have it in a soda bottle.” But you don’t have to drink alcohol. In fact, you should try some of the Jamaican beverages like Roots Tonics (a popular one is Baba Roots) filled with herbs and roots — lots of Rastas have this readily available for sale. Or you can try Mauby, a tree bark-based tonic beverage popular in Trinidad, Barbados, Guyana and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Smoke something

We at LargeUp can’t really promote anything illegal, but Red Fox says that, hey it’s the parkway on Labor Day. “It’s our day,” he says. “Even NYC cops will recognize there is some kind of smoking going on and they’re a little bit more tolerant to the smoking of marijuana. It’s part of our culture.”