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𝕁𝕒𝕪𝕜𝕖𝕝 𝕁. 𝕄𝕒𝕣𝕤

@mars_jaykel

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𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚒𝚜𝚝. 𝚖𝚎𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚢 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚔𝚎𝚛. 𝚌𝚞𝚕𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚎 𝚔𝚎𝚎𝚙𝚎𝚛. 𝚖𝚊𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐, 𝚛𝚎𝚖𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐, 𝚋𝚎𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚐.
@kalunga.tc
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Life has a way of bringing us full circle. Sometimes into spaces we once imagined, other times along roads we never quite saw coming.

I make peace with the unfamiliar. Striving to walk unapologetically into spaces I don't yet fully understand, to embrace the uncertainty of becoming, and to trust that every step, even the hesitant ones, is taking me somewhere.

Gracefully growing into versions of myself I once only imagined, realising how much more there is to learn, to unlearn, and to become...

𝒀𝒆𝒕, 𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝑰 𝒕𝒓𝒐𝒅
𝑨𝒔𝒆' 🌿 taken in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines by @mars_jaykel

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5 hours ago

There I sat at age 20.

Unaware and unsure...

Now almost six years have passed between him and I... life itself has moved.

People have come and gone. Things I once wanted, I no longer want. Things I thought would last, didn't. Things I never imagined found me anyway.

My mind has changed and so too my direction. Versions of myself I once fought so hard to become, I have outgrown.

Alas, the Kalunga tide rises with its salt-watered tongue. At this mercy's seat I sit, braced for its crossing...

Yet, beneath its unsettling movement, I recognize him... with the same questions, perhaps now with different language. The same tenderness. The same stubborn hope. The same need to make meaning of this life while I live it.

Modupe! Gratitude and thankfulness abound for where I have arrived, though I am not sure where exactly I've arrived. Modupe! For the grace of having lived enough to look back at myself with tenderness... to see all the versions of me that carried so many things forward, even when they didn't know where they were going.

Modupe! To know that wherever my trod, on this here earth, takes me, I go there carrying all that I have been, all that I am and all that I am still becoming.

For all that has been, Modupe!
For all that is becoming, may I be ready and may the way be clear!

Amen.

ASÉ. taken in St Vincent And The Grenadines by @mars_jaykel

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a month ago

I grew up in Barrouallie/Bagga (in Reversion, to be exact). When you grow up in a place like Bagga, the village raises you whether you realise it or not.

I was raised among people: people who told stories, carried traditions… people who prayed, sang, danced, made and remembered. People who probably never imagined that the ordinary things they allowed me to witness would one day become part of how I understand myself and the work I am called to do.

My family was not well-to-do, so culture was my inheritance.

My communal yard—with a large golden apple tree and the big stone that was our seats—was the first liminal space I encountered. It was our playground in the day: marbles, bunins’ (round dodge) and cricket with bats made from coconut branches, often ending with river or sea baths before we were clothed by the night. And on moonlight nights, ole’ time stories and the jumbie stories I pretended not to be scared of became our portions and provided me with ways of knowing that taught me how to see the world…in all of that was a little Black boy watching, an’ listening an’ remembering.

I eventually became a creative/cultural professional, and art and formal training gave me a language for understanding what the village had already put inside me, for I was formed and forged from inside the culture itself.

I hold space for how much of my work has simply been me finding my way back to things I was given before I knew they were gifts. So much of what I have spent the last few years trying to understand, create from, question, document, protect, pull apart and put back together again, I met first as a little boy.

There is so much I am still becoming. But I am grateful for the child who paid attention and for the village that gave him something worth remembering.

I accept, now more than ever, that much of the work ahead of me is simply honouring what I saw and know… things carried, and things that survived because ordinary people simply kept doing them.

I am that child, raised in and by the village. So I remain, forever, a bearer, carrier, keeper and defender of this, my culture.

--
Interview Footage: @christinathewordsmith "Ring the Bell, Shout Hallelujah" taken in St. Vincent and the Grenadines by @mars_jaykel

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Been thinking a lot lately about my work, culture, service, purpose and what it means to give yourself to something you deeply believe in; to make something your life's work.

In the end... Festivals end. Productions close. Titles may change. Institutions shift. But the work remains and so too the trod.

Forever moved by our people. In the things we make, inherit, remember and celebrate. In how we build systems that honour those who carry culture, while creating possibilities for those still finding their way into it.

I have learned a lot. Been challenged by a lot. Had to reconsider some things and become even more certain about others.

And somewhere in all of that, I am learning that sometimes continuing the work also means being willing to encounter it from a different vantage point.

Still here. Still learning. Still committed to the work.

Culture is people. Always.

--
📍Excerpt from an immersive traditional cultural experience curated by me for The Official Launch of VincyMas 2025, E.T. Joshua Tarmac, St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

🎥 Footage courtesy of @vashellglasgow | Gratitude for your sharing of this moment with me. by @mars_jaykel

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a month ago

And as my final act of love: fuck it.

Many will be disappointed.
I can live with that. taken in Outta Sight Outta Mind by @mars_jaykel

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2 months ago

VINCYMAS 2026 IS CALLING… AND THIS YEAR, WE ESCAPE DIFFERENT. 🔥🇻🇨✨

From the first beat in April to the final road on Mardi Gras… this is not just a calendar this is your journey into pure bacchanal. 🎭💃🏽🕺🏽

🔥 Soca.
🔥 Culture.
🔥 Energy.
🔥 Madness from start to finish.

Every fete. Every stage. Every moment… leading to the GREATEST ESCAPE. 🌴✨

THIS is your Great Escape🫶
THIS is Vincymas. 🇻🇨

#VincyMas2026 #TheGreatEscape #HottestCarnival #WeDoPartyNormal #VincyVibes taken in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines by @mars_jaykel

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4 months ago

And if these words are never spoken aloud, never offered for everyone to hear, consider this an ode to me. For I alone know what it is to live in this skin, to be of this kin, to carry all this pride... by @mars_jaykel

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4 months ago

// becoming everything I once needed, and learning to hold it without apology. by @mars_jaykel

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6 months ago

For the creators pushing culture forward 🇻🇨🔥
Growth. Collaboration. Expansion.
This is where the magic happens. by @mars_jaykel

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7 months ago

For a long time I believed in letting the work speak for itself. But I am learning that sometimes you also have to step into the frame and acknowledge the thinking, the care, and the intention behind the work.

Over the past year I have spent a great deal of time reflecting on our carnival culture and the nuances (traditional and contemporary) of its existence. I have been holding space for VincyMas beyond the surface of celebration and more groundedly as memory, archive, and inheritance.

I have been holding space of this festival we love, the traditions, forms, and the ecosystem of energies that shape its being and unique vibration. I acknowledge that it all did not appear overnight and that it all exist because elders, writers, artists, and cultural workers took the time to document, question, and preserve what matters.

In fact, I accept, now more than ever, that my own journey continues to be about working inside that continuum: reading, researching, listening, creating, curating, and imagining what the future of our cultural expressions can be. Some days that work looks like art, some days it looks like planning & administration and other days it looks like strategy, storytelling, and other times quiet reflection. But at the heart of it all is the same responsibility: caring for the culture that shaped me/us.

I am grateful for the elders whose trodings created the foundation I stand on, and I am equally committed to doing my part to help shape what comes next. I firmly believe that our culture (and this festival) is, can be and must be more than something we celebrate once a year...we can and must carry it , protect it, and keep building it together.

Though I am still learning, still building, still imagining what’s possible for Vincentian culture, I stop to lead with gratitude for now and for work already done. One Mas' and that is VincyMas! @vincy_mas

...the work continues.

#VincyMas #SVG #CaribbeanCulture #CulturalWork by @mars_jaykel

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7 months ago

Be brave Jaykel and if you can not be brave; be kind. Forgive yourself and others for the better I/we know now, that we did not know then. All is well, beloved...let your light and love so shine 🤍 by @mars_jaykel

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10 months ago

... by @mars_jaykel

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10 months ago