Community Conversations
Blog #2
Ray Allen and Sandra A.M. Bell
With Brooklyn J’Ouvert 2025 right around the corner (Monday, Sept 1), Carnival aficionados should be on the lookout for traditional “ole mas” J’ouvert costumed characters who are rarely seen in the big Eastern Parkway Carnival Parade. In past years, the mischievous Midnight Robber, the disruptive Baby Doll, the fearsome Jab Jab, and the curvaceous Dame Lorraine have been sighted at daybreak along Flatbush Avenue and Empire Boulevard during the annual J’Ouvert celebration that signals the beginning of Brooklyn Carnival.
One of the most popular of these ole mas characters is the Dame Lorraine. She dates back to the 19th century when members of the Trinidad’s African underclass would dress up during Carnival to mock their haughty French mistresses. Often played by men, the Dame would appear in a voluminous and brightly colored dress with heavy interior padding to exaggerate the bust and derriere.
Roland Guy, a native of Belmont, Trinidad, continued the tradition of playing Dame Lorraine after coming to Brooklyn in the 1960s and joining the borough’s early Carnival festivities. In addition to his costume making skills, Guy is a visual artist whose colorful, Carnival-inspired collages adorn the walls of the Ambrosia Health Food store he runs in East Flatbush, Brooklyn.
Here is what Roland had to say when he sat down with City Lore folklorists Sandra A. M. Bell and Ray Allen to talk about his life as a masquerader and artist.
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I’ve been playing mas as long as I can remember. I grew up in the Belmont neighborhood of Port of Spain, Trinidad. As a child, when I heard the drummers and steelbands coming down the hill at 4am on Carnival morning I knew J’ouvert was about to begin! I would grab one of my mother’s dresses for a costume and run out in our yard and join in. I got the idea from seeing a man playing mas wearing his wife’s dress and hat—he was just walking down the street and everybody was laughing. It was a comical thing, to see a man in a dress. Now my father didn’t approve of me wearing a dress, but my mother understood that J’ouvert was about comedy, about theater.
When I got a little older, I started making my own Carnival costumes and playing with the Belmont community mas bands Dem Boys and Dem Flortunates. By the time I was sixteen I was making costumes for my friends. I’d organize a little section in the mas band, maybe four or five of the guys, and I would decorate their costumes.
I came to Brooklyn in 1964 when I was twenty years old. I had a friend, Merlin Bansfield, who had emigrated from Trinidad the year before, and he wrote me how wonderful Brooklyn was. After I arrived, I stayed with him on Rutland Road in East Flatbush and got a job at ANS. Then, after about a year, I decided to join the US Army. They needed recruits for Vietnam at that time, and I figured it was a good way to make a living and get my schooling paid for. I’d been a cadet back in Trinidad and was comfortable with military life. I was sent to a base in Texas for training as a medic, and then stationed at the Fort Dix/McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey. Now I was never deployed to Vietnam, but I treated plenty of the soldiers coming back with all sorts of injuries and disorders. Many came back physically and mentally damaged—you see the Army trained you how to kill, but didn’t deprogram you when you were ready to return to civilian life.
After being discharged from the military in 1967 I got a job with the city at Greenpoint Hospital. I was fortunate that they were willing to send me to school and I studied to become a paramedic at a facility in Maspath, Queens. That was the beautiful thing about America and especially New York City back then. If you came here from the Caribbean or someplace else, if you had a degree of ambition and were willing to work hard, you could become something, you could become a professional. Immigrants willing to work were welcomed and supported back then.
As a paramedic I was trained in Western medicine, but I was also familiar with traditional herbs and medicines from back home. I got this idea that there might be a market for natural health products here in Brooklyn and thought about starting my own business. I was employed as a paramedic during the day, but in the evening and weekends I started selling herbs on the street—things that Caribbean people wanted like red clover, pale blue vine, and blue violet. Then, one day I was out on Church Avenue and started talking to a real estate guy about getting a real storefront. That was back in the mid-1990s, when such places were available in this neighborhood for a reasonable price. And he said to me that the building at 3306 Church Avenue was abandoned and for sale. We had a look and my wife and I decided to buy it. We refurbished the place and here we are, 30 years later, Ambrosia Health Foods, going strong. We are now a family business with one of my four children, Roland Guy Jr, helping to run the store.
Now back to Carnival. When I came out of the Army in 1967 there was no big Carnival on Eastern Parkway like we have today. But there were neighborhood celebrations around Labor Day, especially around Fulton and Dean Streets in Bed Stuy. There were no big mas or steel bands during that period. I few guys would show up with pans and people would dress in homemade costumes. When I heard about that I put my dress and pillows (for the Dame’s bottom) in a bag and headed over to Dean Street. When I got there I’d just put on my dress and go and jump up in the street.
The police didn’t approve of our street gatherings because we were disrupting traffic and all, but eventually folks got a permit for an official Carnival parade on Eastern Parkway. That’s when I got going playing with Roy Pierre’s mas band. We grew up together in Belmont and a bunch of other neighborhood guys, including the poet Mervyn Tailor, joined his Brooklyn band. Roy was a very creative fellow and would come up with mas themes around traditional folk characters and such. And I would always play the Dame Lorraine. He would put me in front of the band and people really cracked up—they loved it!
The Eastern Parkway parade got so big and fancy that Roy decided to move his band down to the J’Ouvert celebration on Flatbush and Empire. That was sometime in the 1990s. It was a better fit, because he was an ole mas man and his characters were more in keeping with J’Ouvert—devils, witches, robbers, African slaves, and so forth. My Dame Lorraine was always good with him, no matter what theme he had that year.
Every year there was a contest for the best J’Ouvert costumes. Sometimes I would play with Roy Pierre or the Pagwah mas bands, and other times I would just play as an individual. I remember one year there was a contest someplace up around Atlantic Avenue that I entered as an individual. I built a live-sized wire and cardboard shoe that I could hide in. A few friends pulled me up to the judging stands and I popped out as the old lady who lived in a shoe. I definitely won the trophy that year!
People who come into our store often ask about my Carnival paintings that are on display—they wonder if I had ever studied art. I hadn’t, but here’s how they came about. When I had downtime in the Army I would often sketch things. I had no lessons, just a little talent that way. Later I took my book of sketches and made them into larger pieces. I would start with acrylic paint on a board or on canvas, and then glue on pieces of cloth that I had cut into patterns. Sometimes I would add beads, spangles, and glitter—the sorts of things that I would use to make my costumes. I called them modern art coming from my imagination, but all the colors and shapes were inspired by my experiences making Carnival costumes.
I’m now in my eighties and haven’t played Dame Lorraine mas for the past three years. But I still love J’Ouvert and what it represents. It’s an important part of our cultural heritage, a reminder of how we Caribbean people came from slavery to freedom. As I said earlier, J’Ouvert is comedy and theater; another way to look at is as a combination of pain and pleasure. Pain because it came out of slavery, a reminder of what our ancestors endured. But pleasure because you are out there really enjoying yourself—for me it’s a spiritual high, knowing that we finally won our freedom and now can be out on the streets playing mas as we wish.
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For more on Brooklyn J’Ouvert see City Lore’s “J’Ouvert Genesis Immersive Experience: booklet:
https://citylore.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/JGIE-BOOKLET-TO-CITY-LORE-AUGUST-11-2023.pdf
and “J’Ouvert in Brooklyn Carnival: Revitalizing Steel Pan and Ole Mas Traditions” by Ray Allen.
To watch a video about J’Ouvert in Brooklyn click here.
