Pumpa, VIBE bring J'ouvert frenzy to throngs of revelers on BVI's East End

TORTOLA — A little known fact about the British Virgin Islands is that there are three occasions to enjoy J’ouvert, but none more so than the one held on the island’s East End and made popular by the late Nick Friday, lead vocalist of Jam Band from the U.S. Virgin Islands.

“East End J’ouvert is always the best J’ouvert,” Marshall Jones said. “Everybody knows that. Wherever we are in the world, we always talk about it, because it’s the best.” Jones, who hasn’t visited the BVI in 15 years, was home for the 70th Emancipation Festival, and among hundreds of revelers on the 2-mile route from Long Swamp to Long Bay Beach, Beef Island, for Wednesday’s East End J’ouvert.

“It has developed itself from Friday (Nick) days, Caribbean Ecstasy, Imagination days — it was just like that,” Jones said. “The most exciting thing about up here is coming up and jumping off the bridge. They call it cool off but I call it madness.” Floyd Penn said the early morning street party got off to a slow start, but it felt like old times.