Crowds turn out to support Passion Soca Truck

When one thinks about the traditional Bermuda Day or 24th of May, images of majorettes, Gombeys and colourful floats come to mind. But for the last two years, there has been a huge addition. The Passion Soca Truck. 

The brainchild of Jason Sukdeo, a well-known deejay also known as D’General, this year an estimated 6,000 people followed the truck as it moved along Front Street during the parade, double that of last year. 

Last week, Mr Sukdeo launched an online petition with the aim of lobbying Premier Michael Dunkley to consider amending legislation so that the Bermuda Day holiday falls the Friday prior to the American Memorial Day holiday each year. 

Benefits

By implementing the change, he said, both employees and students alike could have the weekend to recuperate and the long weekend has the potential to draw visitors to the island, especially from the East Coast of the US.

Although he says he did not expect the truck to become so popular so quickly, Mr Sukdeo says he knew the key to attracting a crowd was having a powerful sound system.

“The music is key. Some people said they could actually feel the music from far away. 

“I rent the sound system from a company called Positive Vibrations…to put it all together takes months of planning. 

“Last year was our first year doing this and I was surprised at the following but this year I was completely overwhelmed when I saw the aerial pictures.”

And what does Mr Sukdeo say to those who have criticized that his truck is not in keeping with Bermuda tradition and culture?

“I would ask, what is considered Bermuda culture because I’ve seen Gombeys in Grenada. To say it’s not Bermuda’s culture, I’d ask what is? Soca is what people are into right now. We had local deejays playing on the truck and had a local artist. We only had one deejay from Canada.”

He continues: “Tradition has to start somewhere. We are giving young people something new to do. We’ve never had any sort of negative incidents. The popularity of Soca is getting out there.”