Leeds West Indian Carnival 2025

Here are some of the highlights of Leeds West Indian Carnival 2025 parade.

Transcript

00:00Welcome to Leeds Carnival, a beautiful event that happens every year.

00:05Every year we're down here to celebrate this fantastic occasion,

00:10bringing all the community as one together.

00:13And today is a perfect day, a lovely day for it.

00:16Oh, the vibe's amazing, amazing. Everyone's having a lovely time.

00:21I'm here for the first time. I've never been here before, heard a lot about it.

00:25A reason to come was not only to explore the different cultures, the sounds, the taste, the smells,

00:32but it's genuinely a very healthy sort of an atmosphere where you see a lot of people,

00:37irrespective of age, colour, caste, creed, from where your background is, what your ethnicity is.

00:43I'm half Persian, half Asian, and I have been offered free drinks, free food,

00:48free cuddles from so many people around, and it's such a lovely, bright, beautiful sunny day.

00:54I've been doing this for 25 years now at Leeds Carnival, and I'm very liking a lot,

01:00serving the customer, and bringing back culture, black culture, and culture food.

01:05So some type of dish that they've never seen before or heard.

01:08We enjoy this carnival. I think it's the best one outside of London Carnival so far in the UK.

01:13You know, it's nice, it's safe.

01:15You know, we always have a good time, and the costumes are amazing, aren't they?

01:20I've come to the carnival every year, it's a great vibe, great atmosphere.

01:25Music, great vibes, just happy feelings, everybody just having a great time.

01:29Good food, good music, good vibe.

01:32You just feel happy every year, you know.

01:34It's great seeing everyone in all their outfits, and the authenticity of it all. Yeah, it's great.

01:39I've been coming to Leeds now for the carnival for about 40 years.

01:43I quite look forward to coming to it.

01:45I had family here, but my family's passed on now, but I still come.

01:48I have lots of friends in Leeds, City Centre.

01:51We travel from Birmingham, as we do every year.

01:54We enjoy it. We look forward to coming. We have a blessed day.

01:58This is actually my first year coming to carnival, and it has actually been the best experience I've ever had.

02:03I would definitely let them come here again.

02:05The music, the food, the vibes, the people, everything is just amazing.

02:10Everyone is just so nice, and it's just a very good environment to be in.

02:15I've been coming to carnival for quite a number of years, maybe for a decade or so.

02:20I love carnival each and every year. It gets better and better, bigger and bigger.

02:25Amazing music, amazing food, amazing people, and I just enjoy everything coming together as a collective.

02:32It's a celebration of our Caribbean culture from Jamaica, and we get to dance.

02:37We have to have a good time and just celebrate who we are as a people.

02:41Such things are desperately in need of the world today.

02:44We need love, we need peace, we need humanity to come close, join hands, and in this letter and spirit of that,

02:52we should be having such gatherings, and I wish you have a brilliant time.

02:58I'm definitely going to have a blast.