Every summer, people in Cardiff come together to create Butetown Carnival, a celebration of the past and future of Butetown.
Since the 1967, live music and extravagant costumes have filled the air as people celebrate the area's notable past and bright future of its multicultural community.
We decided to look back at the carnival's colourful history and the importance it holds to the community of Cardiff.
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Butetown Carnival was born in the docklands after Butetown Youth Club were banned from participating in the Lord Mayor's Parade in the 1970s.
The Youth Club leaders decided to hold their own event and worked with the elders of the community to create a carnival which would hold great cultural significance to the people of Butetown.
Over the next decade, the carnival's popularity earned its spot as the biggest cultural event in Cardiff, with more than 25,000 people attending daily - despite a local population of 4,000.
The carnival has consisted of a fun run, parade and live music in the past. Today, these same activities remain alongside unique food stalls, face-painting, henna tattoo stalls and community dances.
However, by the early 1990s, Butetown Carnival was slowly declining due to a lack of funding.
Keith Murrell, attended the first carnival when he was 10 years old.
Growing up, he regularly attended the carnival and started performing with his band on the stage through the late 70s and 80s.
So when he saw the carnival was closing down, Keith helped form a local group, called Tiger Bay Community Arts, to step in and try to revive it.
Keith said: "The people redeveloping Cardiff Bay wanted to try run Butetown Carnival and take it out of the hands of the community.
"We got together to inherit some funding but after three years, the money ran out. The community became disheartened and we found ourselves in competition with our cultural events in Cardiff. These events had much more funding and ignored the black artists and performers right on their doorstep.
"We aimed to do something with nothing. Carnival has this fire and you can't take it away from us."
Butetown Carnival was becoming more important than ever as different groups started to live in the area, with more Caribbean, Yemeni and Somali people moving to Butetown.
Keith said: "Carnival has music, food, dance, colour, costumes and family. It was bound to bring the community together anywhere in the world.
"The carnival is about creating a community and celebrating different cultures. There's also a lot of fond memories and strong emotions attached to carnival that we share. It's one of the most important aspects of our community.
"There has almost been nothing but dissatisfaction in the community for the last 20 years. We felt like the community spirit and neighbourliness needed to come back and bringing back Carnival would be a great way to go about that."
In 2014, Keith and Tiger Bay Community Art successfully revived the well-loved Carnival.
Keith said: "It came from a very hyper-local point. We had very modest ambitions. We just got a few friends and performed and had a barbecue at the community centre.
"We literally had bags of rags in the community centre which people used to wrap themselves in and then we had a mini parade. It was very small and very random but it was full of fun and love.
"Over time, we found bands to perform and could make a whole day of it. People would always show up, whether it was raining or not, piled in to the community centre covered in rags and glitter."
Keith said although carnival is to celebrate other cultures, it naturally "became this way" thanks to the diverse make up of the population in Butetown.
He said: "The fact carnival was so multicultural is simply because we reflected Butetown. We weren't trying to be multicultural at all. Of course the carnival is influenced by the Caribbean and the black diaspora, but we never worked to make it that way. It naturally became that way when the community revived it because that is our community.
"By the time the next carnival came around in 2015, we were able to have two stages and two days of the carnival, so could do more."
Despite the carnival's importance and attendance growing, Keith struggled to receive funding due to time constraints and the event not being taken seriously.
Keith says they were seen as a "bunch of rowdy residents".
However things changed in 2018 when the national Eisteddfod came to Cardiff and the small local group behind the carnival were invited to be involved.
Keith said: "That was a pivotal moment for us as we could no longer be ignored. We were now part of this remarkable organisation.
"We started to receive support from the Arts Council of Wales as well as the Centre. We could focus better on what we wanted in the carnival.
"We really wanted there to be a focus on live music and established local artists like Leighton Jones and Aleighcia Scott.
"Not only were these great musicians, but they were great friends. There is lot of personal networking and good will put in to organising Butetown Carnival.
"We have a parade where people perform and play instruments as we walk from the Millennium Centre to Butetown Community Centre. We've also usually got street circus acts, kids juggling, food stalls, little pop up workshops and face painting.
"It's regular carnival stuff but our carnival is deep-rooted. We've got long standing experience in the carnival and community and are very well connected.
"It always made sense to have it in Canal Park, just near the centre. We reclaimed that space and it's recognised by the community."
However Keith says there are still certain challenges that exist today when organising the carnival.
He said: "There always will be some discrimination against people. It's not just about big organisations - there's problems within the community. There can be rivalries, competitions and segregation. We want to bring the whole community together."
Catherine McShane-Kouyate regularly attends the carnival and has been helping out in the parade since 2015.
Catherine added the carnival for her is all about 'letting it all out.'
She said: "There's something about stopping the road and the cars and having that day for the public to let it all out and subvert normality. We dance in the street and on the route. Suddenly, celebrating and coming together is better than the everyday dread. It's our time to come together, enjoy and express ourselves."
Catherine said the carnival aims to celebrate a sense of community and the different cultures across Cardiff but also showcases local talent.
She said: "Keith has been really good at representing the talent we have in Cardiff. We have all this up and coming young and local artists that we're giving a platform and letting perform at the carnival.
"The talent in Cardiff is nurtured at the carnival and it includes all different genres and styles from different cultures. My husband is a West African musician and has played at the carnival several times. It definitely feels like there is a space for everyone there."
Catherine, who lives in Roath, says the carnival isn't exclusive just to the people of Butetown and encourages people from all around Wales to attend.
She said: "When it was in Canal Park, it definitely had more of a Butetown audience but since working with the Wales Millennium Centre, there has been more passing trades and it's become a carnival for everybody.
"There's a place for everyone in it, whether you're participating, chucking the face paint on and getting involved with the parades or if you're just part of the audience enjoying some quality music on a Sunday afternoon."
Catherine said the themes change each year and are chosen by children who attend workshops on the lead up to Butetown Carnival.
She said: "We've had all sorts of different themes over the years, such as earth, water and fire ones and mythical dress codes. Some groups will come and decide on a theme for themselves which may be linked to the overall carnival theme. I know Oasis, the charity for refugees, turned up last year with costumes based on the sea and boats whereas our kids dressed up as sea animals so it was linked.
"Overall, the carnival is definitely about promoting positive action. There are plenty of difficulties and problems that people face and the Carnival is about combating that, coming together and being positive.
"The carnival's slogan is 'Lets get together and feel alright...' which sums it up perfectly."
For years, the carnival has welcomed Cardiff's best local singers, dancers and composers by allowing them to perform on stage.
Aleighcia Scott is an award-winning Reggae artist who was born in Cardiff. She has produced an album with Rory Stonelove, who has worked with stars such as Beyonce and Jay-Z
Aleighcia has won various awards including Radio Cardiff's Best Local Artist and has performed at Glastonbury, BBC and on international stages.
Keith said her first performance at Carnival was iconic in her career path and she quickly moved to the top after.
“The carnival is really important to me,” said Aleighcia. “It’s a part of the heart of the culture of Cardiff and it’s open to everyone to be all together, and it gives the community a voice too.
“I’ve performed there over the last five years and it is so nice to be a part of what is such a big thing for the city and community, and being able to share those moments with the people who attend.
The singer, who is from Rumney but has family who lived in Butetown added: “Back in the day it was a huge, huge event and people travelled from all over to come to it - so hopefully now we can work on building it to be just as big as it was before, if not bigger.”
Desta Omar, 42, from Grangetown said the earliest carnival she can remember going to was in 1987, when reggae band Aswad played.
Desta said: "It stopped for a while in the late 80s because different organisations wanted to get involved and change bits of it. I'm so happy it's been revived.
"I love attending it. It's where I grew up and as a kid, it was literally on our doorstep. It's really nice to go back and connect with people and spend a nice day together.
"They have all sorts of stalls for the kids to be entertained and food stalls. There's live music throughout the day and two stage areas. There's been all sorts of acts from singing, community dances, jazz to spoken word."
Desta agreed that the carnival was essential for celebrating Cardiff's diversity.
She said: "We can come together and do something local for the local people. There's always planned events down the Bay you've got to pay to go to - the point of Carnival is that it's much more laid back than that.
"We've had people come from all over to the carnival. People in the community will sell food out the front of their house or at the back of the park. There's a great mix of people and things to do there."
Butetown Carnival has always been viewed by the community as a event to celebrate diversity., before the Black Lives Matter movement.
Twenty years on, the event is finally officially being recognised as legitimate.
Keith is keen to reflect this by reversing the parade route. Traditionally, it starts at the waterfront of Memaid Quay, which used to be Butetown Docklands and ends at Canal Park.
Keith said: "I would like to change this so we start at the park, a pinnacle for the Butetown community and end it by presenting Carnival outside Mermaid Quay, as if we are presenting Carnival to the world and reclaiming the space where our story began."
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