Laila Shah Born with a passion for music!

Laila has taken the leading role in establishing the International Journal of Carnival Arts (IJCA) from May 2020. From 2019, she became the Youth Representative and Trustee of the Carnival Village Trust and the Youth Representative of the Windrush Memorial Committee.

Laila grew up in a family where steelpan and calypso are part of their daily lives. At 11 months, she was already at Notting Hill Carnival (NHC) in a pushchair playing mas as a ‘Sailor’ with Nostalgia Steelband. She grew up with a passion for music, with formal tutoring on piano and saxophone, while she was self-taught on guitar and pan, the latter hugely inspired by Russ Henderson who used to visit her music school in North London during her most formative years of tuition. By seven, she was playing pan on the road at NHC. Although prohibited to participate in the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics as she was only fourteen (she was four years below the minimum age), she was permitted to join Nostalgia Steelband to pre-record Rick Smith’s signature piece,

,“And I Will Kiss” at Abbey Road Studios for the Opening Ceremony of London’s 2012 Olympics. She was also allowed to play at the farewell send-off of the Olympics to Brazil in a steelpan performance designated ‘One Thousand Pans.’ This took place on the final day of the Olympics on the banks of the Thames where TASPO played in 1951 for the Festival of Britain. It was at this event she met the legendary Freddy Totesaut who after seeing her perform, encouraged her to join his band, St Michael and All Angels Steel Orchestra.

Inspired by a visit to Trinidad Carnival in 2013, she arranged her first tune, Bunji’s Garlin’s ‘Differentology’ for NHC in 2013 and won Nostalgia its first NHC carnival award. Keen to participate in the UK’s Panorama competitions, she joined Mangrove Steelband and participated at each Panorama between 2017 to 2022. Laila has toured with Nostalgia Steelband in Europe, China and Trinidad. Outside these performances, she has co-organised and presented several papers at the International Biennial Steelpan Conferences between 2012-2022. It was at these meeting that I heard her present her work on steelpan and heard her perform solo as well as with other steelbands. In 2018, she co-organised

Nostalgia Steelband’s visit to play on the streets of San Fernando, Trinidad for both days of carnival and became the first steelband to have achieved such a feat. This was reported in the Trinidad Guardian (Martin, Andrew, Funk, Ray, 2008. ‘Reconnecting with Roots: UK Steelband plays Carnival in San Fernando,’ Trinidad Guardian, March 20, 2018; Shah, L.M.N. 2020, IJCA, 1, 30-42)

Laila has taken the leading role is establishing the International Journal of Carnival Arts (IJCA) from May 2020. From 2019, she became the Youth Representative and Trustee of the Carnival Village Trust and the Youth Representative of the Windrush Memorial Committee. Nostalgia has done groundbreaking work over its 50-year history and Laila has single-handedly organised and ran several workshops while at school and later (2017 -2021) at the King’s College, University of London studying for a combined BSc/MSi in Chemistry. Her recent departure (September 2021) from London to pursue her PhD in Physical and Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Oxford necessitates a brief detachment from weekly activities in London but she has still participated fully in Notting Hill Carnival with Nostalgia Steelband and Panorama with Mangrove Steelband in 2022.

However, she has taken her tenor pan with her at the university and trying to stimulate interest in this incredible instrument by performing whenever possible. As a result, several students at university participated in NHC for the first time this year and are now keen to play pan. She is a current member of the new Oxford Carnival Committee which aims to restart the Caribbean carnival in July 2023.

Even though Laila is a full-time PhD student at Oxford, she still finds the time to commit fully to the administrative, editorial and upkeep of IJCA and the associated conferences up to 2022 which was held in Oxford. I therefore have no hesitation that she will play a significant role in helping to make the 10th International Conference of Carnival Arts titled ‘Rhythm of a People: Tradition, Connection and Innovation the March of Decolonisation’ a great success and strongly supports her in the organising committee.