NARRIE APPROO

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APPROO, NARRIE

NARRIE, APPROO, TRINIDAD, CARNIVAL, TRADITIONAL, MAS, BLACK INDIAN, CARIBBEAN MEMORY PROJECT, MASQUERADE, CARNIVALESQUE, CARIBBEAN RHETORIC, VISUAL RHETORIC

BIOGRAPHY

Narrie Approo was born in Harmony Hall, San Fernando on April 22, 1927. By the time he was five, his family had moved to John John, east Port of Spain, in an area known as "behind the bridge" because of its location east of the Dry River. He first played mas as a small devil in 1934, and his first Black Indian mas experience came at age 11 when he was inducted into the Warriors of Huaracan by his godparents, Claudius Pierre and Eudora Thompson.

A veteran masquerader, Narrie recounts that the late bandleader, George Bailey sent men to watch him play dragon mas, and he was also the chief fireman in Cito Velazquez’s Fruit and Flowers in 1959. As a young man, he played tenor pan on the front line for Cross of Lorraine (now known as Massy All Stars). His experiences in pan have left indelible memories as the band’s cross emblem is tattooed on his right arm. He was with the side on the day it got tangled up in the fight between Invaders and Tokyo on Charlotte Street on Carnival Monday,1946.

AUDIO RECORDINGS

DOCUMENTS

FAMILY TREE

ONLINE LINKS
The Black I of the Huaracan Warriors by Simon Lee, Trinidad Guardian. February 21, 2014
A Lifetime of Mas by Austin Fido, Trinidad Guardian. March 9, 2014
Mention in "Creatures of the Mas" by Dylan Kerrigan (January/February 2005 issue of Caribbean Beat | Issue 71)

PHOTOGRAPHS