The archive preserves and grants public access to Mas artists and experts.  Combined with interview notes and major published sources, we attempt to help visitors explore traditional mas. Designed to celebrate and enable mas players, artists, educators, students, and Carnival enthusiasts, the Traditional Mas Archive is an entirely free resource.

Traditional Mas Archive is always trying do do better. What does that mean?

First off, doing better means having a functional site for our patrons. This means we’re updating right now. It’s going to be incredibly messy but we’re going to update live. We have moved to new web servers, increased the security of the platform, and limited the ability to re-embed or download materials that we have been entrusted with. We are still an entirely free resource.

We’re updating live because we recognize that many people have access to computers or phones that simply do not have access to published materials on mas. The primary factor limiting this access is money. That is just wrong. So, we’re going to be here in some form for you.

A few things we’re up to:

-Looking at how we can improve response on mobile devices- specifically android cell phones. Half of our patrons access this website from a mobile device.

-Verifying sources and credits on individual images, quotes, and videos.

-Spell checking and discussing spelling variations

-Reviewing our efforts to avoid  colonizing the work

-Considering various non-profit structures

-Editing additional material from 2019 to 2021 (it will be posted in February of 2021)

-Updating image size and quality. Web standards have changed since we started.

It means attempting to create more direct traffic channels to mas artists. We’d love to just give access to mas players directly, rather than occupying an authoritative position on defining each mas. We hope that you will find our efforts to grant this access liberating and interesting. Take a look at our video interviews, for example.

We would love to hear from you regarding any suggestions. After we have completed our next round of updates, we will be be combing through the archive to correct errors, verify sources, and question formatting. So! Those suggestions will be so helpful after February 1, 2021.

Thank you so much for your interest. We want to make contacting us easy. For now, email dylan@traditionalmas.com . Due to COVID, we are taking additional precautions and may be unable to conduct an in-person interview.