Music of Haiti
Encyclopedia
The music of Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...

is influenced mostly by Europe, colonial
Colony
In politics and history, a colony is a territory under the immediate political control of a state. For colonies in antiquity, city-states would often found their own colonies. Some colonies were historically countries, while others were territories without definite statehood from their inception....

 ties, and African migration through slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...

. European musical influence derived primarily from the French and by the Spanish-infused influence of Cuba
Music of Cuba
The Caribbean island of Cuba has developed a wide range of creolized musical styles, based on its cultural origins in Europe and Africa. Since the 19th century its music has been hugely popular and influential throughout the world...

 and the bordering Dominican Republic
Music of the Dominican Republic
The music of the Dominican Republic is known primarily for merengue, though bachata, salsa and other forms are also popular. Dominican music has always been closely intertwined with that of its neighbor, Haiti .-Merengue:...

. Styles unique to Haiti include music derived from vodou ceremonical traditions and the wildly popular Compas. Alan Lomax
Alan Lomax
Alan Lomax was an American folklorist and ethnomusicologist. He was one of the great field collectors of folk music of the 20th century, recording thousands of songs in the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain.In his later career, Lomax advanced his theories of...

 first recorded Haitian music in 1937
1937 in music
-Events:*January 21 – Paul Sacher conducts the world première of Béla Bartók's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta in Basel*June 2 – The incomplete version of Alban Berg's opera Lulu is premièred in Zürich *June 8 – Première of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana in Frankfurt, Germany.*November 30 –...

 under the auspices of The Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...

.

On December 21, 1936, Alan Lomax
Alan Lomax
Alan Lomax was an American folklorist and ethnomusicologist. He was one of the great field collectors of folk music of the 20th century, recording thousands of songs in the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain.In his later career, Lomax advanced his theories of...

 sent a report to Herbert Putnam
Herbert Putnam
Herbert Putnam was an American lawyer, publisher, and librarian. He was the eighth Librarian of the United States Congress from 1899 to 1939.-Biography:...

, the Librarian of Congress about his first impressions after arriving in Haiti.
"I have looked about enough to be sure this is the richest and most virgin field I have ever worked in. I hear fifteen or twenty different street cries from my hotel window each morning while I dress. The men sing satirical ballads as they load coffee on the docks. Among the upper-class families many of the old French ballads have been preserved. The meringue, the popular dance of polite society here, is quite unknown in America and has its roots in the intermingling of the Spanish and French folk-traditions. The orchestras of the peasants play marches, bals, blues, meringues. Then mama and papa and kata tambours officiate at as many kinds of dances; the congo, the Vodou, and the mascaron. Then there seem to be innumerable cante-fables [oral tales punctuated by songs or rhymes performed by the audience]. Each of these categories comprise, so I am informed, literally hundreds of melodies; French, Spanish, African, mixtures of the three. The radio and the sound movie and the phonograph record have made practically no cultural impression, so far as I can discover, except among the petit-bourgeois of the coastal cities. And American jazz is hardly known here except among the rich who have visited America. Composition, by which I mean folk composition, is still very active. So I think I can say that unless a piece of sky falls on my head, this trip will mean some beautiful records for the Library's collection."

Rara

Rara
Rara
Originating in Haïti, rara is a form of festival music used for street processions, typically during Easter Week. The music centers on a set of cylindrical bamboo trumpets called vaksen , but also features drums, maracas, güiras or güiros , and metal bells, as well as sometimes also cylindrical...

 music is a Lent
Lent
In the Christian tradition, Lent is the period of the liturgical year from Ash Wednesday to Easter. The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer – through prayer, repentance, almsgiving and self-denial – for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and...

en processional music with strong ties to the Vodou religious tradition. It has been commonly confused with Haitian Carnival since both celebrations involve large groups of dancing revelers in the streets. Rara is performed between Ash Wednesday
Ash Wednesday
Ash Wednesday, in the calendar of Western Christianity, is the first day of Lent and occurs 46 days before Easter. It is a moveable fast, falling on a different date each year because it is dependent on the date of Easter...

 (the day after Carnival ends) until Easter Sunday (or Easter Monday in some parts of Haiti.) Rara bands roam the streets performing religious ceremonies as part of their ritual obligations to the "lwa" or spirits of Haitian Voodoo. Guédé
Guédé
In Haitian Vodou, the Guédé are the family of spirits that embody the powers of death and fertility. Guédé spirits include Ghede Masaka, Guédé Nibo, Guédé Plumaj, Guédé Ti Malis, and Guédé Zaranye. All are known for the drum rhythm and dance called the "banda"...

, a spirit associated with death and sexuality, is an important spiritual presence in Rara celebrations and often possesses an ougan (male Voodoo priest) or mambo
Mambo (voodoo)
Mambo is the term for a female High Priest in the Vodou religion in Haiti. They are the highest form of clergy in the religion, whose responsibility it is to preserve the rituals and songs and maintain the relationship between the spirits and the community as a whole...

 (female Voodoo priest) before the band begins its procession in order to bless the participants and wish them safe travels for their nightly sojourns.

Mizik rasin

Starting in the late 1970s (with discontent surrounding the increasing oppulence of the Duvalier
Duvalier
Duvalier is a surname, and may refer to:* François Duvalier , nicknamed "Papa Doc", President of Haiti * Jean-Claude Duvalier , nicknamed "Baby Doc", son of François Duvalier and President of Haiti...

 dictatorship), youth from Port-au-Prince
Port-au-Prince
Port-au-Prince is the capital and largest city of the Caribbean nation of Haiti. The city's population was 704,776 as of the 2003 census, and was officially estimated to have reached 897,859 in 2009....

 (and to a lesser extent Cap-Haïtien
Cap-Haïtien
Cap-Haïtien is a city of about 190,000 people on the north coast of Haiti and capital of the Department of Nord...

 and other urban areas) began experimenting with new types of life. François Duvalier
François Duvalier
François Duvalier was the President of Haiti from 1957 until his death in 1971. Duvalier first won acclaim in fighting diseases, earning him the nickname "Papa Doc" . He opposed a military coup d'état in 1950, and was elected President in 1957 on a populist and black nationalist platform...

's appropriation of Vodou images as a terror technique, the increase in US assembly and large-scale export agriculture, the popularity of disco
Disco
Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...

, and Jean-Claude Duvalier
Jean-Claude Duvalier
Jean-Claude Duvalier, nicknamed "Bébé Doc" or "Baby Doc" was the President of Haiti from 1971 until his overthrow by a popular uprising in 1986. He succeeded his father, François "Papa Doc" Duvalier, as the ruler of Haiti upon his father's death in 1971...

's appreciation of konpa and chanson française disillusioned many youth and love.

To question the dictatorship's notion of "the Haitian nation" (and thus the dictatorship itself), several men began trying a new way of living, embodied in the Sanba Movement. They drew upon global trends in black power, Bob Marley
Bob Marley
Robert Nesta "Bob" Marley, OM was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and musician. He was the rhythm guitarist and lead singer for the ska, rocksteady and reggae band Bob Marley & The Wailers...

, "Hippie"-dom, as well as prominently from rural life in Haiti. They dressed in the traditional blue denim (karoko) of peasant
Peasant
A peasant is an agricultural worker who generally tend to be poor and homeless-Etymology:The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district.- Position in society :Peasants typically...

s, eschewed the commercialized and processed life offered by global capitalism, and celebrated the values of communal living. Later, they adopted matted hair which resembled dreadlocks, but identified the style as something which existed in Haiti with the term cheve simbi, referring to water spirits.

The most well-known of these were Sanba Zao (Louis Leslie Marcellin), Ayizan
Ayizan
In Vodou, and especially in Haiti, Ayizan is the loa of the marketplace and commerce.She is a racine, or root Loa, associated with Vodoun rites of initiation...

 (Harry Sanon), Azouke (Gregory Sanon), Aboudja (Ronald Derencourt), Kebyesou Danle (Jean Raymond) and Chico (Yves Boyer). They formed a band called Sanba yo and later, Gwoup Sa. Later still, other musicians like Lolo (Theodore Beaubrun), Papa Bonga, and Eddy François joined the trend. This was the modern precursor to what would become mizik rasin
Mizik rasin
Rasin is a musical movement that began in Haïti in 1987 when musicians began combining elements of traditional Haïtian vodou ceremonical and folkloric music with rock and roll. This style of modern music reaching back to the roots of vodou tradition came to be called mizik rasin in Kreyòl or...

. One of these groups recorded a song in the 1980s for a UNICEF campaign for vaccination which is included on the LP Konbit!.

In the 1990s, commercial success came to the musical genre that came to be known as mizik rasin
Mizik rasin
Rasin is a musical movement that began in Haïti in 1987 when musicians began combining elements of traditional Haïtian vodou ceremonical and folkloric music with rock and roll. This style of modern music reaching back to the roots of vodou tradition came to be called mizik rasin in Kreyòl or...

, or "roots music". Musicians like Boukman Eksperyans
Boukman Eksperyans
Boukman Eksperyans is a mizik rasin band from the city of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The band derives its name from Dutty Boukman, a vodou priest who led a religious ceremony in 1791 that is widely considered the start of the Haitian Revolution...

, and Boukan Ginen
Boukan Ginen
Boukan Ginen is a mizik rasin band from the city of Port-au-Prince, Haïti. Boukan is the Haitian Kreyòl word for "bonfire" or "fire pit"...

, and to a lesser extent RAM
RAM (band)
RAM is a mizik rasin band based in the city of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The band derives its name from the initials of its founder, songwriter, and lead male vocalist, Richard A. Morse. The band's music has been described by Morse as "Vodou rock 'n' roots", and has been one of the prominent bands...

, incorporated reggae
Reggae
Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...

, rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

 and funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...

 rhythms into traditional forms and instrumentation, including rara, music from kanaval, or traditional spiritual music from the rural hamlets called lakous, like Lakou Souvnans, Lakou Badjo, Lakou Soukri, or Lakou Dereyal. Though initially the people involved followed the ways of the Sanba Movement, eventually this began to fade. Increased political and economic pressures saw many of these people emigrate (to the US and Canada, primarily). Both those who stayed and those who traveled between countries began adding more non-Haitian (strictly speaking) elements and implemented a more commercial sound to earn more money and a wider audience.

Although the message of much of the sanba-oriented bands espouse values of equality, several members have been linked to male chauvinism ideas and even domestic violence. (c.f. the book Walking on Fire, Beverly Bell).

Compas

Compas (in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

) or Kompa (in Creole
Haitian Creole language
Haitian Creole language , often called simply Creole or Kreyòl, is a language spoken in Haiti by about twelve million people, which includes all Haitians in Haiti and via emigration, by about two to three million speakers residing in the Bahamas, Cuba, Canada, France, Cayman Islands, French...

)
Compas is a modern Méringue
Méringue
Méringue, also spelled "mereng" in Creole, is a music genre native to Haiti . It is musically and historically connected to Dominican Merengue. It is a guitar-based style , and is generally sung in Haitian Creole.-History:The history of méringue is similar to that of much Caribbean popular music...

. Born in the 19th century is spelled Méringue in French, Mereng in Haiti Creole and Merengue
Merengue music
Merengue is a type of music and dance from the Dominican Republic. It is popular in the Dominican Republic and all over Latin America. Its name is Spanish, taken from the name of the meringue, a dessert made from whipped egg whites and sugar...

 in the Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...

. Since Haiti comprises the western part of the island while the Dominicans live in the eastern part of the same Hispaniola
Hispaniola
Hispaniola is a major island in the Caribbean, containing the two sovereign states of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The island is located between the islands of Cuba to the west and Puerto Rico to the east, within the hurricane belt...

 island, the two traditions have much in common.

Compas direct was popularized in the mid-1950s by the sax and guitar player Nemours Jean Baptiste
Nemours Jean Baptiste
Nemours Jean Baptiste was a Haitian saxophonist, writer, and band leader. He is credited with being the inventor of compas, a style of Haitian music. The BBC has described him as Haiti's most influential band leader....

. Its light meringue soon became popular throughout the Antilles
Antilles
The Antilles islands form the greater part of the West Indies in the Caribbean Sea. The Antilles are divided into two major groups: the "Greater Antilles" to the north and west, including the larger islands of Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola , and Puerto Rico; and the smaller "Lesser Antilles" on the...

, especially in Martinique
Martinique
Martinique is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of . Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados...

 and Guadeloupe
Guadeloupe
Guadeloupe is an archipelago located in the Leeward Islands, in the Lesser Antilles, with a land area of 1,628 square kilometres and a population of 400,000. It is the first overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. As with the other overseas departments, Guadeloupe...

. Webert Sicot
Webert Sicot
Webert Sicot was an Haïtian sax player, composer and band leader. H is recognized as one of the creators of konpa dirèk, a style of Haïtian dance music born in the 1950s.- Biography :...

 and Nemours Jean Baptiste
Nemours Jean Baptiste
Nemours Jean Baptiste was a Haitian saxophonist, writer, and band leader. He is credited with being the inventor of compas, a style of Haitian music. The BBC has described him as Haiti's most influential band leader....

 became the two leaders in the group. Sicot then left and formed a new group and an intense rivalry developed, though they remained good friends. To differentiate himself from Nemours, Sicot called his modern meringue cadence rampa
Cadence rampa
Cadence rampa is a variety of music from the Caribbean country of Haïti. Cadence rampa is originally a modern Haitian Méringue popularized by the talented sax player Webert Sicot in the early 60s...

.

Mini-jazz

As cadence rampa became more and more experimental, and Compas direct incorporated more effective pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

 structures, American- and French-style pop spawned mini-jazz
Mini-jazz
Mini-jazz is a type of jazz music characterized by swing dancing and jazzy melodies with influences from rock music.-History:...

 bands that became perhaps the first fully Haitian form of pure pop.

In the mid-1970s, when the sounds of the antillian bands such as les Aiglons
Les Aiglons
Les Aiglons were a 1970s Guadeloupean cadence band. They were the best selling Antillean band with their record Cuisse-La, until the release of Kassav's Zouk-La Se Sel Medikamen Nou Ni...

, Grammacks
Grammacks
Grammacks was a 1970s musical group from Dominica.-Biography:The band was started in a village on the west coast called St. Joseph. The band was formed by Anthony "Curvin" Serrant, guitar Anthony "Tepam" George, bass Elon "Bollo" Rodniy drums and keyboard player McDonald "Mckie" Prosper. Jeff...

, Les Vikings and later kassav in the 80's started hitting the airwaves. It was a serious call for the mini-jazz bands. As a result, Many mini-jazz started to do a make-over by adding full-horn section
Horn section
In music, a horn section can refer to several groups of musicians. It can refer to the musicians in a symphony orchestra who play the horn . In a British-style brass band it refers to the tenor horn players. In popular music, it can also refer to a small group of wind instrumentalists who augment a...

 and synthesizers. Furthermore, Some mini-jazz bands changed their names after this make-over for example:Les Difficiles de petioville became D.p express, Les gypsies de petionville became Scorpio Universel etc.

Compas and the Midi technology

The mid-1980s saw the success of zouk (itself derived from the compas of the French Antilles). Zouk was originated by the band Kassav' among whose innovations was the use of sophisticated technology including MIDI
Musical Instrument Digital Interface
MIDI is an industry-standard protocol, first defined in 1982 by Gordon Hall, that enables electronic musical instruments , computers and other electronic equipment to communicate and synchronize with each other...

. In the early 90's, bands such as Zin
Zin
Zin may refer to:*Zin, Afghanistan, a town in Afghanistan*Zin Desert, in the Sinai*Wadi Zin, a wadi in the Negev desert, that flows to the Dead Sea*Zinfandel, a variety of red grape commonly used to make wine...

, Lakol, Papash (amongst others) took the New Generation movement to a new standard by using the MIDI technology.

"Compas-love" or zouk love"

Some artists have used the term "Compas-love" or "zouk love" which is nothing but a light and slower tempo traditional compas played with lots of synthesizer and guitar with lovely lyrics in French, Creole, English or other languages. This light compas is more popular in France and the French Antilles of Martinique and Guadeloupe. Compas-love started as a fusion of Zouk-love
Zouk-love
Zouk-love is a genre of popular French West Indian music originating from the Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe & Martinique. Zouk means "party" or "festival" in the local creole of French, although the word originally referred to, and is still used to refer to, a popular dance, based on the Polish...

 with Compas, also known as Zouk-Compas "New Generation". It is almost identical to Zouk-love but a bit faster, it features more live instruments, and it relies heavily on the Haitian Compas guitar. This style of zouk is more popular in France, and the Caribbean. Caribbean, Cape Verdean and African zouk artists usually feature each other via compas-love songs. Popular Compas-Love artists includes artists like Jacky Rapon in song like "Mi Amor", Ludo
Ludo
Ludo may refer to:* Ludo , a board game of the Cross and Circle game family* Luděk Mikloško Czech football goalkeeper.* Ludwig II of Bavaria, nicknamed 'Mad King Ludo', a king of Bavaria who reigned between 1869 and 1886...

 in song like "Weekend", Jackito in song like "Je l'aime a mourir" and Priscillia in song like "Dis le moi", Ali Angel in song like "Zouk Bordel 2003", and Iron
Iron
Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...

 in song like "Mr DJ". These songs are available through YouTube.

Haitian rap

The local homegrown Haitian hip hop
Haitian hip hop
Haitian Hip Hop or Hip Hop Kreyol is music originating from Haiti and sung by artists of Haitian descent. The most popular form of this is the rising of 'Hip Hop nan Kreyòl' or Kreyòl Hip Hop. Often, hardcore beats are used while the artist raps in kreyòl...

 movement is rising in popularity in Haiti and other Haitian communities. It is becoming more and more popular with Haitian youth, often communicating social and political topics as well as materialism. Compas as well as other popular local music beats are used frequently with urban sounds. Recent years have seen a rise in popularity for Haitian Hip-Hop artists such as Barikad Crew
Barikad Crew
Barikad Crew is a Rap Kreyol group based out of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. They are widely considered the most popular group of the Rap Kreyol movement. On June 15, 2008, 3 members of the group died in a car accident while they were on their way to a show in Haiti...

 and Jimmy O
Jimmy O
Jean Jimmy Alexandre , better known by his stage name Jimmy O, was a Haitian hip hop artist who was born in Port-au-Prince and lived in New York City. He was involved with Wyclef Jean's Yéle Haiti Foundation...

. Other Haitian hip hop artists have yet to evolve.

Torch
Torch (rapper)
Frederik Hahn , better known by his stage name Torch, is a German rapper with Haitian roots. He was among the first German rappers who began rapping in German in the mid-1980s in Heidelberg, laying the foundation for the success of German hip hop music...

, has been rapping since the mid-1980s and has been one of the most influential contributors to German hip hop. He is "a hip hop activist, appointed by rap-godfather Afrika Bambaataa
Afrika Bambaataa
Afrika Bambaataa is an American DJ from the South Bronx, New York who was instrumental in the early development of hip hop throughout the 1980s. Afrika Bambaataa is one of the three originators of break-beat deejaying, and is respectfully known as the "Grandfather" and the Amen Ra of Universal...

 to head the first German chapter of Zulu Nation... His band Advanced Chemistry released a maxi-single in November 1992. The song, "Fremd in eigenem Land" (foreigner in your own country), made a pointed statement about the position of immigrants in German society."

See also

  • Haitian vodou drumming
    Haitian vodou drumming
    In Haiti, Vodou ceremonies and drumming are inextricably linked. While drumming does exist in other contexts in the country, by far the richest traditions come from this distinctly Haitian religion. As such, before one can come to play, appreciate, and understand this music one should view it in...

  • Haitian hip hop
    Haitian hip hop
    Haitian Hip Hop or Hip Hop Kreyol is music originating from Haiti and sung by artists of Haitian descent. The most popular form of this is the rising of 'Hip Hop nan Kreyòl' or Kreyòl Hip Hop. Often, hardcore beats are used while the artist raps in kreyòl...

  • Jazz Guignard
    Jazz Guignard
    Jazz Guignard was a popular Haitian jazz musician in the 1930s. He was distinguished by his completion of one of the first noncommercial recordings of Haitian music....


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK