An old time Haitian friend visiting Miami for a few days from Port-au-Prince, brought some "pois france" to be cooked. How he got it through U.S. Customs, I have no idea. If questioned by the authorities I would have nothing to add, being that curiosity kills the cat. I took my friend to a Haitian party in a private home, and he told me he felt like he was in Petionville, Haiti. I told him that we in Miami were modest people, and that we call Kendall, "Lalue", a less affluent neighborhood of Port-au-Prince on the way up to the Petionville suburbs. Miami having no mountains. Boca Raton in Palm Beach County is considered to be Petionville among Haitians, not because of its mountains, which are non-existent, but because of its distance to Little Haiti in Dade County. That's the perception. People bring their cultural baggage with them.
Today, Sunday morning, 06 May, looking through the Herald, we read about the Miami Herald 2001 Silver Knight Award Winners, and names like Michael Louis, Jacqueline Dorvil, Roseberte Pierre, pop up; Haitian-Americans. In the same edition in the Arts section of the paper the front-page feature is " Compas gets cool ", "Wyclef Jean is pushing it." Most successful musicians and bands are mentioned such as Top Vice, T Vice, Sweet Mickey (Michel Martelly), Zin, Zenglen, D'Zine, Digital Express, Bookman's Eksperyans, and Nemours Jean-Baptiste of the sixties. Two full pages of the Arts section are devoted to Haitian music.
In Planet Kreyol, Miami, one of the nightclubs in vogue, the crowd is 100% Haitian swinging to the Compas beat. The goal of Haitian music presently is to cross over into mainstream America. They say that if Ricky Martin could do it, they can; if Reggae could do it, why not Haitian Compas ? Well, in the musical world too, the same old problem of Haitian disunity is persistent. To quote the Herald "the rivalry between two acts, T-Vice and Sweet Micky, has reached a venomous, personal level that has undermined their popularity." As another example D'Zine and Zenglen have the same problem. "While neither new nor peculiar to compas, the mud-slinging has reached a fever pitch...D'Zine and Zenglen will be pitted against each other." To quote Elliot Alouidor, aka Prince Ello, the D'Zine's velvet voiced singer: " We don't have unity. There is something in our culture where we can't get along."
Agreed, that competition is healthy but not at this level. If Haitian music has to cross over in America, it must be done like anything else, with an understanding between its leaders in the music world too. We should never forget these wise words of Haitian folklore: " Ann pa kite moun deyo konn afe nou; se fanmi nou ye." (Dirty clothes are washed in the family).
With the emergence of Kompas Direct in the sixties, it was a hard transition from the Saieh band, Jazz des Jeunes, and Guy Durosier, to Nemours' Compas. By the way, there were the same rivalries between Nemours and Webber Sicot that we hear today, with other bands. I must say though, with a little bit more of a polite attitude, then.
In our youth in the fifties we enjoyed Saieh, Jazz des Jeunes, Guy Durosier, et al, with their soft, romantic, and clear sounds... La Sonora Mantancera, Daniel Santos, Celia Cruz, Perez Prado, Miguel Aceves Mejia, were welcome guests in Port-au-Prince, which beautiful Latin sounds quietly but surely began to change our own rhythms. With the arrival of Compas in the sixties this was a cultural shock in the beginning, and one felt like in the Dominican " border," which sax rhythms are parts of "Compas Direct". During the Haitian World Fair inaugurated on December 8, 1949, there was a popular saying that Haitian meringue was oversexed, and Dominican meringue oversaxed. What is the verdict today with everyone borrowing from each other???
What has happened with Haitian music is naturally the same as what happened in the US with the rock and roll revolution, originally Black American inspired with the likes of Little Richard, and popularly interpreted by White singers like Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis (Great Balls of Fire), in the mid-fifties. And then the whole musical world changed with the coming of the Beatles and a multitude of other rock bands.
Haitian music is certainly getting more involved with more and more Americans and Latin people listening. Wyclef Jean is for sure a success and he has not been shy about his Haitian heritage. What's holding it back is in great part, the country itself that it originated from. After all, Music is the representation and expression of a people and its culture... With the influence of the Diaspora, Haitian music too now, also has its feet planted in two worlds, or more.
Last but not least, timing is everything and hoping that those artists of ours remember another wise kreyol proverb: " Ze ki kale tro bone, ti poul la pap viv. (The egg, which is hatched too early, the little chicken won't live.)
