Music of Haiti
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The music of Haiti is influenced most greatly by French colonial ties and African immigration (through slavery), as well as by its neighbor, the Dominican Republic (see music of the Dominican Republic).
Impoverished Haiti didn't have any recorded music until 1937 (see 1937 in music) when Jazz Guignard was recorded noncommercially.
Vodou
The religion of most Haitians is vodou (voodoo) and highly formalized percussion is used in spiritual music. Vodou used music, dance, and spirit possession as a part of their rituals. The spirit possessions are a mixture of African spirits of popular religious figures and a mixture of popular religious figures of Roman Catholic Saints. The Virgin Mary was associated with the love and beauty of Ezili Freda and Saint Patrick was associated with the driving of snakes of Danbala. These spirits are called Iwa. Ounsi who initiates the Vodou community dances to the music of drums, gongs, and rattles. The goal is to have the Iwa travel to Haiti and possess a Haitian worshiper. This is also called “mounting of their horse”. Unusual movements or jerks from normal dancing indicates that the possession has taken place or the “horse mounted”. Once the possession has taken place the worshiper takes on the personality traits of the Iwa. For example, if the Iwa is Ezili Freda then the Iwa will demand gifts of perfume, fine clothes, or jewelry from the rest of the worshipers. Vodou includes two different kinds of deities (Lwa): rada and petwo. Ceremonies may include either Rada drums ("Tanbou Rada" in Haitian Creole) with cowhide covers attached with wooden pegs, or Petwo drums (Tanbou Petwo), which have a goatskin covers attached with cords and a more aggressive sound. Additionally there are many many Haitian rhythms played in Vodou which vary greatly with geography. For example, some of the most popular Rada rhythms from Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas include yanvalou, mayi, zepol and dawomen, while in Gonaives, Rada takes such names as wanjale, akbadja, and kavalye hounto.
The Iwa have their own music in the forms of ritual songs and these are sung at ceremonies to invite Iwa participation. Songs are in combination of Kreyol and langai that are languages used in West and Central African religions. When the U.S. invaded Haiti in 1915, the rituals of vodou were used to reject the cultures of the U.S. Later classical composers used vodou melodies and tunes in their orchestral and chamber music and soon vodou-jazz was born. Vodou-jazz was very appealing to many Haitians and many young Haitians singers adopted the vodou rhythm and formed Haitian rapè. Rap artists of Haiti use their music to be a vital outlet in the political struggle of their country.
In the Petwo family one can find: petwo makaya, fran petwo, petwo doki, makandal, bumba and kita.
There are many other Vodou rhythms, including djoumba, kongo, ibo, tchika, raboday, banda, nago, maskawon.
Ra-ra music was traditionally played during the Carnival celebrations and was an integral part of native voodoo relious beliefs. At parades, persons possessed by the Gedes (a type of loa, or god) chastizes bystanders in extremely offensive terms. Musicians like Boukman Eksperyans, Boukan Ginen and Manno Charlemagne incorporated reggae, rock and funk rhythms, continuing in spite of governmental pressure during the 1990s.
20th century
Compas is a complex, ever-changing music that arose from European ballroom dancing, mixed with Haiti's Creole culture. It is a refined music, played with an underpinning of méringue (related to Dominican merengue) as a basic rhythm. Much of early Haitian music consisted of Western dances with Africanized versions of the accompanying music. Some of these forms are still extant, including menwat, a variation of the minuet. In the early 20th century, compas was influenced by multiple genres, including calypso, salsa, soca and soukous. Beginning in 1915, American occupation brought swing and big band music, and native musics incorporated the swinging style of the American musicians. Among the artists ro rise to prominence was the group Les Jazz de Jeunes.
Compas direct was invented in the mid-1950s by a group of artists, already then famous, called Coronto International; it soon became popular throughout the Antilles, especially in Martinique and Guadeloupe, where it evolved into zouk. Webert Sicot and Nemours Jean Baptiste became the two major powers in the group. Sicot left and formed a new group and an intense rivalry developed between the two, though they remained good friends. Nemours played a popular, improvised, mambo-influenced style called compas direct, while Sicot's sophisticated, Cuban-influenced "cadence rampa" was inaccessible to mainstream listeners.
As cadence rampa became more and more experimental, and compas direct incorporated more effective pop structures, American- and French-style pop spawned minijazz bands that became perhaps the first fully Haitian form of pure pop. Ibo Combo, Les Fantasistes de Carrefour, Shleu Shleu, Les Freres de Jean, Los Incognitos de Petionville and others remain influential and popular artists.
In the early 1970s, Los Incognitos de Petionville became Tabou Combo, whose 1969 Haiti incorporated major influences from American funk and began a swift rise to international stardom for the band and the Haitian music scene. By 1984, Tabou Combo had become chart-toppers in Paris and elsewhere across the globe. The mid-1980s saw the blockbuster success of zouk, which soon traded influences with all the greatest of Caribbean genres, including merengue, calypso, salsa and compas.
The zouk wave was followed by an influx of Haitian artists like System Band, Zin, Top Vice and Karess incorporated rock and roll, hip hop and jazz into compas, and experimented with new lyrical content, such as feminism. Haitian rapping was a major part of the country's musical scene by the late 1980s, laying the groundwork for the emergence of Haitian Wyclef Jean and The Fugees. Today Haitian music has gradually moved into the United States within extremely Haitain American populated areas like Miami's Litte Haiti and New York. Bands often travel to these area to play concerts for the surrounding Haitian community.
References
- Steward, Sue and Sean Harvey. "Compas Points". 2000. In Broughton, Simon and Ellingham, Mark with McConnachie, James and Duane, Orla (Ed.), World Music, Vol. 2: Latin & North America, Caribbean, India, Asia and Pacific, pp 421-429. Rough Guides Ltd, Penguin Books. ISBN 1-85828-636-0