Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post provides information about and YouTube examples of Gwoka drumming, dancing, and singing/chanting from Guadeloupe which is located in the Caribbean.
The content of this post is presented for historical, folkloric, cultural and educational purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
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ARTICLE EXCERPTS
Excerpt #1
From https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/gwoka-music-song-dance-and-cultural-practice-representative-of-guadeloupean-identity-00991
Gwoka: music, song, dance and cultural practice representative of Guadeloupean identity…
Inscribed in 2014 (9.COM) on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity
© 2013 by REPRIZ
"Gwoka is found among all ethnic and religious groups of Guadeloupean society. It combines responsorial singing in Guadeloupean Creole, rhythms played on the Ka drums and dancing. In its traditional form, Gwoka unites these three areas of expression and emphasizes individual qualities of improvisation. The participants and public form a circle in which dancers and soloists enter in turn and perform, facing the drums. The public claps and takes up the chorus from the soloist. Several thousand people regularly practise Gwoka at open-air Gwoka evenings, where the dance circle functions as a place to develop individual talents. Transmission of the practice and Ka drum-making skills is both informal through families and groups of friends, but also increasingly through formal workshops and schools of traditional dance and music. Gwoka is one of the most identifiable elements of Guadeloupean society and its contemporary expressions explore new avenues of music, choreography or singing. It is present at the high points of daily life, as well as at festive, cultural and secular events. It also accompanies movements of social and political protest. It strengthens identity and provides a feeling of communal development and individual pride, conveying values of conviviality, resistance and dignity."
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Excerpt #2
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwo_ka
"Gwo ka is a French creole term for big drum. Alongside Gwotanbou, simply Ka or Banboula (archaic)[1] [correction: Bamboula], it refers to both a family of hand drums and the music played with them, which is a major part of Guadeloupean folk music. Moreover, the term is occasionally found in reference to the small, flat-bottomed tambourine (tanbou d'bas) played in kadri music, or even simply to drum (tanbou)in general.[1]
The Gwo Ka musical practice emerged in the seventeenth century, during the transatlantic slave trade[2]
Seven simple drum patterns form the basis of gwo ka music, on which the drummers build rhythmic improvisations. Different sizes of drums provide the foundation and its flourishes. The largest, the boula, plays the central rhythm while the smaller maké (or markeur) embellishes upon it, inter-playing with dancers, audience or singer. Gwo ka singing is usually guttural, nasal and rough, though it can also be bright and smooth, and is accompanied by uplifting and complex harmonies and melodies.[citation needed] There are also dances that tell folk stories that are accompanied by the gwo ka drums.
In modern, urban Guadeloupe, playing drums is not inextricably linked to dance anymore. But historically, the two practices were inseparable parts of the tradition of léwôz, events held fortnightly on Saturdays near the bigger plantations (payday), and each Saturday of the carnival season in areas of greater land parcelling.[1] Gwoka music was–and still is–played throughout the year in various cultural manifestations such as léwòz, kout’tanbou, véyé and religious events, for example Advent’s wake.[2] Today, rural Guadeloupans still gather for léwôz experiences, but a modernized and popularized form of gwo ka exists independently, known as gwo ka moderne.
History
The Gwo Ka musical practice emerged in the 17th century during the transatlantic slave trade, as a result of a creolization process: adaptation to surrounding context and assimilation of European cultural elements. African slaves of Guadeloupe used to gather to play drums, sing and dance. The use of any kind of drum was at that time forbidden by the Code Noir. As a consequence, slaves used a vocal technique called bouladjèl, which imitates drums. At that time, Gwoka practice was directly linked to agricultural work, especially sugar cane, coffee and banana cultivation.[2]
Post 1946, along with anti-assimilation and anti-colonialism movements, Gwoka spread throughout the island, which marks the beginning of its rehabilitation process. As a consequence, in 1988, lawyer and nationalist activist Félix Cotellon created the Festival de Gwoka Sentann in the city of Sainte-Anne without the support of the municipality. Studies and symposiums were held on the occasion.[2]
In 1981, local musician Gérard Lockel published the Traité de Gwoka modên, the first attempt to formalize this musical genre. [2]. He claimed that Gwoka was atonal, breaching with western conventions and tastes. By affirming the modality of Gwoka, he situated this music style within the realm of African musical traditions.[3] Paradoxically, under Lockel's leadership, Gwoka was transformed from a participatory music played outdoors to a presentational music played on stage with European and North American instruments.[4]
Musical research show that the instrument can find its roots in the drums and songs of the West African countries (Guinea gulf, Congo...)[citation needed]. From the diverse music and dance of their homelands, the slaves elaborated a communication tool, a new form of art, like the creole language: the Gwo Ka.[citation needed] This musical genre is characterised by an African typology[citation needed]: - repetitive form - improvisation - physical movements linked to music - a response between a soloist and choir - a syncopation weak times
Instruments
Traditional gwo ka is ideally played with at least 2 hand drums (ka in créole): 1 boula and 1 make[1]. Historically, ka were made of:
a recycled cured meat keg for the body[1][5] (bari a vyann or bouko in créole);
a goat skin (po a kabrit in créole) — male for the boula vs. female for the makè[6];
tensioning metal hoops (sèk, i.e. circle in créole)[6];
wooden tensioning pegs (klé in créole)[6];
rope (zoban in créole)[6].
Often, the Ka section is further accompanied by[6]:
ti-bwa: 15 to 20 cm wooden sticks drummed on the side of a "Ka" or a section of bamboo culm of about 15cm in diameter;
chacha: emptied & dried calabash — or any other container — filled with a granular material (e.g. grains, salt, sand...).
Rhythms
The influences (lifestyle and musical genre) of the "master" fusioned with this base to create the seven rhythms or dances:
The léwôz is the war rhythm, used to give rhythm the attacks against the plantations, but was also an incantation dance;
The kaladja symbolises the struggle in love;
The toumblak, like the kaladja, deals with the love theme, belly dance, fertility dance;
The padjabèl is the cane cutting dance;
The graj accompanies the agricultural work;
The woulé is the "creole waltz", to charm and mimic the whites;
The mendé would have been the last rhythm to arrive in the islands, with the "Congos" under contract after the abolition, and symbolises the collective celebration of carnival.
Dance
“Gwo-ka is a dance of improvisation by excellence, a dance of the instinct, of the moment. (…) Gwo-ka, dance of resistance, of resilience and adaptation: Dance of Life”[7]
Gwo ka moderne
A more modernized version of gwo ka is gwo ka moderne, which adds new instruments ranging from conga or djembe drums and chimes to electric bass guitar. At root, however, these styles all use the same fundamental seven rhythms as folk gwo ka. Zouk legends Kassav' played an important role in the modernization of gwo ka, giving urban credibility to a style that was seen as backward and unsophisticated; they initially played in a gwo ka format, using songs from the gwo ka Carnival tradition of mas a St. Jean and even placing a homage to traditionalist drumming legend Velo on their earlier albums.[8]
Gwo ka moderne artists include Pakala Percussion, Van Lévé and Poukoutan'n, alongside more pop-influenced musicians like Marcel Magnat and Ti Celeste, while Gerard Hubert and others have fused gwo ka with zouk. The most famous modern gwo ka performer, however, is William Flessel, whose Message Ka in 1994 became an international hit.[8]
In 2013, the Heritage Committee of the Ministry of Culture and Communication has selected the intent to apply of gwoka for registration to the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in order to enhance the gwoka and organize a network of actors.[9]
In 2014, the Heritage Committee recognized gwoka in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity”…
"Stylistic origins: West Africa
Cultural origins: 17th century, Guadeloupe
Typical instruments:
Traditional: the boula, playing the central rhythm and the smaller, markeur (or maké), as well as a chak chak (a maracas).
Contemporary: boula and maké drums, maracas, conga or djembe drums, chimes and electric bass guitar.
Derivative forms: Gwo ka moderne, biguine, chouval bwa, zouk, zouk love"...
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PANCOCOJAMS EDITOR'S NOTE & "AFRICAN ROCK" BOOK EXCERPT
Since I happened upon the Afro-Zouk song "Adia" by Oliver N'Goma earlier this week while surfing YouTube, I've become fascinated with that music genre (or sub-genre). Here's a link to Part I of a two part pancocojams series on that song: http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2018/07/gabonese-singer-oliver-ngoma-adia-part.html. The link for Part II is given in that post.
When I found very little about Afro-Zouk music online, it occurred to me that some time ago I purchased a 1990 book entitled African Rock: The Pop Music Of A Continent by Chris Stapleton and Chris May (Dutton, New York). Thankfully, that book included some information about the origins of Zouk and about the early days of Zouk in Africa.
Excerpts from that book are quoted in these two pancocojams posts:
http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2018/07/excerpts-about-kassav-band-and-excerpts.html "Excerpts About The Roots Of Zouk Music From The 1990 Book "African Rock: The Pop Music Of A Continent", Part I
http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2018/07/excerpts-about-kassav-band-and-excerpts.html "Excerpts About Kassav Band And Excerpts About Zouk In Africa From The 1990 book "African Rock: The Pop Music Of A Continent"
Here's one passage from that book that includes information about Gwoka [This passage is included in Part I of that above mentioned pancocojams series]
"[page 243]
THE ROOTS OF ZOUK
It is clear, then, that zouk is a Caribbean melange filtered through Parisian culture. But its roots lie deep beneath this hi-tech mirage: they are from the same source, west African polyrhythms and harmony, as are salsa, calypso, reggae and blues. But in zouk's case the African retentions are twice removed- first to the Caribbean, then to Paris. And zouk's basket of Caribbean influences show a fascinating marriage of colonially imported styles, like European beguines,
[page 244]
quadrille and mazurkas and African drum-ensemble practices.
Of the African styles which survived the diaspora and lived on in Guadeloupe and Martinique to resurface in zouk, one, the Saint Jean rhythm, a fast sambaish carnival beat from Guadeloupe, has its origins in Bantu religious ceremonies. Guadeloupe, due to the historic neglect of the French, has been able to hold on to African percussive skills and religion-focused music more easily than Martinique, which has been historically, more favored by the French, as the Parisian bourgeoisie's Caribbean playground. The Saint Jean rhythm was popularized by Kassav when using the pseudonym Soukou Ko Ou on their monster 1984 disc "Vacances". The exhilarating, circular dance beat is ingeniously modernized by P. E. Decimus and the band; it even includes Shadows-sounding guitar.
More importtant African retnetions in zouk are, however, the tambour drum triumvirate-the two gwo ka and the one ti bwa drums. Here is the African strand in Antillean Creole life standing proudest and loudest: ka drums are the most African of all things Antillean.
Tambour music, called waka waka, has been recorded only since the mid-seventies, when the casdence of the Vikings triggered the unearthing of indigenous styles previously heard only at carnivals and festival time, when across Guadeloupe's hills, from village to village, the messages and anecdotes-a direct line from early days- of the ka drums would ring out. Since the mid-seventies, however, record stores stock tambour music and the records are played on some of the islands' fifteen radio stations.
[...]
Gwo ka was brought in by P.E. Decimus to the Vikings and from then on was the rhythmic centre of cadence and its cosmopolitan child zouk. Top zouk singers Sartana and Pier Rosier never perform or record without the requisite ka section and the hottest new wave zouk of '87, for example Sevais Liso and Ramon Pyrme's Zouk Time, dsiplay a new, more minimal use of ka within an uncluttered synthesizer-sculpted framework. But it was P.E. Decimus who first took the ka unit to Paris and Kassav who first set such a pure African retention alongside elements which could not be further removed from African tribal origins."
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SHOWCASE VIDEOS
Example #1: GWO KA made in Pointe a Pitre (Guadeloupe)
Natychrys, Published on Oct 26, 2007
En plein centre ville, plusieurs groupes de Gwo Ka font le spectacle tout les samedi et ce pour le plaisir de tous...
Bon visionnage.
-snip-
In the city center, several groups of Gwo Ka make the show every Saturday and this for the pleasure of all ...
Good viewing.
-snip-
Selected comments from this discussion thread (numbers assigned for referencing purposes only)
1. Cassius Gwada, 2012
"Gwada l'authentik, fiere d'etre Afro-caraïbéens, le son du Gwoka me ressource!!!! Unissons nous peuple de la caraïbe et revendiquons nos racines africaines!!!!"
-snip-
"Gwada l'authentik, proud to be Afro-Caribbean, the sound of Gwoka me resource !!!! Unite us people of the caribbean and claim our African roots !!!!"
**
2. SuperSainteNitouche, 2012
"le gwo ka et le mennde me rappellent mon enfance en Cote d'Ivoire quand on allait regarder les danseuses de Djembe. le tam tam ou djembe ou gwo ka joue un role tres important dans notre culture et voir cette video me donne des frissons. Nous ne sommes pas aussi differents que nous croyons. Nous avons la meme mere qui est Mama Africa et nous gagnerons a etre unis.!!!"
-snip-
"the gwo ka and the mennde remind me of my childhood in Ivory Coast when we went to watch dancers Djembe. the tam tam or djembe or gwo ka plays a very important role in our culture and seeing this video gives me chills. We are not as different as we believe. We have the same mother who is Mama Africa and we will win to be united !!!"
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Example #2: Gwo ka - 1 petit bout de chou danse regardez!
lagoyave, Published on Jul 22, 2011
Genre: gwo ka music - Guadeloupe
LISEZ!!! Bay lavwa pou toupiti, la relève. Woulo bravo. Fòs
Sincèrement désolée, détérioration du son après téléchargement sinon je n'ai pas ce son saturée dans mon fichier original. Vous avez vu cette petite? Wouah et encore je n'ai pas pu tout filmer, je la regardais! :)
WANT TO KNOW MORE? VOUS VOULEZ LES CONTACTER? ALLEZ SUR FACEBOOK
FB Association: Force Antillaise
Chant: Alex Lipau
Makè: Titchou
Boula droite: Jonas Fila
Boula gauche:
Chacha: Madison, José Darin
Petite Maé,lol, la maman et papa Lipau: Africa-Antilles = ONE LOVE et merci pour la discussion et autant de sagesse.
Bon comment vous le dire: Eh les Gwada, Madinina, 973, 974 en force ok?! lol Soutenons la créativité, le talent, la persévérance de nos compatriotes en banlieue, peu importe l'endroit où vous ferez votre captation. Valorisez justement notre patrimoine, notre culture. Elle a à peine 3 ans vous vous rendez compte? Filmez, filmez, filmez, demandez l'autorisation, valorisez notre culture où que vous soyez, je ne peux pas vous le dire autrement. Si vous parlez une langue étrangère ou plusieurs, traduisez, expliquez? Moi en fait, je clarifie beaucoup en MP en Anglais ou en Espagnol donc je ne sous-titre pas mes vids (pas le temps non plus!).
Donc Maélys et son papa le sympathique Alex Lipau au chant: un gars simple, honnête et très réaliste sur le gwo ka d'hier et d'aujourd'hui en région Parisienne. Le gars est vrai, à l'image des gens authentiques que j'aime.
FB Association: Force Antillaise
Chant: Alex Lipau
Makè: Titchou
Boula droite: Jonas Fila
Boula gauche:
Chacha: Madison, José Darin
-snip-
Google translate from French to English:
Ead !!! Bay lavwa for toupiti, the relief. Woulo bravo. FOS
Sincerely sorry, sound deterioration after download otherwise I do not have this sound saturated in my original file. Did you see this girl? Wow and again I could not film everything, I was watching! :)
WANT TO KNOW MORE? DO YOU WANT TO CONTACT THEM? GO ON FACEBOOK
FB Association: Caribbean Force
Song: Alex Lipau
Makè: Titchou
Right Boula: Jonas Fila
Boula left:
Chacha: Madison, José Darin
Little Mae, lol, mom and dad Lipau: Africa-Antilles = ONE LOVE and thanks for the discussion and as much wisdom.
Good how you say it: Hey Gwada, Madinina, 973, 974 in force ok ?! lol Let us support the creativity, the talent, the perseverance of our compatriots in the suburbs, no matter where you make your capture. Value our heritage, our culture. She is barely 3 years old do you realize? Film, film, film, ask permission, value our culture wherever you are, I can not tell you otherwise. If you speak one or more foreign languages, translate, explain? Me in fact, I clarify a lot in MP in English or Spanish so I do not subtitle my vids (no time either!).
So Maélys and his dad the friendly Alex Lipau singing: a simple guy, honest and very realistic on the gwo ka yesterday and today in the Paris region. The guy is true, like the authentic people I love.
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Example #3: Fête de la musique 2012 Gwoka Paris
Lasko Châline, Published on Jun 22, 2012
Kout Tanbou à Paris St Michel
-snip-
If I'm not mistaken, the West African djembe [pronounced the same as the English words gym-bay] is the middle drum in this video. Djembes aren't traditionally part of Gwoka.
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Example #4: Les 7 rythmes du Gwoka. Original.
Alain Duchange MAP - MAP Alizés
Published on Apr 19, 2014
Par Yves Thole maître d'art et maître Ka. Images Alain Duchange, Akajaklin.
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Example #5: REPORTAGE GWOkA GUADELOUPE MARS 2016( Rachel LE NAN/ kipes Radio TV)
KIPES RADIO TV, Published on Apr 9, 2016
"L'objectif de Rachel" , met à l'honneur le Gwoka.....Immersion totale en Guadeloupe..
Merci à tous d'avoir accepté mon objectif !
-snip-
Google translate from French to English:
"The goal of Rachel", puts the spotlight on the Gwoka ..... Total immersion in Guadeloupe ..
Thank you all for accepting my goal!
-snip-
Selected comments from this discussion thread (numbers assigned for referencing purposes only with Google translations from French to English given below the comment)
1. wpj percussion, 2017
"le gwoka j'adore jouer ce style de tambour ces rythms de racine africaine mais joués aux antilles"
-snip-
"the gwoka I love playing this style of drum these rhythms of African roots but played in the Caribbean"
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2. Bwalewoz A, 2017
"De longues secondes de gros plan sur le KA ,sur les mains du tanbouyê ( le markê dénommé DIXIT Marc)....un pur régal ...merci Monsieur le virtuose, merci à vous les danseuses, vous gérez !
A 8:35 à peu près , un de nos plus grands artistes gwoka passe et repasse : Mr Ladrezeau pour ne pas le nommer, " locksé" de partout ...mdr"
-snip-
"Long seconds of close-up on the KA, on the hands of the tanbouyê (the markê called DIXIT Marc) .... a pure treat ... thank you Mr. virtuoso, thank you to the dancers, you manage!
At about 8:35, one of our greatest artists gwoka passes and repasses: Mr Ladrezeau not to name it, "locksé" everywhere ... lol"
**
3. Ibrahima S, 2017
"Cette danse est d'une très grande beauté. Elle mérite d'être mieux connue partout dans le monde : Europe, Afrique, Amérique du sud. Bravo Guadeloupe. De la part d'un africain qui adore votre culture"
-snip-
Ibrahima S, 2017
"This dance is very beautiful. It deserves to be better known all over the world: Europe, Africa, South America. Bravo Guadeloupe. From an African who loves your culture"
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REPLY
4. Francis Hatilip, 2018
"Ibrahima S le gwo n'est seulement une danse,c'est aussi le tambour traditionnelle de la Guadeloupe comportait 7 rythmes:le toumblak,le Mendè,le graj,le kaladja,le woule,le padjanbel et,les lewoz de basse terre et,de grande terre,reconnu à l'UNESCO"
-snip-
"Ibrahima S the gwo is [not]* only a dance, it is also the traditional drum of Guadeloupe included 7 rhythms: toumblak, Mendè, graj, kaladja, woule, padjanbel and, lowland lewoz and , of great land, recognized at UNESCO"
-snip-
I added the word "not" as I think its addition fits the meaning of the sentence.
**
5. Bwalewoz A, 2017
"La fierté du peuple Guadeloupéen est de faire briller et d'élever au plus haut le GWOKA, ces rythmes,cette danse que nous tenons de nos ancêtres et qui n'ont pas arrêter d'évoluer grâce au travail de nos artistes musiciens, chorégraphes , danseurs, fabricants de KAS, autant dans la création que dans la transmission des savoirs . BIG up!"
-snip-
"The pride of the Guadeloupean people is to shine and elevate the GWOKA, these rhythms, this dance that we hold of our ancestors and which did not stop evolving thanks to the work of our artists musicians, choreographers, dancers, manufacturers of KAS, as much in the creation as in the transmission of knowledge. BIG up!"
**
6. PrekeseGlobalTravel Tukwankohwe, 2017
"That's a superb dancer right there. Good job."
**
REPLY
7. Ludivina Nieto, 2017
"Elle est magnifique !!! Et les musiciens top !"
-snip-
"She is magnificent !!! And the top musicians!"
**
8. Sarah Alves, 2018
"Se assemelha com carimbó aqui do Pará/Brasil"
-snip-
"It resembles carimbó here from Pará / Brazil"
**
9. Bwalewoz A, 2018
"Les 7 rythmes du Gwoka et leur signification
Léwòz : rythme de guerre, souvent dansé par des hommes, le lien entre danseur et marqueur est très fort. Imitation de dispute ou coup porté, on retrouve aussi souvent le déséquilibre appelé le « bigidi » qui renvoie à l’ivresse des danseurs.
- Toumblak : rythme enjoué et festif, danse de l’amour qui génère des postures suggestives en danse. Joué rapidement il se nomme toumblak « chiré ».
- Kaladja : rythme joué souvent lent (peut être joué rapidement également) qui évoque la souffrance, la tristesse.
- Graj : rythme lent rappelant le travail pénible aux champs et la souffrance qui en découlait, la danse imitant souvent les gestes de récolte.
- Woulé : sorte de valse, c’est aussi un rythme de travail comme le graj.
- Menndè : rythme enjoué, rapide, utilisé aussi pour le carnaval. Rythme de fête et de désinvolture.
- Padjanbèl : rythme de travail qui relie la terre et le ciel, symbole à la fois de la dureté du travail au sol et de l’élégance flottante dans l’air. (source: "Moun à Gwoka/ projet de Marie-charlotte Loreille)
-snip-
"The 7 Gwoka rhythms and their meanings
Léwòz: rhythm of war, often danced by men, the link between dancer and marker is very strong. Imitation of argument or blow worn, we often find the imbalance called the "bigidi" which refers to the drunkenness of the dancers.
- Toumblak: playful and festive rhythm, dance of love that generates suggestive postures in dance. Played quickly it is called toumblak "chiré".
- Kaladja: rhythm played often slow (can be played quickly also) that evokes suffering, sadness.
- Graj: slow rhythm recalling the painful work in the fields and the suffering that ensued, the dance often imitating the gestures of harvest.
- Woulé: a kind of waltz, it's also a rhythm of work like the graj.
- Menndè: playful rhythm, fast, used also for the carnival. Rhythm of celebration and casually.
- Padjanbèl: a working rhythm that links the earth and the sky, symbol of both the hardness of the work on the ground and the floating elegance in the air. (source: "Moun to Gwoka / Marie-charlotte Loreille's project)"
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Showing posts with label Gwo Ka. Show all posts
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Friday, July 13, 2018
Excerpt From 2009 New Yorker Magazine Article:"Haitian Music: What Does Revolution Sound Like"
Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post provides an excerpt from a 2009 New Yorker magazine article entitled "Roundtable: Haitian Music, Part 2: “What Does Revolution Sound Like?”.
The content of this post is presented for historical, folkloric, cultural and educational purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
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EXCERPT: HAITIAN MUSIC, PART 2: "WHAT DOES REVOLUTION SOUND LIKE"
From https://www.newyorker.com/culture/sasha-frere-jones/roundtable-haitian-
music-part-2-what-does-revolution-sound-like
Roundtable: Haitian Music, Part 2: “What Does Revolution Sound Like?”
By Sasha Frere-Jones July 9, 2009
"Three months ago, I posted a roundtable discussion of Haitian music among several remarkable scholars and writers. Happily, they have returned to discuss revolution, “rara,” and other intersections of Haitian politics, daily life, and music. Take it away. (If any participant is unfamiliar to you, refer to the original post.)
Laurent Dubois:
I often think of Haitian music as a kind of remarkable archive, one that keeps traces of the process of deportation, slavery, and revolution that created the nation. The slave trade to the colony of Saint-Domingue in the late eighteenth century brought forty thousand people a year from different parts of Africa, and these different groups met up on plantations and in towns, exchanging ideas, confronting their new situation, and creating new music, religion, and language. And they did so in the midst of a thriving cultural life in the towns of Saint-Domingue (and later—after the revolution—in Haiti). All the significant port towns had theatres with several performances every week, and in the largest, Le Cap, a theatre performed the works of Moliÿre and Voltaire, and several plays written locally in the Creole language, which brought together African and French grammar and vocabulary. Some of the revolutionaries who won independence for Haiti in 1804 were big fans of this eighteenth-century music and theatre—the music for Emperor Dessalines’s coronation was drawn from Rousseau’s blockbuster opera, “Le Devin du Village”—and they reopened the theatres after the revolution, performing the old plays with all-black casts. This was a swirling and complicated cultural world, and it produced a remarkable musical tradition.
But part of what also comes through in much Haitian music is a kind of response to the question “What does revolution sound like?”
Elizabeth McAlister:
Laurent, what a great question; it lets us imagine the political soundscape of public spaces. We may have a clue about the soundtrack for some moments of the Haitian revolution: the French army marched to battle with bands—corps de musiques—featuring snare drums and trumpets, which would follow the commands of the drum major to communicate through the chaos of the battlefield. So this is the music of warfare. Even more interesting, though, as you say, is the music of revolution: maroon armies were also said to move through space while surrounding themselves with big musical sound. A maroon leader in the Port-au-Prince region named Halou, headed an army of two thousand maroons, whose leader “marched preceded by the music of drums, lambis [conch shells], trumpets and sorcerers…”
That seems very possibly a historical source for the parading festival called “rara” (which happens to be the subject of my first book). Rara still lends itself to the feeling of rebellion. During rara season, which is during Lent, musicians and followers sort themselves into what they consider small “battalions” out on musical maneuvers. Nowadays they move about neighborhoods and villages, “taking territories” by dominating musically, competing in aesthetic battles to see which bands can attract the most fans. It feels exhilarating to go out with them and dance for miles through public space in the relative cool of the Haitian night, dancing behind waves of drummers, horn players, percussionists, and singers, with children and market women trailing behind, selling sweets from baskets on their heads. They usually sing religious songs to the spirits in the morning, and stop to pay their respects to their people in the cemeteries. Then, by late afternoon, they’ll “call out” local corruption, singing what little they can about politics in cryptic, poetic songs, often recycled for generations to fit the present crisis (and unfortunately there’s usually a crisis).
Hearing a rara band as it approaches for miles through the mountains is quite thrilling—it must have been electrifying to hear the rebel-army bands during the Haitian revolution. Rara creates a sonic signifier of Haitianness like no other, because of the distinctive bamboo horns that are played by hocketing (one player on one note, with everyone playing on rhythm to get a melody going). You can get a feel for parading rara music on this Web site. The track called “Instrumental Isolations” gives the feeling of a rara band passing by, and the video “Musicians in an Artibonite Rara Walking” presents something similar.
Rara parades are catching on in the Haitian diaspora, too; they’ve been used in celebrations as well as protests in Miami, New York, and Boston. Recently, a rara band from Brooklyn called DjaRara played on the Mall after Obama’s inauguration.
Rara is so unbelievably rich that I could go on forever, so I’d better sign off.
[...]
Ned Sublette:
In trying to understand the music of Haiti, I find myself taking a transnational approach, because, as I keep arguing, the Haitian revolution was a generative explosion for the popular music of the hemisphere. It sent populations up and down the Atlantic coast and the Antilles—and ultimately to New Orleans, where many families from Saint-Domingue were reunited. There are places today where you can connect the dots by listening. Let me, then, make some connections.
To Elizabeth’s evocation of the trumpet and snare drum of the colonial military bands (which ultimately became the basis of the jazz instrumentation in New Orleans), I would add the vocal legacy of the military drill, which evolved into the gruff vocal style of dancehall reggae. The adoption of this vocal style throughout the Antilles echoes the universality of the quadrille in the same territories two centuries ago, when a commandeur barked out the dance steps.
The sound of revolution could easily have the same rhythm it had two centuries ago; it could be heard as recently as January in the street music from the underreported general strike that began in Guadeloupe and spread to Martinique. The rhythm that the L.K.P. (Liyannaj Kont Pwofitasyon, or Collective Against Exploitation) demonstrators are parading to is what was known in different times and places as the habanera, tango, and bamboula. In musical terms, dotted quarter, eighth, quarter, quarter: BOOMP, da DOM DOM. It’s a versatile but very specific rhythm, diffused across a wide geographic area. The scholar Robert Farris Thompson identifies it as the Kongo mbila a makinu, “the call to the dance,” and it was known in Arabic music. It’s the Antillean beat, bouncing around for three hundred years or more. It was the right-hand rhythm of Dominguan-descended Louis Moreau Gottschalk’s “Bamboula” in 1848; it’s the invariable underlying rhythm of reggaetón; and it’s the rhythm underpinning the Guadeloupean demonstrators. Another version of the same L.K.P. anthem, “Gwadloup sé tan nou” (“Guadeloupe is ours”) demonstrates a politicized use of the dancehall/reggaetón style, by now firmly entrenched as the timbre and rhythm of a pan-Antillean sensibility.
There’s also a lexical component to the sound of revolution. There have to be ways to transmit secrets in order to accomplish a revolution, no? The chronicler M.L.E. Moreau de St. Méry gives in a footnote (!) the untranslated text of an anthem from Saint-Domingue—a text corroborated elsewhere, and, more remarkably, which Moreau was able to transcribe without knowing the language (not French, and, very interestingly, not Creole either, but Kikongo), possibly from having heard it repeated many times:
Eh! eh! Bomba, hen! hen! Canga bafio té Canga moune dé lé Canga do ki la Canga li
The anthem translates roughly as:
Eh! eh! Secret, hen! hen! Tie up the abusers Tie up the whites Tie (them) up (with) the action spirit Tie them up
When I think of revolution and music, my first thought is this text.
They had a secret, all right. They were singing out loud what they were going to do. Hey, hey, secret! It was no secret if you understood the song: Bomba! (“Bomba” is a word with a complex of meanings; the art historian and linguist Bárbaro Martínez Ruiz tells me it means “secret.”) Had Moreau de St. Méry known the meaning of the lyrics he transcribed, he could perhaps have seen better the revolution that was coming in 1791.
It’s not a coincidence that bomba is the name of the folkloric Afro-Puerto Rican musical form. I was unaware until recently that this song, which we find in Moreau de St. Méry’s eighteenth-century book, continues to be sung. It has been collected in present-day Puerto Rico by the musicologist Alex Lasalle, leader of the New York-based bomba group Alma Moyó. It’s a bámbula (which in New Orleans was known as bamboula). I would not be surprised to find it somewhere in Cuba. One thing’s for sure: this song was almost certainly sung at Congo Square in New Orleans in the eighteen-teens. This in turn cracks open a mystery: what one component—and not an unimportant one—of Congo Square sounded like. The fabled bamboula is still alive, in the Dominguan diaspora.
Sometimes, as in Haiti, revolution entails dancing. Makandal was recognized and apprehended at a dance. In various parts of the Antilles there are choreographic societies that go to great lengths to perform a memory of the moment of truth of more than two hundred years ago: the last days of plantation slavery in the French Caribbean.
[...]
The unintelligibility of much of hip-hop and reggaetón to outsiders, as well as its relentless code-switching, is another way of getting at that bomba, in the sense of a sung-out secret. One of the remarkable things about the dancehall/reggaetón sound becoming a pan-Antillean and Caribbean style is that through timbre and rhythm it crosses the language divide that keeps adjacent territories from talking to each other now that their African languages have largely, though by no means entirely, vanished.
[...]
Ned Sublette:
“When I was a kid, it struck me that the rara was always demanding respect, both with its loudness and active recruitment as it went along.”
Edwidge, you could be describing a second line in New Orleans, which I am convinced owes much to the rara. Last year around Easter I had the remarkable experience of going on a gagá (the Dominican equivalent of rara) out in the country in the Dominican Republic on Jueves Santo (Holy Thursday) and then going on a second line in New Orleans the following Sunday. Despite all the differences of specifics and style, it felt so similar.
For a different stab at Laurent’s question that involves a uniquely Haitian style of music, I think immediately of the first two albums by Boukman Eksperyans—who Madison brought up in our first discussion—which come out of a tradition of direct political engagement in music (mizik angaje): “Vodou Adjaye” (released in the bicentennial year of the religious leader Boukman’s uprising at Bwa Kayiman, generally considered the start of the Haitian revolution) and “Kalfou Danjere” (Dangerous Crossroads, released after General Raoul Cedras’s September 30, 1991 coup against Aristide; the title song was the subversive hit of Haitian carnival in 1992).
These albums came out on Chris Blackwell’s Mango label in the heyday of “world music” and received international attention; they’re classics, as I’m sure everyone on this panel can attest. Listening to them is like jamming your finger into a wall socket. Drawing on the energy of rara, this style of music called mizik rasin (roots) was built on culturally oriented, politically charged lyrics, choral chants, trance-inducing vodou drumming over a drum-machine pulse, and psychedelic lead guitar. (Those who want to explore further should pick up Gage Averill’s essential “A Day for the Hunter, A Day for the Prey: Popular Music and Power in Haiti.”) There’s still nothing like the music generated by the rasin bands in that early-nineties moment of dangerous crossroads in Haiti—Boukan Ginen, RAM, Zobop, Kanpech, to name some that I recall from that time.
If I want to forgo the pop-music instrumentation and just go into the drum, which is where I most like to be, I go to Azor. Mizik rasin continues today, of course, and now has to confront a vision of Haiti’s future of sweatshop labor and importation of food.
Laurent Dubois:
I’m glad Ned brought us to Guadeloupe, and to the ongoing link between song and revolution, since it’s on that island that I’ve most often had the pleasure of participating in the pan-Caribbean tradition of street music we’ve been talking about. In Guadeloupe the two most famous groups, representing the two sides of the island, are Akiyo and Voukoum, each of them linked in important ways to the politics of protest and cultural revival. Their processions are led by a line of marchers striking long whips against the streets, which sends out a sharp, stunning crack (as you can see Voukoum doing here). Like the whips that are part of many Vodou ceremonies in Haiti, they are both a potent reminder of slavery and also a curious appropriation of slavery’s ultimate symbol for a radically different purpose, that of calling down the lwa or of opening the way for the music.
Their costumes, which parallel those found in New Orleans, Haiti, and Trinidad, tell the story of slavery: participants are sometimes dressed as “Congos” just arrived from Africa, covered in dark black grease, or else dressed as maroons, runaway slaves, as Akiyo is in a January 2009 procession. Akiyo’s anthem retells the history of abolition, declaring that it was not truly the French abolitionist Victor Schoelcher who freed the slaves, but rather the maroons who fought for liberty for generations. (One of the sponsors of the group over the past years has been the now-retired soccer star Lilian Thuram, long a pillar of the French national football team, who was born and grew up in Anse-Bertrand, Guadeloupe.) They evoke these histories in order to call for new kinds of marronage—running away from the plantations—in the present. What is powerful about these groups is that they really highlight the complicated politics of culture, and culture of politics, in the French Antilles.
The nationalist movements that developed there starting in the nineteen-sixties never rallied large majorities in favor of independence from France. But if political nationalism never really took hold, a kind of cultural nationalism that came out of the independence movements most definitely did, changing the way many Martinicans and Guadeloupeans think of themselves, and propelling the creation of groups like Akiyo and Voukoum. This movement, in turn, surrounded and in some ways sustained union activism and other political protest on the island, helping to lay the foundation for the strike that took place in Guadeloupe earlier this year.
As was the case two hundred years ago in Haiti, music and revolution are tightly intertwined, which makes sense, since one of the main tasks of Caribbean music has always been imagining the unimaginable.
I was in Haiti and then in Guadeloupe in late May and saw much of what we have been discussing in motion. In Haiti, on May 18th, Flag Day, there were many people out doing rara, bringing that tradition further into the national celebration. I saw one group led by a man with a large Bob Marley flag. And in Guadeloupe I was able to attend several events organized by the L.K.P., the coalition of groups that organized the strikes earlier this year. Raymond Gama, a historian who is a spokesman for the L.K.P., explained to me that though it was unclear what the next steps of the movement should be, or even what the specific goals should be for Guadeloupe, they felt that their victory was in mobilizing people, in showing them what might be possible in the future if they continue. We were at a nighttime dance driven by gwo-ka drumming, and with an illuminated grin he announced: “Nous sommes déjà demain!”—“We are already tomorrow!”
[...]
Garnette Cadogan:
What does revolution sound like? This begs for a long answer, but consider this shortcut: Bob Marley and, with apologies to Carl Wilson, not Celine Dion. (Some people may smack the wag in me and suggest, with good reason, that the sound of revolution is Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, the Beatles—to name a few. True enough, but Laurent, if I haven’t misunderstood you, you are not so much asking about revolution—dramatic, wide-reaching change—as you are reaching back to Revolution—political revolt that ushers in a new social order.) What, then, does that signal moment in the past—the Haitian revolution—sound like in the funky potpourri of rhythms that is contemporary Haitian music?
Thankfully, Haitian musicians possess a canny pop sensibility: they see no trade-off between being political heralds and pleasing a crowd. They tie their messages of resistance to catchy riffs and vibrant rhythms, producing ambidextrous music that presses the consciousness while shaking the hips and feet. Their songs may be infused with the memory of the revolution, they may make renewed challenges to power, they may weigh in on the heavy matters of the moment—but Haitian musicians never forget that they are entertainers. (This, in part, explains why some rara songs and parades are so ribald.) The music is infectious not merely because of catchy rhythms but also because satire (“pwen,” anyone?) does the heavy lifting, saving musicians—more often than not—from the snare of preachiness. (This is not only good musical sense—it’s common sense: explicit criticism of corrupt powers in Haiti has often invited a beating or worse.) With word, movement, and—uh-huh—sound all in coördinated service, the sound of revolution turns out to be as playful as it is weighty.
Boukman Eksperyans, whose very name advertises their aesthetic—Boukman was a Vodou priest and slave who helped incite the 1791 rebellion that started the Haitian revolution; eskperyans (“experience”) is a nod to Jimi Hendrix —is an excellent example of pop wed to protest.
On Vodou Adjeye, one of the albums Ned praises, traditional Haitian music (Vodou drums) and modern rock (guitar riffs) interweave beneath protest. (On “Wet Chenn” (“Remove the Chains”) they insist, “Get angry, break the chains”; “Ke’-m Pa Sote,” a song credited with precipitating the military junta’s downfall in 1990, wears its resistance in its title: “I Am Not Afraid.”)
But the sound of revolution is much more than the sum of Afro-Caribbean rhythms and political criticism. In Haiti, it also involves coming to terms with Countee Cullen’s question, “What is Africa to me?” In Haitian music, one’s relationship to Africa is central to the “sound of revolution,” and so the celebration of the Afro-Haitian vernacular—language (Creole), tradition (Vodou; kombit dance), religion (Vodou)—is paramount.
It’s no surprise, then, that Vodou Adjeye opens with “Se Kreyol Nou Ye” (“We’re Creole”), which criticizes Haitians who “would rather speak French, English, or Spanish rather than Creole.” The musicians declare “We’re Creole—we’ll never be ashamed of it” … “we’re people of the Kongo, let’s not be ashamed of it” and the galloping Vodou rhythms convince you they mean it. And in “Nou Pap Sa Bliye” (“We Won’t Forget This”) they come to the defense of Vodou: “They’re saying that it’s werewolf music/But we know that it’s a lie.” But so what if you don’t understand Creole?
The warm voices, bright guitar riffs, jittery synthesizer lines, and propulsive drumming will dissolve your regret. (I’m reminded of the many people who happily dance to Bob Marley’s lament “No Woman No Cry” and his protest “Get Up, Stand Up.” A welcome incongruity, if ever there was one. Music scholar Lynn Abbott once made an observation about Marley’s music that aptly applies to much Haitian music: “It reminds me of the Cajun Two-Step [dance style] that chugs merrily along while the guy is singing, ‘I’m condemned to walk down the big lonesome road for the rest of my days.’ ”) Yes, perhaps the revolution—or should I say Revolution?—will get lost in translation, but the sound of joyful defiance, that open secret, will prance right through.”…
-snip-
Some portions of this article were reformatted to enhance reading.
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This pancocojams post provides an excerpt from a 2009 New Yorker magazine article entitled "Roundtable: Haitian Music, Part 2: “What Does Revolution Sound Like?”.
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EXCERPT: HAITIAN MUSIC, PART 2: "WHAT DOES REVOLUTION SOUND LIKE"
From https://www.newyorker.com/culture/sasha-frere-jones/roundtable-haitian-
music-part-2-what-does-revolution-sound-like
Roundtable: Haitian Music, Part 2: “What Does Revolution Sound Like?”
By Sasha Frere-Jones July 9, 2009
"Three months ago, I posted a roundtable discussion of Haitian music among several remarkable scholars and writers. Happily, they have returned to discuss revolution, “rara,” and other intersections of Haitian politics, daily life, and music. Take it away. (If any participant is unfamiliar to you, refer to the original post.)
Laurent Dubois:
I often think of Haitian music as a kind of remarkable archive, one that keeps traces of the process of deportation, slavery, and revolution that created the nation. The slave trade to the colony of Saint-Domingue in the late eighteenth century brought forty thousand people a year from different parts of Africa, and these different groups met up on plantations and in towns, exchanging ideas, confronting their new situation, and creating new music, religion, and language. And they did so in the midst of a thriving cultural life in the towns of Saint-Domingue (and later—after the revolution—in Haiti). All the significant port towns had theatres with several performances every week, and in the largest, Le Cap, a theatre performed the works of Moliÿre and Voltaire, and several plays written locally in the Creole language, which brought together African and French grammar and vocabulary. Some of the revolutionaries who won independence for Haiti in 1804 were big fans of this eighteenth-century music and theatre—the music for Emperor Dessalines’s coronation was drawn from Rousseau’s blockbuster opera, “Le Devin du Village”—and they reopened the theatres after the revolution, performing the old plays with all-black casts. This was a swirling and complicated cultural world, and it produced a remarkable musical tradition.
But part of what also comes through in much Haitian music is a kind of response to the question “What does revolution sound like?”
Elizabeth McAlister:
Laurent, what a great question; it lets us imagine the political soundscape of public spaces. We may have a clue about the soundtrack for some moments of the Haitian revolution: the French army marched to battle with bands—corps de musiques—featuring snare drums and trumpets, which would follow the commands of the drum major to communicate through the chaos of the battlefield. So this is the music of warfare. Even more interesting, though, as you say, is the music of revolution: maroon armies were also said to move through space while surrounding themselves with big musical sound. A maroon leader in the Port-au-Prince region named Halou, headed an army of two thousand maroons, whose leader “marched preceded by the music of drums, lambis [conch shells], trumpets and sorcerers…”
That seems very possibly a historical source for the parading festival called “rara” (which happens to be the subject of my first book). Rara still lends itself to the feeling of rebellion. During rara season, which is during Lent, musicians and followers sort themselves into what they consider small “battalions” out on musical maneuvers. Nowadays they move about neighborhoods and villages, “taking territories” by dominating musically, competing in aesthetic battles to see which bands can attract the most fans. It feels exhilarating to go out with them and dance for miles through public space in the relative cool of the Haitian night, dancing behind waves of drummers, horn players, percussionists, and singers, with children and market women trailing behind, selling sweets from baskets on their heads. They usually sing religious songs to the spirits in the morning, and stop to pay their respects to their people in the cemeteries. Then, by late afternoon, they’ll “call out” local corruption, singing what little they can about politics in cryptic, poetic songs, often recycled for generations to fit the present crisis (and unfortunately there’s usually a crisis).
Hearing a rara band as it approaches for miles through the mountains is quite thrilling—it must have been electrifying to hear the rebel-army bands during the Haitian revolution. Rara creates a sonic signifier of Haitianness like no other, because of the distinctive bamboo horns that are played by hocketing (one player on one note, with everyone playing on rhythm to get a melody going). You can get a feel for parading rara music on this Web site. The track called “Instrumental Isolations” gives the feeling of a rara band passing by, and the video “Musicians in an Artibonite Rara Walking” presents something similar.
Rara parades are catching on in the Haitian diaspora, too; they’ve been used in celebrations as well as protests in Miami, New York, and Boston. Recently, a rara band from Brooklyn called DjaRara played on the Mall after Obama’s inauguration.
Rara is so unbelievably rich that I could go on forever, so I’d better sign off.
[...]
Ned Sublette:
In trying to understand the music of Haiti, I find myself taking a transnational approach, because, as I keep arguing, the Haitian revolution was a generative explosion for the popular music of the hemisphere. It sent populations up and down the Atlantic coast and the Antilles—and ultimately to New Orleans, where many families from Saint-Domingue were reunited. There are places today where you can connect the dots by listening. Let me, then, make some connections.
To Elizabeth’s evocation of the trumpet and snare drum of the colonial military bands (which ultimately became the basis of the jazz instrumentation in New Orleans), I would add the vocal legacy of the military drill, which evolved into the gruff vocal style of dancehall reggae. The adoption of this vocal style throughout the Antilles echoes the universality of the quadrille in the same territories two centuries ago, when a commandeur barked out the dance steps.
The sound of revolution could easily have the same rhythm it had two centuries ago; it could be heard as recently as January in the street music from the underreported general strike that began in Guadeloupe and spread to Martinique. The rhythm that the L.K.P. (Liyannaj Kont Pwofitasyon, or Collective Against Exploitation) demonstrators are parading to is what was known in different times and places as the habanera, tango, and bamboula. In musical terms, dotted quarter, eighth, quarter, quarter: BOOMP, da DOM DOM. It’s a versatile but very specific rhythm, diffused across a wide geographic area. The scholar Robert Farris Thompson identifies it as the Kongo mbila a makinu, “the call to the dance,” and it was known in Arabic music. It’s the Antillean beat, bouncing around for three hundred years or more. It was the right-hand rhythm of Dominguan-descended Louis Moreau Gottschalk’s “Bamboula” in 1848; it’s the invariable underlying rhythm of reggaetón; and it’s the rhythm underpinning the Guadeloupean demonstrators. Another version of the same L.K.P. anthem, “Gwadloup sé tan nou” (“Guadeloupe is ours”) demonstrates a politicized use of the dancehall/reggaetón style, by now firmly entrenched as the timbre and rhythm of a pan-Antillean sensibility.
There’s also a lexical component to the sound of revolution. There have to be ways to transmit secrets in order to accomplish a revolution, no? The chronicler M.L.E. Moreau de St. Méry gives in a footnote (!) the untranslated text of an anthem from Saint-Domingue—a text corroborated elsewhere, and, more remarkably, which Moreau was able to transcribe without knowing the language (not French, and, very interestingly, not Creole either, but Kikongo), possibly from having heard it repeated many times:
Eh! eh! Bomba, hen! hen! Canga bafio té Canga moune dé lé Canga do ki la Canga li
The anthem translates roughly as:
Eh! eh! Secret, hen! hen! Tie up the abusers Tie up the whites Tie (them) up (with) the action spirit Tie them up
When I think of revolution and music, my first thought is this text.
They had a secret, all right. They were singing out loud what they were going to do. Hey, hey, secret! It was no secret if you understood the song: Bomba! (“Bomba” is a word with a complex of meanings; the art historian and linguist Bárbaro Martínez Ruiz tells me it means “secret.”) Had Moreau de St. Méry known the meaning of the lyrics he transcribed, he could perhaps have seen better the revolution that was coming in 1791.
It’s not a coincidence that bomba is the name of the folkloric Afro-Puerto Rican musical form. I was unaware until recently that this song, which we find in Moreau de St. Méry’s eighteenth-century book, continues to be sung. It has been collected in present-day Puerto Rico by the musicologist Alex Lasalle, leader of the New York-based bomba group Alma Moyó. It’s a bámbula (which in New Orleans was known as bamboula). I would not be surprised to find it somewhere in Cuba. One thing’s for sure: this song was almost certainly sung at Congo Square in New Orleans in the eighteen-teens. This in turn cracks open a mystery: what one component—and not an unimportant one—of Congo Square sounded like. The fabled bamboula is still alive, in the Dominguan diaspora.
Sometimes, as in Haiti, revolution entails dancing. Makandal was recognized and apprehended at a dance. In various parts of the Antilles there are choreographic societies that go to great lengths to perform a memory of the moment of truth of more than two hundred years ago: the last days of plantation slavery in the French Caribbean.
[...]
The unintelligibility of much of hip-hop and reggaetón to outsiders, as well as its relentless code-switching, is another way of getting at that bomba, in the sense of a sung-out secret. One of the remarkable things about the dancehall/reggaetón sound becoming a pan-Antillean and Caribbean style is that through timbre and rhythm it crosses the language divide that keeps adjacent territories from talking to each other now that their African languages have largely, though by no means entirely, vanished.
[...]
Ned Sublette:
“When I was a kid, it struck me that the rara was always demanding respect, both with its loudness and active recruitment as it went along.”
Edwidge, you could be describing a second line in New Orleans, which I am convinced owes much to the rara. Last year around Easter I had the remarkable experience of going on a gagá (the Dominican equivalent of rara) out in the country in the Dominican Republic on Jueves Santo (Holy Thursday) and then going on a second line in New Orleans the following Sunday. Despite all the differences of specifics and style, it felt so similar.
For a different stab at Laurent’s question that involves a uniquely Haitian style of music, I think immediately of the first two albums by Boukman Eksperyans—who Madison brought up in our first discussion—which come out of a tradition of direct political engagement in music (mizik angaje): “Vodou Adjaye” (released in the bicentennial year of the religious leader Boukman’s uprising at Bwa Kayiman, generally considered the start of the Haitian revolution) and “Kalfou Danjere” (Dangerous Crossroads, released after General Raoul Cedras’s September 30, 1991 coup against Aristide; the title song was the subversive hit of Haitian carnival in 1992).
These albums came out on Chris Blackwell’s Mango label in the heyday of “world music” and received international attention; they’re classics, as I’m sure everyone on this panel can attest. Listening to them is like jamming your finger into a wall socket. Drawing on the energy of rara, this style of music called mizik rasin (roots) was built on culturally oriented, politically charged lyrics, choral chants, trance-inducing vodou drumming over a drum-machine pulse, and psychedelic lead guitar. (Those who want to explore further should pick up Gage Averill’s essential “A Day for the Hunter, A Day for the Prey: Popular Music and Power in Haiti.”) There’s still nothing like the music generated by the rasin bands in that early-nineties moment of dangerous crossroads in Haiti—Boukan Ginen, RAM, Zobop, Kanpech, to name some that I recall from that time.
If I want to forgo the pop-music instrumentation and just go into the drum, which is where I most like to be, I go to Azor. Mizik rasin continues today, of course, and now has to confront a vision of Haiti’s future of sweatshop labor and importation of food.
Laurent Dubois:
I’m glad Ned brought us to Guadeloupe, and to the ongoing link between song and revolution, since it’s on that island that I’ve most often had the pleasure of participating in the pan-Caribbean tradition of street music we’ve been talking about. In Guadeloupe the two most famous groups, representing the two sides of the island, are Akiyo and Voukoum, each of them linked in important ways to the politics of protest and cultural revival. Their processions are led by a line of marchers striking long whips against the streets, which sends out a sharp, stunning crack (as you can see Voukoum doing here). Like the whips that are part of many Vodou ceremonies in Haiti, they are both a potent reminder of slavery and also a curious appropriation of slavery’s ultimate symbol for a radically different purpose, that of calling down the lwa or of opening the way for the music.
Their costumes, which parallel those found in New Orleans, Haiti, and Trinidad, tell the story of slavery: participants are sometimes dressed as “Congos” just arrived from Africa, covered in dark black grease, or else dressed as maroons, runaway slaves, as Akiyo is in a January 2009 procession. Akiyo’s anthem retells the history of abolition, declaring that it was not truly the French abolitionist Victor Schoelcher who freed the slaves, but rather the maroons who fought for liberty for generations. (One of the sponsors of the group over the past years has been the now-retired soccer star Lilian Thuram, long a pillar of the French national football team, who was born and grew up in Anse-Bertrand, Guadeloupe.) They evoke these histories in order to call for new kinds of marronage—running away from the plantations—in the present. What is powerful about these groups is that they really highlight the complicated politics of culture, and culture of politics, in the French Antilles.
The nationalist movements that developed there starting in the nineteen-sixties never rallied large majorities in favor of independence from France. But if political nationalism never really took hold, a kind of cultural nationalism that came out of the independence movements most definitely did, changing the way many Martinicans and Guadeloupeans think of themselves, and propelling the creation of groups like Akiyo and Voukoum. This movement, in turn, surrounded and in some ways sustained union activism and other political protest on the island, helping to lay the foundation for the strike that took place in Guadeloupe earlier this year.
As was the case two hundred years ago in Haiti, music and revolution are tightly intertwined, which makes sense, since one of the main tasks of Caribbean music has always been imagining the unimaginable.
I was in Haiti and then in Guadeloupe in late May and saw much of what we have been discussing in motion. In Haiti, on May 18th, Flag Day, there were many people out doing rara, bringing that tradition further into the national celebration. I saw one group led by a man with a large Bob Marley flag. And in Guadeloupe I was able to attend several events organized by the L.K.P., the coalition of groups that organized the strikes earlier this year. Raymond Gama, a historian who is a spokesman for the L.K.P., explained to me that though it was unclear what the next steps of the movement should be, or even what the specific goals should be for Guadeloupe, they felt that their victory was in mobilizing people, in showing them what might be possible in the future if they continue. We were at a nighttime dance driven by gwo-ka drumming, and with an illuminated grin he announced: “Nous sommes déjà demain!”—“We are already tomorrow!”
[...]
Garnette Cadogan:
What does revolution sound like? This begs for a long answer, but consider this shortcut: Bob Marley and, with apologies to Carl Wilson, not Celine Dion. (Some people may smack the wag in me and suggest, with good reason, that the sound of revolution is Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, the Beatles—to name a few. True enough, but Laurent, if I haven’t misunderstood you, you are not so much asking about revolution—dramatic, wide-reaching change—as you are reaching back to Revolution—political revolt that ushers in a new social order.) What, then, does that signal moment in the past—the Haitian revolution—sound like in the funky potpourri of rhythms that is contemporary Haitian music?
Thankfully, Haitian musicians possess a canny pop sensibility: they see no trade-off between being political heralds and pleasing a crowd. They tie their messages of resistance to catchy riffs and vibrant rhythms, producing ambidextrous music that presses the consciousness while shaking the hips and feet. Their songs may be infused with the memory of the revolution, they may make renewed challenges to power, they may weigh in on the heavy matters of the moment—but Haitian musicians never forget that they are entertainers. (This, in part, explains why some rara songs and parades are so ribald.) The music is infectious not merely because of catchy rhythms but also because satire (“pwen,” anyone?) does the heavy lifting, saving musicians—more often than not—from the snare of preachiness. (This is not only good musical sense—it’s common sense: explicit criticism of corrupt powers in Haiti has often invited a beating or worse.) With word, movement, and—uh-huh—sound all in coördinated service, the sound of revolution turns out to be as playful as it is weighty.
Boukman Eksperyans, whose very name advertises their aesthetic—Boukman was a Vodou priest and slave who helped incite the 1791 rebellion that started the Haitian revolution; eskperyans (“experience”) is a nod to Jimi Hendrix —is an excellent example of pop wed to protest.
On Vodou Adjeye, one of the albums Ned praises, traditional Haitian music (Vodou drums) and modern rock (guitar riffs) interweave beneath protest. (On “Wet Chenn” (“Remove the Chains”) they insist, “Get angry, break the chains”; “Ke’-m Pa Sote,” a song credited with precipitating the military junta’s downfall in 1990, wears its resistance in its title: “I Am Not Afraid.”)
But the sound of revolution is much more than the sum of Afro-Caribbean rhythms and political criticism. In Haiti, it also involves coming to terms with Countee Cullen’s question, “What is Africa to me?” In Haitian music, one’s relationship to Africa is central to the “sound of revolution,” and so the celebration of the Afro-Haitian vernacular—language (Creole), tradition (Vodou; kombit dance), religion (Vodou)—is paramount.
It’s no surprise, then, that Vodou Adjeye opens with “Se Kreyol Nou Ye” (“We’re Creole”), which criticizes Haitians who “would rather speak French, English, or Spanish rather than Creole.” The musicians declare “We’re Creole—we’ll never be ashamed of it” … “we’re people of the Kongo, let’s not be ashamed of it” and the galloping Vodou rhythms convince you they mean it. And in “Nou Pap Sa Bliye” (“We Won’t Forget This”) they come to the defense of Vodou: “They’re saying that it’s werewolf music/But we know that it’s a lie.” But so what if you don’t understand Creole?
The warm voices, bright guitar riffs, jittery synthesizer lines, and propulsive drumming will dissolve your regret. (I’m reminded of the many people who happily dance to Bob Marley’s lament “No Woman No Cry” and his protest “Get Up, Stand Up.” A welcome incongruity, if ever there was one. Music scholar Lynn Abbott once made an observation about Marley’s music that aptly applies to much Haitian music: “It reminds me of the Cajun Two-Step [dance style] that chugs merrily along while the guy is singing, ‘I’m condemned to walk down the big lonesome road for the rest of my days.’ ”) Yes, perhaps the revolution—or should I say Revolution?—will get lost in translation, but the sound of joyful defiance, that open secret, will prance right through.”…
-snip-
Some portions of this article were reformatted to enhance reading.
****
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Friday, May 23, 2014
Five Videos Of Gwo Ka Music & Dance (Guadeloupe, West Indies)
Edited by Azizi Powell
This post showcases five videos of Gwo Ka music & dance from Guadeloupe, French West Indies. Information about Gwo Ka is also includes in this post.
The content of this post is provided for folkloric, cultural, entertainment, and aesthetic purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all others featured in these videos. Thanks also to the publishers of these videos on YouTube and thanks to those who are quoted in this post.
****
INFORMATION ABOUT GWO KA
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwo_ka
"Gwo ka (Big drum) is both a family of hand drums and the music created with them, which is a major part of Guadeloupean folk music. There are seven rhythms in gwo ka, which are embellished by the drummers. Different sizes of drums establish the foundation and its flourishes, with the largest, the boula, playing the central rhythm and the smaller, markeur (or maké) drums embellishes upon it and interplays with the dancers, audience or singer. Gwo ka singing is usually guttural, nasal and rough, though it can also be bright and smooth, and is accompanied by uplifting and complex harmonies and melodies. There are also dances that tell folk stories that are accompanied by the gwo ka drums.
Rural Guadeloupans still use gwo ka drums in communal experiences called lewozes; this is the most traditional manifestation of gwo ka in modern Guadeloupe. Gwo ka is also played at Carnival and other celebrations. A modernized and popularized form of gwo ka is well-known on the islands; it is known as gwo ka moderne.
Origin
Gwo ka is the French creole term for Big drum.
The origin of Gwo Ka goes back to the period of enslavement in the 18th century. Musical research show that the instrument can find its roots in the drums and songs of the West African countries (Guinea gulf, Congo...). From the diverse music and dance of their homelands, the slaves elaborated a communication tool, a new form of art, like the creole language: the Gwo Ka. This musical genre is characterised by an African typology: - repetitive form - improvisation - physical movements linked to music - a response between a soloist and choir - a syncopation [which is] weak [at] times. Gwo-ka, is a quadruple entity: dance, music, instrument, song..."
****
FEATURED EXAMPLES
These videos are posted in chronological order based on the date that they were published on YouTube. The videos with the oldest dates posted first.
Example #1: GUADELOUPE - Filles super rapides (live drums - gwo ka)
lagoyave Uploaded on Nov 1, 2008
Raw footage
Genre: folklore - traditional music: Gwo ka, Guadeloupe island
Festival les Belles ka dansé - Bourget (France)
Super fast dancers. They could dance really fast and could also play drums, the KA. 7 rhythms, it is unique worldwide. Let me tell you that the easiest one is not obvious at all.
Level: advanced/expert.
Filles super rapides et synchronisées. Niveau de danse: expert.
Danse et percussions: jouent du tambour.
****
Example #2: Gwo ka - Jean Fouye Pye Fouye - Lewoz a Choukaj Mas Pari [live drums]
lagoyave Uploaded on Jul 22, 2011
...Traditional drums of Guadeloupe (FWI: French West Indies - French Oversea Dpt #971). Bay lavwa, buzzez, faites tourner svp, please tell a Friend!!! Yon bèl mèsi, thanks a million!!!
Title: Jean Fouyé, Pyè Fouyé, gwo ka classic. 3 dancers/danseurs
This song is loved by everyone and is also one of my favorite for both, the lyrics and the composition as a whole. Many covers available, I like this one, it was a fair one. :)
Guest: Orèl, Style Ka
Chant: Fred Epaminondas, Lowi6
Danseurs: Camille de Miyo, Pascal Lamy en rouge et je ne connais pas le dernier. Si vous savez, dites-le moi. Merci...
****
Example #3: Gwo ka - Orel Styleka - "Pa mannye loli-la" - Lewoz a Choukaj Mas Pari
.
Lagoyave, uploaded on Jul 31, 2011
Title/titre: "pa mannyé loli-la"
Genre: Gwo ka music - live drums. Choukaj Mas Pari. Annual event.
3 dancers/danseuses dont Manzel Dodoz. Bay lavwa, faites tourner, commentez, svp. Merci. -
Title/titre: Pa mannyé loli-la is a Gwo ka classic song.
Guest: Orèl, StyleKa,,,
****
Example #4: Gwo ka Lewoz Poirier Petit-Bourg
.
Chaîne de 971chimentrase Uploaded on Sep 11, 2011
****
Example #5: Veillée de Napoléon Magloire dit Napo - Gwoka Guadeloupe - 1
Kalinda Productions, Published on May 6, 2013
Wake of Napoleon "Napo" Magloire, master singer of the Guadeloupean tradition gwoka / May 3rd, 2013, Guadeloupe.
Veillée de Napoléon Magloire dit Napo, vendredi 3 mai 2013, Gosiers, Guadeloupe
****
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.
Visitor comments are welcome.
This post showcases five videos of Gwo Ka music & dance from Guadeloupe, French West Indies. Information about Gwo Ka is also includes in this post.
The content of this post is provided for folkloric, cultural, entertainment, and aesthetic purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all others featured in these videos. Thanks also to the publishers of these videos on YouTube and thanks to those who are quoted in this post.
****
INFORMATION ABOUT GWO KA
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwo_ka
"Gwo ka (Big drum) is both a family of hand drums and the music created with them, which is a major part of Guadeloupean folk music. There are seven rhythms in gwo ka, which are embellished by the drummers. Different sizes of drums establish the foundation and its flourishes, with the largest, the boula, playing the central rhythm and the smaller, markeur (or maké) drums embellishes upon it and interplays with the dancers, audience or singer. Gwo ka singing is usually guttural, nasal and rough, though it can also be bright and smooth, and is accompanied by uplifting and complex harmonies and melodies. There are also dances that tell folk stories that are accompanied by the gwo ka drums.
Rural Guadeloupans still use gwo ka drums in communal experiences called lewozes; this is the most traditional manifestation of gwo ka in modern Guadeloupe. Gwo ka is also played at Carnival and other celebrations. A modernized and popularized form of gwo ka is well-known on the islands; it is known as gwo ka moderne.
Origin
Gwo ka is the French creole term for Big drum.
The origin of Gwo Ka goes back to the period of enslavement in the 18th century. Musical research show that the instrument can find its roots in the drums and songs of the West African countries (Guinea gulf, Congo...). From the diverse music and dance of their homelands, the slaves elaborated a communication tool, a new form of art, like the creole language: the Gwo Ka. This musical genre is characterised by an African typology: - repetitive form - improvisation - physical movements linked to music - a response between a soloist and choir - a syncopation [which is] weak [at] times. Gwo-ka, is a quadruple entity: dance, music, instrument, song..."
****
FEATURED EXAMPLES
These videos are posted in chronological order based on the date that they were published on YouTube. The videos with the oldest dates posted first.
Example #1: GUADELOUPE - Filles super rapides (live drums - gwo ka)
lagoyave Uploaded on Nov 1, 2008
Raw footage
Genre: folklore - traditional music: Gwo ka, Guadeloupe island
Festival les Belles ka dansé - Bourget (France)
Super fast dancers. They could dance really fast and could also play drums, the KA. 7 rhythms, it is unique worldwide. Let me tell you that the easiest one is not obvious at all.
Level: advanced/expert.
Filles super rapides et synchronisées. Niveau de danse: expert.
Danse et percussions: jouent du tambour.
****
Example #2: Gwo ka - Jean Fouye Pye Fouye - Lewoz a Choukaj Mas Pari [live drums]
lagoyave Uploaded on Jul 22, 2011
...Traditional drums of Guadeloupe (FWI: French West Indies - French Oversea Dpt #971). Bay lavwa, buzzez, faites tourner svp, please tell a Friend!!! Yon bèl mèsi, thanks a million!!!
Title: Jean Fouyé, Pyè Fouyé, gwo ka classic. 3 dancers/danseurs
This song is loved by everyone and is also one of my favorite for both, the lyrics and the composition as a whole. Many covers available, I like this one, it was a fair one. :)
Guest: Orèl, Style Ka
Chant: Fred Epaminondas, Lowi6
Danseurs: Camille de Miyo, Pascal Lamy en rouge et je ne connais pas le dernier. Si vous savez, dites-le moi. Merci...
****
Example #3: Gwo ka - Orel Styleka - "Pa mannye loli-la" - Lewoz a Choukaj Mas Pari
.
Lagoyave, uploaded on Jul 31, 2011
Title/titre: "pa mannyé loli-la"
Genre: Gwo ka music - live drums. Choukaj Mas Pari. Annual event.
3 dancers/danseuses dont Manzel Dodoz. Bay lavwa, faites tourner, commentez, svp. Merci. -
Title/titre: Pa mannyé loli-la is a Gwo ka classic song.
Guest: Orèl, StyleKa,,,
****
Example #4: Gwo ka Lewoz Poirier Petit-Bourg
.
Chaîne de 971chimentrase Uploaded on Sep 11, 2011
****
Example #5: Veillée de Napoléon Magloire dit Napo - Gwoka Guadeloupe - 1
Kalinda Productions, Published on May 6, 2013
Wake of Napoleon "Napo" Magloire, master singer of the Guadeloupean tradition gwoka / May 3rd, 2013, Guadeloupe.
Veillée de Napoléon Magloire dit Napo, vendredi 3 mai 2013, Gosiers, Guadeloupe
****
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Visitor comments are welcome.
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