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Fete de Piyan: An Afropop Concert Report from Haiti
Saturday, April 19th. Crowds gathered in the Haitian port town of Miragoane to sardine their way into the backs of pick-up trucks. Everyone's goal is to achieve a higher elevation and the party that awaits: Fete de Piyan. While local Rara bands will initiate this evening's excitement, the suspense is promised by the headliners, Boukman Eksperyans.
The band draws its name from history, from a man of the hour, from a particular night, August 14, 1791. As a forest fire reduced to an ashy waste the Cap-Haitian mountain, the Morne Rouge, a portentous Vodou ceremony was held in the nearby clearing of Bois Cayman. The priest who presided over the ritual was an enormous black slave from Jamaica who went by the name of Boukman. In the most dramatic of settings for ceremony, fire raging, lightning in the sky flashing, a Creole pig was sacrificed and the spirit Erzulie Dantor was invoked.
Boukman, as conduit to the lwa or spirit, pronounced a war cry. It was the spark that ignited Haitians to fight. Slaves who had been in attendance at the ceremony of Bois Cayman returned to their plantations and destroyed them. This action initiated a thirteen-year war, the first black war for self-determination and the first war of courage and conviction to rebuke European colonialism.
Fete de Piyan was held on a gentle, hillside slope at the conclusion of an impressively, vertical climb. As I approached the human audience mass, it seemed to bump in fluctuation like land-bound waves. Boukman's front man is Theodore Beaubrun Jr., the son of a famous Creole comedian of stage and television. Beaubrun presides over his stage regally in vocal collaboration with his wife, Minerose. The lyrics sung are in Creole. The band consists of guitars, drums and horns, brass and the warmer, wooden vaskins. A vaskin is a bamboo tube of various length which allows for the production of one note when the player blows air through it. Vaskin players therefore travel and play in packs to achieve musical mass. Vaskins and keyless, sheet metal horns are the signature instruments of rara and their inclusion in Boukman Eksperyans is the most obvious nod of respect to older Haitian forms.
A fan might describe the Boukman Eksperyans as the king band of the racine-or roots-music scene. This definition implies the pursuit of, as a source of inspiration, traditional, Haitian music, in particular the radical, marching phenomena, rara. At the Fete de Piyan, I watched Minerosa dip and sway in clear allegiance to the Haitian street musician. In Boukman and in the music of their racine rivals, the push can be heard to take the wisdom of the past and fuse it with the new, the contemporary. In Boukman Eksperyans, the new is most easily grasped in bass lines which borrow from Jamaican reggae and in guitar parts which are reminiscent of American funk. Boukman and rivals alike are looking for the raw sounds, rejecting the suave and the escapism that marks some of Haiti's most talented pop, compas and big band outfits.
Racine bands also don't shy away from acknowledging their African heritage. From a period of percussion, a Boukman song can morph into a straight vocal chant, take "Nou pap sa bliye"-or in English "We're Not Going to Forget". In this song the band belts out the names-the band's sources of rhythm-"Petro, Congo, Rada, Ibo, Nago: our ancestors were there."
Boukman Eksperyans' set at the Fete de Piyan was a few hours long but it seemed short even as I was dizzy with happy weariness when the band finished. Speaking with Theodore and Mimerose Beauboun, after the show, to me Theodore reaffirmed the band's central, dual purpose: to reinstate Haitian culture and to resist the waves of politically motivated, anti-Haitian propaganda.
A critic of Boukman Eksperyans spoke of the band in its present incarnation as gimmicky, of pronouncing revolution for effect in a pandering to the audience. Style, that allegiance to Rastaman principles and a fashion statement of anti-Americanism, are more pronounced than any political substance this critic maintains. After my brief exposure to Boukman, I certainly won't venture an opinion of the intent of these artists except to say I am skeptical of any claims of Boukman's insincerity. The concert I attended was free to all comers. To play in this spectacular rural setting, the band had traveled several hours from home. The crowd was electrically receptive. Local rara musicians opened for the headliners and everyone did their fair share of dancing, even the food venders swayed as they served up fried fish, cold beer and candies.
Perhaps the critic I spoke to was merely nostalgic for the 1990 version of Boukman which featured, I believe, Eddy Francois as a vocal force. Eddy Francois left Boukman Eksperyans to start his own band, Boukan Ginen. It was then, I understand, that Mimerose Beaubrun took on a larger responsibility within the band. The Boukman Eksperyans is of course famous for its work from 1990, in particular for its carnival anthem, "Ke'-M Pa Sote" or in English, " I Am Not Afraid". This song was literally the musical accompaniment to the demise of dictator Prosper Avril.
1992's carnival song, "Kalfou Denjere", was banned too for being "too violent" but in Haiti, where political leadership has varied but consistently been pathetic in its amoral thugishness, such censorship should be read as glorious acclaim. In a country where many voices have been silenced, I don't see the point of being overly critical of the politics of Boukman Eksperyans or any forum which might be used to express democratic sentiment. In a nation of musicians, Boukman Eksperyans is one of Haiti's few solvent bands of professional, year-round, musicians. The band enjoys enough popular support to be somewhat protected by its popularity; the band's concerts continue to be, in part, democratic forums and the band has the power to tour Haiti and the United States at will. So go see the Boukman Eksperyans and come to your own conclusions.
The Discography of Boukman Eksperyans:
Libete (Pan Pou Pran'l-Freedom-Let's Take It ) Mango UK
Vodou Adjae, Mango UK, (1990's "Ke'-M Pa Sote" has been captured for prosperity on this album.)
Kalfou Danjere' Mango UK
Revolution (Tuff Gong/WEA, US)
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