35 f “I
take care of the rhythms of Lakou Mizik. I’m a music teacher and know the history of Africa and vodou. My real name is Louis Lesly Marcelin, but I’m called Sanba Zao. Sanba means poet. The Z stand for the islands, A is for Haiti [Ayiti in Kreyòl], and O is for the God who
watches us.”Sanba Zao sings lead on Is Fa Ti Bo, written in the style of a konbit or worker’s song by Steeve, Jonas, and their friend Lion Joint. It refers to the time of the earthquake and its aftermath. After a brief intro – with guitar, cymbals, rolling drums, and Sanba Zao’s raw and soulful voice calling on the workers to wake up, the song bursts into a merengue-like rhythm, driven by accordeon and bass.
“We needed a song to gather everybody, to build a one-soul
family,” recalls Steeve, and he sings the chorus briefly. “And Is Fa Ti Bo says ‘put on some more coffee because we’re going to have a lot of people come and help us do what we have to do’. That seemed like the perfect song. It’s ‘everybody feel good, we’re going to start a beautiful day of working’. We all cooperated on making it.”
Though the music is infectiously danceable – as with all Wa Di Yo
– the opening lyrics are an anguished cry: “Since the January 12th earthquake hit / No one has worked the land / What will the children eat? / …The youth is lost / What has happened to this country?”
The contrast between upbeat, happy sounds and hard-hitting words is even greater on the superb Anba Siklòn (you heard it on our fRoots 58 compilation) which bounces along to handclaps and a love- ly chorus. Steeve and Sanba Rao sing lead.
“It’s a song that plays with the rhythm contredanse,” Sanba Zao explains, “which shows the influences of three [colonial] European countries, France, England, and Spain. They brought the con- tredanse. Haiti has so many songs that are a mix of many cultures.”
The lyrics denounce those who exploit Haiti’s misery in the name of helping them: “Why are you laughing at my problems? / Con- tributing to my suffering? / Look how you steal my happiness / Have mercy! Have mercy! / Look how you walk over my culture / Why do you take advantage of my weakness?”
It took a couple of years for the album to come about. Zach was focused on the closely related work of overseeing the creation of the Audio Institute in Jacmel to provide Haitian youth with training in sound engineering and music production – as well as cultural empowerment. He became its interim director, and hired Steeve as a professor. Wa Di Yo was recorded in early 2015, the first album to come out of the AI studio – one of Haiti’s finest.
As so often with Haitians the great joy of that time, the culmina- tion of so much work and cooperation, was tempered by great sor- row when Laiko Mizik’s original accordeonist Allen Juste unexpect- edly died. “Going into the recording I started getting calls from Allen that he was feeling sick,” says Zach. “Allen was with us from the very beginning, a wonderful musician – and the album is dedi- cated to him. I was able to get him into a hospital. They said he had high blood pressure, and I truly thought he was going to come out and join us, but about a week into the recording I got a call that he’d passed away. That was really hard and heavy for the musicians, and a tough thing to bounce back from. But the band knew it was a unique moment for them. We found out later it was cancer. The health care in Haiti is not strong enough to detect that, and it only came out in the autopsy.”
The intensity of those days brought out the best in the members of Laikou Mizik. Wa Di Yo is a fabulously rich and diverse album, uniting the deepest Haitian roots with a bright contemporary sound and feel, in imaginative settings of traditional songs and chants, and new compositions by Sanba Zao, and Steeve and Jonas. Chris Velin, an old friend from SLRAS days, helped with arrangements and added guitar. It was recorded live – including a couple of tracks, with voices and percussion-only, in a vodou peristil or temple.
The most beautiful cut is Tanbou’n Frape, a paean to the hand- drum and its crucial place in Haitian culture, sung by Steeve to a swaying midtempo rhythm.
“Wherever it hits it makes everybody dance / With it we have sung for freedom / The whole nation has transformed.”
You can feel the breeze. “The nago rhythm is very traditional,”
says Jonas. “It’s a song that says ‘Whenever we hear the drum our strength doubles’. It captures the spirit of Haiti that says ‘No to vio- lence’. It’s the spirit that’s there to bring together, to construct, to celebrate, to endure. After 2010 many people thought Haiti was going to die, they thought Haiti had no chance of doing something better, but we’re alive, and we are moving forward.“
Wa Di Yo, Nou La Toujou. You tell them, we’re still here.
www.lakoumizik.com
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