Haiti’s Queen of song

[Judi Lynn]

Haiti’s Queen of song
Written by HIFA
Monday, 22 March 2010 16:40

"The reigning queen of Haitian song", Emeline Michel (Pictured), skilfully blends Haitian compas and rara with jazz, pop, bossa nova and samba, to create a unique sound that has won her international acclaim. This captivating vocalist and performer began her singing career in her local church where she loved to sing gospel songs. Hailed as the “Joni Mitchell of Haiti” she has roared to global renown with her concerts and albums and has recorded and performed all over the Caribbean, Europe, North and South America. Recently she performed at Hope for Haiti Now - A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief.

Haitians adore Emeline. She takes their very own traditional rhythms and combines these with content that is social, political, inspirational, and with other musical styles from elsewhere in the world. The result is mesmerising. After rising rapidly to fame in native Haiti and the French Antilles, Emeline moved to France, quickly making her name there too. Soon she was performing at many prestige venues, and appearing on French television and the covers of magazines.

From France, Emeline's work spread throughout the French-speaking world and then, even further afield, to South America and Japan. Her next shift was to Canada, where she was soon to become a leading vocalist in Quebec, and a regular performer at various Canadian festivals, as well as on radio and on television. Her album Ban-m Pase (Let Me Pass) demonstrated her growing talents as a mature songwriter and producer and led to two international hits singles, "Ban-m Pase" and "Mwen bezwen-w" (I Need You).

Her second album which came out in 2004, Rasin Kreyol (Creole Roots), really raised her international profile to higher echelons, and she was soon heard on National Public Radio, CBC Radio, and seen performing at top venues and festivals, including the Carnegie Hall. In 2006 she was among a select group of performers at the 2006 Clinton Global Initiative, a gathering of over 2000 world dignitaries, thinkers, presidents and world leaders, and her album Tout Mon Temps (All My Time) delivered another international smash hit A-K-I-K-O. Now we too can meet Emeline on HIFA's Main Stage on Lion Lager Day, Friday 30 April, Presented by HIVOS in association with Lion Lager.

http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/2010032229500/entertainment/haitis-queen-of-song.html

If you are a racist troll, please keep your comments to yourself regarding this singer.

~~~~
Previously, there was Martha Jean-Caude:

Singer Martha Jean-Claude Dead at 82
Haïti Progrès, 21 November 2001

Haitian singer and actress Martha Jean-Claude, whose engaged music inspired Haitians struggling against dictatorship for decades, died at age 82 on November 14 in Havana.

Known as “the daughter of two islands,” she was a symbol of the fraternity between Haiti and Cuba, where she lived most of her life and raised four children.

Martha Jean-Claude, known affectionately as Mamita, came to fame in Haiti during the 1940s, most notably during Port-au-Prince’s bicentennial festivities in 1949. As a child, she sang at the Port-au-Prince Cathedral and, in 1942, began her professional career with folkloric concerts at the Rex Theatre, where she was often accompanied by fellow singer-dancer Emérantes Despradines.

In 1952, she was imprisoned for publishing a play, “Avrinette,” which the regime of President Paul Magloire found subversive. She fled to Cuba on December 20, 1952.

“I left Haiti after spending several months in prison while pregnant,” she recalled in an interview. “I gave birth two days after getting out. One month after leaving prison—my husband was in Cuba—I left to join him.” She had married Cuban journalist Victor Mirabal, whom she met after one of her shows. A few months later, they married in Venezuela.

Together they had four children: Linda, an opera singer in Madrid; Sandra, a musician living in Amsterdam; Magdalena, a doctor living in Cuba; and Richard Mirabal, a musician and director of the Martha Jean-Claude Foundation, based in Pétionville, Haïti.

In Cuba, she quickly became a star on the stage, radio, and television, playing with different orchestras and in many clubs, including the famous “Tropicana.” In 1957, she spent a year working in Mexico, where her “Afro Cabaret” was very popular on television.

When she returned to Cuba in 1958, the country was in upheaval and she sided with the revolutionaries. After the Batista dictatorship fell in 1959, she became something of an ambassador for the Cuban Revolution, Haitian culture, and the anti-Duvalierist struggle, bringing her concerts to many socialist countries as well as playing at schools, Army bases, and official receptions in Cuba. She even travelled with the Cuban Army to Angola in the 1970s. She also toured Paris, Montreal, New York, Panama, Mexico, and Spain.

In 1971, she starred in the anti-Duvalierist film Simparele, produced in Cuba.

“It’s natural that I struggle for social justice,” Martha said in an interview explaining the political character of many of her 50 songs and 8 albums. “To sing the song of the peasants, that’s what is in my heart. I lean toward these people. My songs are what one calls protest ballads.”

After 34 years in exile, she returned to Haiti in 1986, after the fall of Jean-Claude Duvalier, and held a triumphant concert. She performed again in Port-au-Prince in 1991 with Mackandal, a musical group she formed in 1978 with her children Richard and Sandra.

Several of Martha’s grandchildren accompanied her to a concert in her honor with Despradines and Cuban singer Celia Cruz at the Sylvio Cator stadium in Port-au-Prince in July 1996.

The same year, President René Préval honored her with Haiti’s highest medal of honor. “With her children born in Cuba, she created the Martha Jean-Claude Foundation with the goal of perfecting the artistic formation of youth and to allow better cultural relations between Haiti and Cuba,” a Haitian government press release explained after her death.

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/534.html