Sunday, May 1, 2011

De la musique a la politique

Depuis un certain temps on assiste a un mouvement de reorientation de nos musiciens haitiens vers la scene politique। Un phenomene qui va en grandissant et qui pourrait a un certain moment se reveler inquietant। Les recentes elections haitiennes ont consacre deux icones de notre musique "DEPUTE et PRESIDENT" et l'on se rappelle que celles d'avant avaient deja donne un maire,aussi issu de la famille musicale. Si en tant qu'artistes ses musicient s'y sont bien pris, puisque personne ne saurait contester la reussite de Gracia Delva dans la musique haitienne, ni celle de Michel Martelly non plus, quand on sait tous que ce dernier s'est fait une reputation de revolutionnaire et a la reconnaissance de ses confreres musiciens qui pensent que s'ils peuvent gagner aisement leur vie aujourd'hui juste par le metier de la musique, c'est tout simplement grace a lui. Mais on sait tous aussi que de la musique a la politique les obligations changent, les exigences auguementent et que ca prend plus que du talent ou un artiste de charme, ca prend du leadership. Parceque musicien, le role etait tout simplement de diverter, et maintenant politicien le role est de dirriger, de decider pour toute une societe, tout un peuple dont le reve est de gouter enfin a ce changement longtemps promis mais qui n'arrive jamais. Le boulot qui attend nos deux musiciens devenus politiciens, est feroce, le chemin a parcourir est long et perilleux. Seront ils capables d'aller jusqu'au bout tout en trainant derriere eux le succes de la musique sur la scene musicale? Seul le futur a la reponse a ces questions. Entre temps on leur souhaite a tous du succes dans leur nouvelle carriere.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Valentine with T- Vice


Valentine’s weekend in Boston saw the Prince Vice, and their ensemble of musical talents finally for the new year. The group after having spent the night before celebrating along the President of Konpa, in celebration of his 50th anniversary. Alongside notables such as Sean Pen, Richard Morse, Wiclef Jean, and Pras Michel at BBKing’s in NY. The Prince Vice welcomed and partied the night away with the President of Konpa Sweet Micky, as a prelude to their night in Boston.
The event in Boston was very well promoted and had low sparks, mainly due to the venue. It was with baited breath we preceded to the Charles Mosley Ball Room in Deadham MA. The capacity should’ve been easily reached since previously the band’s performance was canceled due to inclement weather, so the people who had been waiting all year, should’ve found this an easy reward. The room was ¾ packed and there was no wait at the doors. Now if you’ve followed the Vice, you’re accustomed to seeing long lines and people anxiously waiting to see the band get on stage. This was not the case, I’m not sure if this was a good or bad thing but the lines were very easily swooped through. As we entered the night the Prince Vice were punctual as usual nothing less is expected of the Vice we are very well aware of their quality of work and professionalism. The band stared at around 10pm to a very delicious crowd of young and sexy [including the fellas..Pause] I must say I was impressed. Now the evening was quite on cue and all except for some minor details for example the group’s Manager & Mother extraordinaire was inconspicuously chilling in the back as a spectator. This was perplexing but we’re moving to more portent concerns, there was only one bar at the location and it had a wait a mile long [#Fail] let’s just say more than one customer was dis-satisfied at the rate their consumptions was going. The sound was not done by the standard Jean Remond, maybe that explains some of the miss tuned. Over all the band’s performance lacked a few of their greats love songs since the occasion [Valentines Weekend] called for a touch of Love.The band did not play that many love songs I recall Olivier Duret’s delivery of “Tanpri souple” & Roberto’s “Tell me why” notables for love songs from the new album.

The disturbing part of the evening is the emergence of the Djakout effect [People on Stage]. Now if you’re a regular at any T-Vice parties, this was the first time that there was such an enormous amount of “FAN’s” on Stage along with Females which we’ll assume were not part of the band. Now are we to assume that the discipline that the band had been known for, is going away and introducing a genre of groupies’ on stage? Well needless to say of the few people and friends we spoke with, they were not impress with the display of people on stage grabbing microphones, drunk singing on stage, along with interrupting musicians. What we’ve come to know as the discipline of T-Vice was not present the evening. At this point in the night the band had wind down to the closing point which by standard is Kanaval or a preview of possibly what’s to come in the near future on either Eastern Parkway or Champ des Mars.
We’ll wait and see.
Scores for the Night:   [from 1 to 10]
            Show: 7
            Animation: 8
Crowd Participation: 7
Entertainment factor: 7
Location/Presentation: 6
THE BAND for the NIGHT: 8 [the people only came because it was T-Vice]