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CD Review
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The World, CD Review >>
Authorities in Haiti are still assessing the damage that Tropical Storm Jeanne brought to the Carribbean nation. The most devastating floods were in the northwestern city of Gonaives. Officials now say more than 2700 people there are dead or missing. Emeline Michel calls Gonaives home. But she lives and works in New York City. Her work is singing...and her singing connects Emeline Michel with her roots. The World's Marco Werman has today's Global Hit.
Like many other people who come from Gonaives, Emeline Michel is proud of her birthplace.
Michel: Gonaives is officially called "la cite de l'independance." that's where the proclamation of the act of independence was done on the public place. So a lot of people coming from Gonaives, especially if you're an artist, you know you always mention that you come from la cite de l'independance.
It's hard to reconcile the suffering in Gonaives when there is such history and triumph associated with their city. That's the fine line Emeline Michel has to walk when she writes music.
Take the Emeline Michel tune Ban'm la Jwa, or give me joy, from her latest recording. If you don't understand creole, it's a dance number. But for a song ostensibly about joy, Emeline Michel's words turn to the lack of joy. I have seen enough hunger, she sings, spread your peace, war is harassing us, light my way and use me.
Michel: It's the most difficult job right now to be a Haitian singer because it's like every time you hope that you can come with a different message where you can talk about change and positiveness and a country that has less corruption and going back to where it was. What it was before. And it's a terrible feeling because i'm carrying this country like a flag, not only in my heart, but in my songs, thinking and hoping that people will see something more positive. You just feel like you've got a country that is left to die.
Emeline Michel's song Nasyon Soley begins with the voice of her four year-old son. She wrote the song for him because she wanted him to learn creole. At some point, she reasoned, it would be nice for him to be able to speak creole when someday he goes back to Haiti. But then while Emiline Michel was composing the song, questions came. When could her son go back? Will he ever go back?
Michel: The song is saying, I don't wanna die, we don't wanna die before our children seeing Haiti to its feet again. We don't wanna die before going back and live in Haiti.
Emeline Michel currently resides in New York. She says she occasionally feels pangs of guilt because she is not in Haiti, standing alongside the people at the mercy of crippled governments and hurricanes. But she also knows that as a working musician, it'd be next to impossible to survive in Haiti today. The best use of her energy and talent she says is bringing attention to her country here in America.
For The World, I'm Marco Werman.
10/04/04 >> go there
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