By Larry Katz
Wednesday, December 1, 2004

Emeline Michel's music proves how great misfortune can breed great art.

     Michel is known as Haiti's Queen of Song, even though she no longer lives in her perpetually troubled Caribbean homeland. Like so many of her countrymen, she left Haiti to escape political turmoil and poverty and to pursue a career. 

     But Michel, who performs tomorrow at Johnny D's in Somerville, continues to carry a passion for her country in her heart and her music. On her eighth album, the new ``Rasin Kreyol'' (Creole Roots), she confronts problems Haitians face at home and abroad, but also celebrates the often-overlooked strength and beauty of the people and their culture.

     ``Sometimes I think I would not realize how much my country was in my blood if I was not living out of my country,'' Michel says from Providence, where she lives with her husband and son, 5. ``A lot of the lyrics I wrote are written out of living away from Haiti. Out of smelling the country in my head. Out of waking up in the morning and thinking so much about good Haitian coffee.''

     Michel laughs. ``That kind of nostalgic feelings come to me living out of my country. But if I lived in Haiti, where there's always a curfew, where every minute there's a new president, where there's so much instability, I don't know what type of musician I would be.''

     Michel, 38, first came to the United States to study at the Detroit Jazz Center for six months, her prize for winning a talent contest. ``Then I returned to Haiti and my career really picked up,'' she says. ``I hadn't taken music very seriously. It was just for enjoyment. But I came back and recorded an album and one song, `Flame,' became a hit in the Caribbean.''

     That success allowed Michel to become one of the few women in Haiti - or anywhere in the Caribbean - to lead her own band.

     ``At first I had a musical director to lean on,'' she says. ``But further on, I took charge and took control of the band. It seemed natural to me. I was raised with a guitar under my arm under my mom's mango tree. We would sit in the front yard and we would sing and invent lyrics. So when I came back to Haiti, with the help of my manager, we created a band with the cream musicians.''

     Offers of work took her to Canada and France, where she lived for two years while studying classical vocal technique. She later settled in the United States, never imagining it would be more than temporary.

     ``I would picture myself having a house in Haiti,'' she says, ``and I would travel the world and then come back to recharge myself. That was what was always in my head. And I have always been able to go back until now.''

     In the past year, the beleaguered country endured a violent revolution in February, devastating floods in the spring and tropical storms in the fall. Michel's hometown of Gonaives was hard hit and she has been raising money for disaster relief at her concerts and through CD sales.

     But Michel refuses to despair. On ``Rasin Kreyol,'' which shows off her production, arrangement and songwriting skills as well as her gorgeous, throaty singing, she stands up for Haitian pride in 2004, the bicentennial year of Haitian independence and its establishment as the first black republic.

     Hers is not a lone voice. On his new CD, ``Welcome to Haiti: Creole 101,'' Haitian-born rap star Wyclef Jean proudly performs a shotgun marriage of Haitian styles and hip-hop. Michel takes an opposite tack. On ``Rasin Kreyol,'' she fondly revives older Haitian traditional forms: compas, the horn-driven dance music; rara, percussion-heavy street music rooted in the yearly carnival; and twoubadou, folklike songs of praise and romance.

     Her music is more modern than retro. It sizzles on the AIDS warning ``Zikap,'' the African-guitar infused freedom-fighter tribute ``Beni-Yo'' and the poignant ``Lo'm Kanpe'' (When Will I Stand Up), where she bemoans the sight of ``the youth of my homeland giving up (and) scholars from my homeland are chopping meat in McDonald's.''

     As Michel's reputation continues to grow beyond the Haitian community, she is certainly not giving up her dreams for Haiti.

     ``I have to be hopeful,'' she says. ``There's no other way to go. Wherever Haitians are, we must be the best Haitian we can be and that will reflect back positively on the country. This is not the time to say there is nothing to be done. And I know what I can do is feed people hope.''