The Caribbean sun likes to take its time cleaning up after hurricanes with foreign names.
Katia, on the other hand, is a pitit-kay, a child of the house. She will be polite, and not create disorder. Haiti has had its share of devastating storms. Even hurricanes have eyes to see that.
Stay in the sea, Lady K. Dive deep to the bottom, past the wandering souls whose boats had failed to reach their destinations. Bring back one of those golden hairbrushes for yourself.
It will take hours, days (even years) to soften your 125 mph wind-blown hair. Keep brushing, Hurricane Katia. Take comfort in the sapphire, emerald, and diamond studs on your dress. They will play nicely against the sunlight and the Caribbean Sea. They will create a carnival of colors.
If you see other hurricanes making their way toward Haiti, tell them our Sun is still too busy cleaning up after previous storms. Direct those approaching storms to the deepest parts of the ocean, past the ancient castle with the ancient residents whose names no one remembers now.
Show those hurricanes the precious stones that carpet Haiti’s side of the ocean floor. Instruct them to keep their own eyes open. If more hurricanes decide to stop by, direct them to the bottom of the sea. The ancient ones in their subaqueous castles don’t mind visitors. They are a gentle people.
Trying to define Val Jeanty’s sound is challenging. Labels–however much we dislike them–help to make sense out of certain things. But what happens when the musical style known as ‘Afro-Electronica’ and Val Jeanty meet?
Imagine the Mona Lisa in liquid form–just pigment and oil. Imagine da Vinci trying to explain to someone exactly how the finished work would look. Now, think of ten thousand graffiti artists commissioned to make-over the Brooklyn Bridge; could you describe what the end result would be? Unless you’ve heard Val perform, you won’t know what to expect. Even if you’ve heard her a dozen times, you still won’t know.
I doubt that Val can tell you precisely what she plans to do on stage. She likes to say: “I’m a vessel. I let the inspiration come, you know. I let the spirits do whatever they want.”
Val Jeanty’s sound blasts beyond the perimeter of what you might consider avant garde music. It’s chaos expertly controlled. You will react. How? You won’t know until you hear and see and touch and taste and smell the life that pulsates in a room when this lady takes her rightful place on stage.
Val Inc performs worldwide, but you can find her in New York City–her hometown. When she’s not busy blowing minds with her work, take a moment to chat with her.
Photo courtesy of Val Jeanry
Val is a talker whose conversations come in a mix of English, Kreyol, and French. She’s a natural-born teacher. Ask her anything–just not how to define her music.
People find circuitous routes to their careers and sometimes you have to leave home to come back home. This is how it is for Leyla McCalla, who plays the cello and after moving to New Orleans, has at least briefly returned back to NY to record her first CD. Things are different than when she left New York, a year ago.
Leyla lived a year in Brooklyn –Ft. Greene–while finishing up a music degree at NYU. This was followed by four years in Williamsburg–also Brooklyn, playing music gigs around town, bartending to pay the rent, and teaching a little. During that time, McCalla met a street performer playing near her local L–train subway line, “She told me she plays in a duo–guitar and violin– on the street in New Orleans, and she wanted me to play with them and offered me her place to stay.“
Leyla visited and stayed for a month, the beginning of many back and forth trips to New Orleans. Performing in the street paid for her trips. A year ago, she took the plunge and moved her domicile.
When they say ‘street musician’ in New Orleans, they mean it. The streets are closed in the French Quarter, on weekdays from 11-4pm and to 7pm on weekends. Leyla’s day-job, three to four days a week, is as a musician where on Royal Street near Café Beignet, she situates herself on a crate or a borrowed chair from the café, literally in the middle of the street. Weekends, there is a lot more people-traffic.
The musician enchants passers-by with Bach Cello Suite #1. The Sarabande from Suite #3 is a real crowd pleaser. Impressed that she’s playing classical music– a change of pace from ever-present New Orleans jazz, tourists circle around her.
About changing her habitat? In New York, she says, “I was feeling a little too comfortable and I needed to make a move.” When she left, she was clear that she was moving “to get creative inspiration.”
In New Orleans, music is all around; she’s getting the inspiration she so desired and also is finding reinforcement for the quest in making a career in music. And, she took up the banjo, an easy transition with the same strings. She knows the notes.
For now, the street gig suits her, “I like people,” she says. On the street, she hooks up with other musicians and perfects her presentation to the public. Leyla also teaches with the New Orleans String Project. She found a path to completely make her way doing music.
One day while she’s playing, after listening for a while, a man asks if she has a sister, Sabine, in North Carolina–– she does.
This man, Tim Duffy made note when Sabine told him, “My sister is a street musician in New Orleans.” On vacation in New Orleans with his family, he kept an eye out for Leyla playing and after listening to her for hours, they met to talk.
Duffy heads the Music Makers Relief Foundation, an organization that steps in as a safety net to improve the lives for old-timer musicians, the bluesyist of the blues players, folk over the age of 65, with an income less than $18,000.
“These are American traditional musicians without pension plans and health insurance,” Leyla explains. “Some of them don’t know when their birthday is.”
Music Makers’ mission is nourishing the roots of American music, offering financial support and helping to arrange performances and producing new CDs.
The Foundation also has a “Next Generation Artists” program that encourages and mentors younger artists performing Southern traditional music. Leyla was invited to be a part. Her music, apart from classical, is original acoustic inspired by folk, some New Orleans jazz and some arrangements from Haitian popular traditions.
She now has a booking agent who lined up a City Winery gig in Manhattan, in late July. She opened for renowned Malian singer Oumou Sangare. What an honor!
Leyla sang original music composed to the poetry of Langston Hughes and Haitian popular songs–Meci Bon Dieu and L’Atibonite. Her cello technique is strumming and finger picking–- no cello bowing. Fellow New Orleans’ musicians Taylor Smith on upright bass and Nathan Harrison on banjo accompanied her. For some other numbers, she played the banjo.
Leyla’s New York trip was planned to record her CD, adding to the four pieces she had recorded earlier, which were the tribute to Langston Hughes. New York musician and friend Ezekiel Healy on dobro, lap steel guitar joined with her New Orleans musicians during the recording session.
There’s a lot to keep her busy with music these days, writing, performing, and working on the CD. Getting the artwork together and mixing the music, Leyla anticipates a release date early next year. She’ll also be backing New York, performing in January as part of APAP, Association of Professional Arts Presenters.
Meet Ibi Aanu Zoboi. She was born in Port-au-Prince as Pascale Philantrope. She is a talented Haitian author whose pen faces the future. “I want to see Haitian Sci-Fi,” Ibi says. “We need new narratives.”
Her story, “Earthseed” appears in the Caribbean Writer’s 25th Anniversary mega issue: Ayiti/Haiti. Earlier this year, Ibi’s showed her ‘noir’ side in the Danticat-edited Haiti Noir.
The anthology received a lot of attention from readers and critics. “The Harem”—Ibi’s well-received contribution—is set during the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti January 12, 2010. Her story follows an unapologetic philanderer who must choose which of his lovers to save as the city collapses into mounds of rubble.
In this VoicesfromHaiti InnerView, Ibi Aanu Zoboi shares the inspiration behind “The Harem.” Other works by Ibi can be found on the web, in literary journals, and anthologies, including the award-winning Dark Matter: Reading the Bones. She is a recipient of a grant in literature and writing from the Brooklyn Arts Council for the Daughters of Anacaona Writing Project, a program for Haitian teen girls. Ibi lives in Brooklyn, New York.
