Rasin music is Haitian Vodou music (drums and bells forming traditional rhythms, accompanied by traditional lyrics sung in service to a Vodou spirit) shaped into commercial art. It takes on a multitude of shapes: modernist, postmodern, folklore, according to the times in which the music was produced and marketed. In...
All posts by Adolf Alzuphar
Whether it be called kwaze les 8, kontredans, or bal violon, Haiti’s contra-dance tradition is for the most part unknown by the world at large. Most focus either on the blackness or the poverty of the island, without realising Haitian culture shares plenty of similarities with Europe’s culture, though with...
![Album Review: Vaudou Game – Kidayú [Hot Casa Records, 8th September 2016]](http://www.rhythmpassport.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/a0799240057_10-335x335.jpg)
Vaudou Game’s Kidayu is a sophomore album of a second coming of vaudou funk, a genre of orchestral music that was popular in West Africa during the 1960s and 70s. Its ten songs signify proudly and loudly as James Brown meant for funk to, inviting its listeners to feel and...
![Album Review: Ibaaku – Alien Cartoon [Akwaaba Music, 26th Jan 2016]](http://www.rhythmpassport.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/exe_ibaaku800-335x320.jpg)
Alien Cartoon is Senegalese artist Ibaaku’s debut album. It consists of 11 pieces of raw electronic dance music, each a musical montage which engages the listener in Ibaaku’s grand musical vision. The strength in Alien Cartoon’s pieces is Ibaaku’s ability to make beauty out of melding pleasant sounds and rhythms...
![Album Review: Fantastic Negrito – The Last Days Of Oakland [Blackball Universe, 2nd June 2016]](http://www.rhythmpassport.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/2016-07-13-fatnastic-negrito-the-last-days-of-oakland-59388-335x335.jpg)
According to Fantastic Negrito, “Oakland is changing,” from ‘diverse and often unsafe’ to ‘white and safe.’ To him, “now Oakland is ground zero for the national discussion on gentrification.”With The Last Days Of Oakland, he’s set out to bring some of Oakland’s blues past into its future, through music. We...
Anacreon, lyrical poet of wine and of revelry (one of Ancient Greece’s nine greatest poets), how would you have regarded the songs of Boulo Valcourt at the Five Myles Gallery in New York City, a city that is a daughter of your beloved Greek civilization? Like you playing your lyre,...
![Album Review: Emicida – About Kids, Hips, Nightmares, and Homework [Sterns Music, 24th June 2016]](http://www.rhythmpassport.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/emicida-sobre-criancas-quadris-pesadelos-e-licoes-de-casa-capa-800x800-335x335.jpg)
Inspired by a trip to Africa, Emicida (a play on MC and homicide), has released the album About Kids, Hips, Nightmares, and Homework. On it, he collaborates with African musicians such as Kaku Alves, for many years Césaria Évora’s guitarist, and Angolan semba player Joao Morgado. Brazilian music celebrities Caetano...
![Album Review: Bitori – Legend of Funana [Analog Africa – 22nd July 2016]](http://www.rhythmpassport.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/233512-335x330.jpg)
In 1998, Victor Tavares, known as Bitori, released an album of what is considered to be the very best Funana music to date, Bitori Nha Bibinha. Funana is a form of Cape Verdian music which was stigmatised as inferior by colonial society, despite being borne from it. Bitori spent an...
I recently spoke via email with Franketienne about Haitian music through an intermediary, his wife Marie-Andree. Franketienne is Haiti’s greatest living writer, and has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Franketienne is also a singer and though he has not recorded much other than a phenomenal musical adaptation of...
![Album Review: Afro-Haitian Experimental Orchestra – S/T [Glitterbeat Records, 24th June 2016]](http://www.rhythmpassport.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/a2427215732_10-335x335.jpg)
Afro-Haitian Experimental Orchestra self titled debut is an album of Haitian songs, some Vodou culture songs, in a way which fans of Haitian music are accustomed to. Instead it has mixed Haitian rhythms with afrobeat to produce something new. An album that covers all of Haiti’s cultural roots that are not only...
