I will be writing a column on Length & Time in music, in each presenting an album and its strategies that pertain to addressing Length & Time.
Most bands who claim to be playing Vodou music are not really: there isn’t enough time to play music how it is required in a Vodou ceremony. The point of drumming, singing, etc, in a Vodou ceremony is for there to be a possession and or a communication with Vodou spirits.
There is no way that such a phenomenon can be formatted for radio. One would have to wait for the spirit to possess someone in a ceremony or record a believer’s singing in private to a spirit. In Haiti, a subgenre of Vodou music, Rasin, was created to be Vodou music that is meant for any sort of consumption, whether secular or sacred but tailored for radio use and for contemporary performance.
Some bands, however, aim to stay true to music how it is used in Vodou religion and they play Vodou as such, Rasin Seche, or whatever they would like to call it. Azor is perhaps the most notable Haitian musician of Vodou as such, or Rasin Seche. Like in a Vodou ceremony, he sang his songs as a Simidor, surrounded by Hounsi and Reines Chantrelles. His songs, because of this, were often up to 10 minutes long. Chouk Bwa Libete’s songs on Se Nou Ki La are midway between this raw Rasin Seche and the more commercial Rasin for both secular and non secular consumption. We hear Chouk Bwa Libete sing praises to themselves on this album as no Vodou spirit expects from an officiant.
It is, in the end, an album that makes use of length to express the art of the musicians on this album and not to be a Vodou album. The lengthiest song “Je M La” is 7:53, nowhere near the amount of time it takes on average to serve a Vodou spirit. It has no choice but to: the demand for Vodou music, ceremonial music, is very small. Instead, this album, like many other albums like it, plays Vodou rhythms and Vodou lyrics as art.
Buy Se Nou Ki La
Author: Adolf Alzuphar
