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.
Arly Lariviere is contemporary Haiti’s great singer of artful romantic drama. He sings his songs in a mix of English, French, and Kreyol, to a nation that now speaks a multitude of languages because of emigration.
His album Encyclopedie is widely considered to be a masterpiece in his native Haiti. He sings romantic, electronic, dramas (about raising a child, being in love with a woman, asking a woman to love him back,) as one would sing a tragedy. In ancient Greece, tragedies featured a hero and were sung with dignity; Arly’s hero is often either himself or a woman in love and full of dignified singing. Like in classical tragedies, hero Arly often causes the drama / tragedy.
To sing drama to late 20th century and 21st century Haiti, one must be sure to not delve into soap opera like melodrama. Life is tragic for most Haitians, whether rich or poor, and Haitians are very attuned to the details of national or personal tragedy that affect them. Arly’s great chance, and the reason for his success, is that he is the son of Daniel Lariviere: the greatest Haitian songwriter (of secular songs) of the 20th century. Daniel Lariviere was the songwriter of Orchestre Tropicana, considered by Haitians to be the very best Orchestra of the 20th and now 21st century.
His father’s son, he makes sure to anchor his songs onto both poetry and popular sentiment. His lyrics remind of the poems that Haitians love: poems that root themselves in both French poetry history (Boileau, Malherbe) learned in school but also in Kreyol expression.
To sing drama to 20th and 21st century Haiti, one must also sing identity. The 20th century saw a massive move by Haitians from the countryside to the city and from it new urban identities. The 20th century also was that of a development of an urban middle class at the same time as vast economic decrepitude that came to influence every aspect of Haitian life, including language. Arly presents a valid identity when he sings, a heroic identity, truthful about being in love.
On Encyclopedie, the song not to miss is “Avenue De La Passion.” It is a song that is splendid both in its instrumentation and in its text. “Why Do You Say You Love Me?” is now a dramatic classic to Haitian society and, to it, at the highest level of art in music.
His songs are produced to be long enough for radio but added to when played live. They are slow songs but very successful because they are poetic songs, written by a musician who can also be considered a public poet.
Buy Encyclopedie
Author: Adolf Alzuphar
