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.
She’s yet to release an album but her song “Demen Mwen Prale” thrills Port au Prince. The song’s video is also exciting. It’s a simple song wherein her grave singing is accompanied mostly by an acoustic guitar.
Her artist name, her nom de guerre, is AZ. It is short for Asaphe Micaelle Jean Louis. She is a philosopher and teaches philosophy to High Schoolers.
She’s said in an interview that she spent some years, her years of university, living like a Diogene, an idealist, but changed when she got married and began both her singing and teaching careers. She writes some of her songs and for them she would like to express ideas that are debated in philosophical space where philosophy meets music such as in the works of Nietzsche, Adorno, and others. When performing live, she sings Jazz songs also – whatever song she considers beautiful.
Her first album will be released soon, “Sonje.” The title is Haitian kreyol for ‘remember.’
So far, she is not a political singer. She would like to sing art to her times, art that roots itself in aesthetics (philosophy.) Her songs are radio songs, made for alternative play. They are as if made to be played ideally in ‘cafe space,’ with the hopes that they come to resonate as much as a Trova or a chanson. They are the beginnings of what Barbara achieved in France and Omara Portuondo in Cuba: songs that are deeply ‘art.’
Author: Adolf Alzuphar
