Dominica World Creole Music Festival 2007
Feature Review
This was our fourth time attending the World Creole Music Festival in Dominica. We are pleased to report that the festival now has a home that suits its title. Trading the dusty pitch of the Pottersville savannah for a gleaming new sports stadium in the heart of Roseau creating as much excitement as the music this year. Since 1997 Dominica has been a Mecca for Creole music fans and musicians from across the Caribbean and Africa celebrating Mizik a Nou. 2007 Festival goers were greeted an impressive sight, The stands forming a half sphere, bathed in white light, rose above surrounding roof tops. On the inside, fresh drips of paint still visible, fans opted between the comfort of covered seats facing the stage in a circular field or the excitement of taking in the show from the pitch in front of the stage.
Crowd scene in the new stadium at World Creole Music Festival
A Creole banquet of rhythms, the large extended family, Zouk, Reggae, Konpa, Soca, Soukous, Coupe Decale, Cadence Lypso, Dancehall, and Calypso, is laid out for the listener every October, and has become a yearly pilgrimage for lovers of the music.
The saucerlike National Stadium gleaming in the roseau night. It is the permanent new home of the World creole Music Festival.
Just two days after the official ribbon cutting a large crowd was in their seats to witness Haiti’s Top Vice open the festival. Technically the new era got off to a bumpy start as the Konpa masters were hampered by equipment problems and poor stage lighting silhouetted vocalists but still managed an energetic set. Top Vice guitarist Robert Martino said afterwards it was frustrating because “the audience didn’t get a chance to hear what they could really do but we gave it our best effort.”
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Legendary Haitian Compas group Top Vice lead by Robert Martino
King Mensah of Togo performing in the shadows of an underlit stage, sound and lighting problems affected several performances in the new stadium.
Friday, Zouk Music from Kadans (Guadeloupe), King Mensah’s West African based rhythms, Dancehall star Beenie Man, and the Bouyon music of Dominica’s own Triple Kay christened the stadium.
Kadans performed on Friday night
Kadans
Beenie Man provided a heartfelt set of favorites from his career
Straight ahead energy and rhythms entwined like the patterns on a Creole dress characterized this selection of younger musicians along with a tendency to transform tradition for todays listeners. Beenie Mans staccato vocal style put his stamp on dancehall music. Triple Kay brings the energy of hip hop to a musical tradition that has been evolving since cadence-lypso fused indiginous Domincan rythms some forty years ago.
Triple Kay swinging hard taking the Cadence beat to a new level.
Triple Kay band made their mark playing fastest hardest set of the festival and proved themselves on the big stage in their second WCMF appearance to be the equal or better of the artists that preceded them that night. The set included material from their four CDs “Big Ting” , “Fanatik”, “Sewo” and the latest “All Out”It was easy to see why the outfit from Laudet were honored Dominica band of the year in 2004. They invigorate the Cadence beat with with straight ahead uncontainable energy. Drums and drum programming, bass, and keyboards weave a driving beat over which the lead vocalists Wayne Benjamin and David George challenged the crowd to get motivated. The youthful fans unleashed a booming chanted response, waving their hands above their heads. Triple Kay’s anthemic songs and high energy performance ended the night of pan Caribbean rhythms with an exclamation point.
Skah Shah, bringing Konpa, Haiti’s infectiuos dance rhythm to the World Creole music stage friday night inaugurating the new home of the festival with a classy set of vintage tunes.
Things were running more smoothly by the the time Skah Shah took the stage, as headliners Saturday night.A throng of fans pushed to the front despite a pouring rain for a set of classic melodies.
La Sel Diference was the highlight of Saturday night at the WCMF
La Sel Diference, Castle Bruce, Dominica bele artists at the 2007 WCMF.They call their roots music featuring a variety of drums and percussive instruments and rough hewn vocals of leader William George. George called his music Que Dominique sometimes called Bwa Bwa, that can be compared to Gwo Ka of Guadeloupe. They played a short set at Saturday and were one of the highlights of the evening.
Dubuque dancers and musicians
The Dubuque dancers and musicians entertained in traditional Dominican Creole style, saturday night.
The Dubuque dancers and musicians entertained in traditional Dominican Creole style, saturday night.
Djunny Claude and Palafuma performed a mix of Coupe Decale and straight ahead Soukous and featured the moves of a string of dancers before ending with a slow Congolese ballad. Trinidadian Shurwayne Winchester kept the energy flowing with his smooth voice and soca energy. Beres Hammond was postponed to the following night due to travel problems.
Shurwayne Wincester
Foxy, one of the charming dancers performing with Djunny Claude. Djunny Claude of Congo Brazzaville performed with Palifuma. The former Loketo member’s set of infectuos Coupe Decale and Soukous impressed as energized the audience.
Closing the festival, Sunday, was a stunning lineup featuring superstars Kassav, Beres Hammond, Dominica’s Midnight Groovers and Michele Henderson and a heavy set by Martiniquan band Bamboozle.
Dominica artists took center stage, the soulful singer Michele Henderson was followed the Dubique dancers, whirling in the air and bending low in choreographed twists and turns in traditional dress,they performed Bele, a Creole dance in the African tradition. Michele came out with her regular band which included the West Indian piano player Ronald Tulle - when we inquired more about this apparently both Michele and Ronald had been on the same bill the year prior - and Ronald had really liked Michele's music hence the collaboration. The band did a full 1.5 hour set of music and you could sense a lot more in her music as a result of the collaboration.
Michele Henderson
The real treat however came after the set during the encore, when a full gospel choir came out on stage to join Michele in a finale that had the energy of church music - this traditional sound from Michele was unique and different, and hence a complete surprise. The choir joined her band and was about 20 members strong - as a vocalist the performance was in a similar vein to performances by Arethra Franklin perrforming with a choir, but coming from Michele is was completely new - a different direction that seemed more personal and really something that she wanted to do. For us it was thrilling because it was unexpected and, after seeing her perform previously, something totally different from the artist.
Michele Henderson backed by a gospel choir and the petite Dominican belted out a soulful set of original material and a handful of traditionals.
Michele was followed by the heavy weights Poppa Chubby and the Midnight Groovers. They performed favorites from their 36 year career as well as material from their recent release “Judge Not”. Poppa Chubby is one of the founders of the indigenous Dominican sound Cadence-Lypso. His music, he told us always starts with a message, he later puts the lyrics to the rhythm. The messages offer wisdom in plain language “Hypocrites” a crowd favorite from the album Warning railed against corruption, “African Woman” from Judge Not makes the connection between Dominican women and Africa with the lyric “Once you are black you are African” after which he remarked remarked “If you turn your back on Africa, You turn your back on yourself.”
Poppa Chubby and Midnight Groovers are beloved in Dominica for their Cadence lypso beat and have been rocking the homeland for 35 years and as many albums.
The crowd in front of the stage literally went balistic when Poppy Chubby took to the stage with the Midnight Groovers. After a couple songs, however, the stadium went dark in an apparent electical outage. Chubby and band however cotinued to play without skipping a beat! In fact, from our vantage point, as we were up close, we witnessed the band playing on in steady fashion - and to the crowd's ears it was both Chubby's vocals, plus the acoustic drums, which were audible despite the technical outage.
What kept it stong was that Chubby and the Midnight Groovers were undaunted - it seemed that he knew he had to be there, he had a reason to be there and message to communicate - and given this responsibility to get the message to the people he turned adversity on its head, to his advantage, and continued to get his message across to the masses.
Beres Hammond performing Sunday night, a day later than scheduled due to travel problems.
Beres Hammond and Zouk giants Kassav followed. Kassav performed with their full band line-up which we were familiar with from their previous New York performance several years back at the Hammerstein Ballroom. As with past shows, the band was top-notch, tight and clearly enjoying themselves - during their long set they developed a very good rapport with the Dominica audience, which was up and dancing to their every note.
Saturdays lineup featured international artists including Kassav, Zouk superstars from the French Antilles
Kassav performed many of their hits and classics - it was ultimately very satisfying but did not reach the intensity of Poppa Chubby's.
The stadium offers exciting possibilities for the festival, . . Despite technical problems at the start it ended on a high note. And although the intimacy of Pottersville will be missed, the new stadium offers comforts such the option to enjoy the show from covered seating, convenient to vendors and facilities, however, just as in the past, monday morning found most of the fans reveling in the music on the pitch in front of the stage.
Chester “Daddy Chess” Letang of the Swinging Stars performing Dominican calypsos at a house party at the Springfield Guesthouse.
It seemed like Dominica's music lovers, who were attending the World Creole Music Festival, were getting used to the stadium - and the additional amenties such as stadium seats were a bit of a new novelty for crowds used to years past when the festival took place on a field with no seats and no shelter from the elements, such as rainfall. There were some additional creature comforts due to the stadium, and although techical glitches were abundant, the country was clearly in the process of adopting the brand new stadium and getting use to its facilities in anticipation of many future years performances to be staged there.
Jeff Joseph and Grammacks International closing the festival sunday night.
Official World Creole Music Festival website: http://www.festivalmusiquecreoledominique.com/