My heart, like yours, broke seeing the tragic images and trying to comprehend the magnitude of the loss and suffering of the Haitian Earthquake of 2010 (see links below for how to help). Aside from the troubled history that keeps being repeated in the media, there is a richness and strength of culture and spirit that resides in the heart of the first independent black nation in the Western Hemisphere (which inspired independence movements throughout Latin America). May that culture continue to bring Haiti resilience and hope during what will be a long healing and recovering time to come. My late father (himself born of the other poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, Honduras) use to say, it is the meek who will inherit the earth “through the poem and a song…”
Famed ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax, who visited Haiti in 1937 to record folk music, had this to say about the island nation: “I have looked about enough to be sure this is the richest field I have ever worked in.” The following samples are a tiny fraction:
RACINE or RASIN is known as the folk music of Haiti. Here is master drummer Lenor “Azor” Fortuné of Haiti demonstrating racine music.
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