Known through Nomadic Massive, Vox Sambou has also released several recordings, and here is his third album, following an EP released last autumn. Originally from Cap-Haïtien, this author, composer, singer, social worker and fervent activist is undoubtedly one of the strong voices of Montreal’s diversity. Vox Sambou works with top-class musicians who have mastered Haitian beats (konpa, rara, voodoo) and Jamaican beats (roots, dancehall, ska) as well as funk, groove, jazz, kreyol and francophone rap, and of course the rhythms of modern and ancestral Africa.
The result is an album released shortly after the Novam EP, released in Novam (November): Hayti Lives aims to fuse the ancestral rhythms of Haiti’s Île Magique with those of Central Africa, more specifically the Congo. Hayti Lives is as much a tribute to our ancestors as it is an immersion in the present.
Painted by Kando on the cover of this opus, the Yoruba queen Moremi Ajasoro is depicted as the heroine, which says a lot about the political and poetic vectors that Vox Sambou prioritises. We know that the Yoruba ethnic group, highlighted here in broad strokes, is fundamental to the Creole cultures of the West Indies, in its historical and revolutionary destinies, in its hopes and setbacks in the quest for liberation and fierce resistance. And the music? Great music!
Anyone who listens to Haitian and Congolese beats (rumba, soukouss, etc.) will find their feet here, all welded together by an Afrobeat style, both in the groove and in the instrumentation. As a member of the Nomadic Massive family, he has always surrounded himself with excellent musicians, and this is certainly the case here: Robints Paul, Naxx Bitota and Malika Tirolien, vocals, David Ryshpan, keyboards, Frank O’Sullivan and Kabemba Kapiteni, guitars, Dauphin Mboyi, Diegal Leger and Pit De Souza, basses, Jean Daniel T. Desbiens and Lionel Kizaba, drums, Ronald Nazaire, percussion, Rémi Cormier, trumpet, Modibo Keita, trombone, Jean François Ouellet and Mario Allard, baritone saxes, Mathias Burgos, Alexandre Colas-Jeffery and Alex Francoeur, tenor saxes, Vinicius Chagas, flute.
Hymns to the struggles and advances of the Afro-descendant diaspora follow, hymns to freedom, resistance and emancipation. Solid stuff!
