27384: Hermantin(News)Hip hop and konpa (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Sun, Jan. 29, 2006


Miami Herald


Hip hop and konpa




in an intimate setting

Booking Haitian-born hip hop artist Wyclef Jean, and Sweet Micky -- the Haitian 
konpa music king whom Jean declared an MVP on his Masquerade album -- usually 
runs in the tens of thousands. Friday night, several hundred Haitian-American 
professionals got to experience the jam session for free.

Jean, who was in Miami working with Latin music sensation Shakira on a 
reggaeton-inspired single, joined Sweet Micky on stage in a ballroom at the 
James L. Knight Center. The konpa artist was headlining a reception to kick off 
a three-day conference by the Haitian-American Leadership Organization, a newly 
formed group hoping to promote a different kind of image of Haitians by tapping 
Haitian-American professionals to become more involved in their community.

''This is important with what we are trying to do with the next phase of 
Haiti,'' Jean told The Miami Herald. He is becoming increasingly involved with 
the issues affecting his troubled Caribbean homeland.

Wearing a black T-shirt declaring ''We are all Refugees,'' the star of one of 
the biggest-selling hip-hop acts ever, the Fugees, came to the reception at the 
invitation of Sweet Micky, who donated his talent to the affair. Before his 
arrival he was at North Miami's Hit Factory recording studio with Shakira and 
at Little Haiti's Sant La Neighborhood Center, where he spent the afternoon 
hanging out with executive director Gepsie Metellus.

''Micky is my political advisor, and he tells me what to say . . . so there 
will be no discussions of [former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand] Aristide on 
the podium tonight,'' Jean told the crowd, to the sound of laughter.

Then addressing the crowd in Haitian-Creole, he said, ``If we want to advance 
[as Haitians] we need to have HALO. . . . If they want the Haitian vote, we are 
the ones they are going to have to come to.''

During the evening, Jean posed for photos, signed autographs and showed off his 
best konpa moves as Micky worked the crowd into a frenzy. Jean even showed an 
admiring group of youngsters his latest flips and hip hop moves before taking 
the guitar and microphone to belt out Bob Marley's No Woman No Cry, and 911, 
the duet he made with soul singer Mary J. Blige.

-- JACQUELINE CHARLES