Manno, the Accomplished Political Troubadour

Manno Charlemagne is one of Haiti’s greatest singers. His albums are all gems of Haitian culture rooted in informed political expression – in place – but open to the world; both wise and beautiful.

In 1957, Francois Duvalier became president of Haiti. In 1963, he proclaimed himself president for life. With his second presidency came an eventual complete control of Haitian space and life. This included music. No music could publicly go against his self-declared ‘revolution’. Duvalier’s complete control of Haitian space and life was not new. It was a Neo-colonial, not in the racial sense but in an administrative sense.

St-Domingue, colonial Haiti, was typically led by a military leader. He established political, social, and cultural ‘order’. That control led to the banning of some african dances and musical practices in order to establish order. Toussaint Louverture, not the liberator of Haiti but the person who established the first instance of national (a ‘black’ nation that wanted to end slavery) independence, without territorial independence, (I.E. Jean-Jacques Dessalines’s Haiti is a project that goes past black independence) also banned certain musical practices by banning the use of drums. Alexandre Petion, the first Haitian president, banned the African choir, a choir that is present in Vodou as the Hounsi choir. And so on and so forth.

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