The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 34,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 13 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Nicolina Florentino
Nicolina Florentino, the lady who plays the saxophone in ZENGLEN, is a woman of character. Her reason to stick with ZENGLEN in spite of her great admiration for RICHIE, who is leaving the band, should be a great lesson of altruism for all these Haitian Konpa artists. She has chosen to stay in ZENGLEN only to allow her bandmates to continue to have a job and a paycheck to get by.
Asked by Haitianbeatz if she would leave ZENGLEN to join RICHIE in the new band it is said that he and GAZZMAN will put together, she said: “I love Richie, I love his talent, and I love working with him, I would love to follow him anywhere he goes, but however, I cannot see myself doing that to the other guys, if me leaving Zenglen will create an instability to the band, I would not do that…what will the other guys do is Zenglen breaks, this is their livelihood, Brutus and the others live of that music, they don’t have other jobs…I would not jeopardize the life of many just for one guy. Richie is very talented, he will survive, he can produce, he can join any band he wants and he can create a successful band by himself, but not the other guys in Zenglen, they rely on each other…so therefore, I will stick with the band even if down deep inside I love Richie and would love to work with him…”
How could you not love this lady? I wonder how many of these mercenaries in this Konpa business would put aside their selfish needs and interests to stick with a band only to allow their fellow bandmates to continue to earn a living. Well, Nicolina is teaching them a moral lesson of altruism I had never seen taught in this business before. You know what? I am going to see if this woman is not going to be recognized and awarded this coming year in any award ceremony where Konpa artists are being recognized and awarded for their contributions to the advancement of our music. You go, Nicolina! That was a great call on your part. You are, indeed, a great woman, a woman of unseen character.
President Martelly of Haiti
Mr. President, before you purchase new weapons for your military to fight a war, I believe you would first order that a thorough assessment on the state of your arsenal be conducted to make the determination as to which ones of your weapons need repair and which to buy more of. That is what is called a commonsense approach to spending.
I say all that to make one point, Mr. President: I read this Haiti Libre article entitled Nouvelles measures 2012 du Président Martelly, where the online newspaper reported that new taxes will be levied on the state lottery and the “borlette” to finance the big government projects in the domain of education; Mr. President, with all due respect, I feel as though you are putting the cart before the horse. Before you get to that, I think the following measures need to be undertaken:
Mr. President, why am I feeling as though some people are still milking the system and are given a free pass? Before we proceed with the addition of more taxes, which I am not opposed to at all, we have got to make certain that those in the system not paying taxes pay their dues. Not paying taxes to the state should be a crime, and no one should be placed above the law.
Everybody must pay their fair share; everybody must carry a portion of the burden’s weight on their shoulders. I am sure, Mr. President, you are aware of all the frustrations the fee added on us in the Diaspora for our transfers of money and phone calls to Haiti has caused. Personally, I do not have an issue with the measure as I do strongly believe that “se grès kochon an ki pou kwit kochon an.” But me not having an issue with it does not imply that all of us living abroad feel comfortable about it. These people who are infuriated over the measure argue that it could have been done the right way. By that, they mean more transparency could have been brought to the system and everyone’s money, including that of the well-to-do folks who have been evading paying taxes for years, should have contributed in sapping the child illiteracy rate you are determined to bring under control.
Finally, Mr. President, while I do commend your political goodwill to turn things around, I don’t think the fiscal approach you have used thus far are encouraging. In my opinion, it should not be this way: one group is carrying the entire burden while the well connected are just getting a free pass. We ALL must pay in the form of taxes whatever is due to the state. Failure to do so should be treated as a crime. To guarantee that everybody pays their fair share, we have got to restructure the agency that is there to collect our dues, introduce the latest technologies into the system, and institute a tax watchdog agency or police to publicly expose and crack down on these people milking the system and refusing to pay their dues to the state. Doing so will eventually solve the revenue problem that we have; we will no longer have to rely heavily on the international donors to finance our social projects. Mr. President, I am certain I am not telling you anything you did not already know. So let’s make it happen. As always, keep doing the good job. I wish you success in your leadership.
The only way for our laws to be respected is by forcing the prospective violators to respect them against their will. The question is, how can you do that? You do that by instilling in them fear of violating them. Again, how can you instill such a fear in the violators? Simple. You achieve that by punishing them SEVERELY when they do violate these laws. In other words, you make an example out of anyone who is brave enough to violate them.
Lawlessness and impunity are prescriptions for chaos and disaster. How can you possibly build a society of humans where people can do whatever they want, however and whenever? How can you possibly build a society in this 21st century where life holds no value? I don’t see how that can be possible. Well, those of you believing otherwise, maybe you know something I don’t know; I would love know it, too.
We cannot let these terrorists in Haiti have their way. Yes, criminals do have rights that must be respected and protected; however, so do the law-abiding citizens they are kidnapping, raping and murdering. Yes, these terrorists do have rights, except that the right to kidnap, rape and murder innocent citizens is not one of them.
How can you inspire safety and security in the investors (foreign and national) to come to invest in your economy when there is a high possibility for their kids and even them to be kidnapped, raped and even killed? Let’s not be dreaming; it will not happen. Business people are like migratory birds. They build their nets and lay their eggs wherever they can find their peace of mind. So if you want to attract them, you create the environment suitable for that.
Poverty is not an excuse to commit crimes. You don’t be going out there raping our women, kidnapping and murdering our innocent citizens to take away from them what they have worked so hard to accumulate over the years because you are poor. Haiti should not become a crime state. Therefore, all this nonsense going on over there MUST stop.
We cannot and must not be playing games with these terrorists terrorizing the population. When we do capture them, we have to make sure they get a fair trial because everybody, at the very least, deserves that. In the event that they are found guilty of the crime they are accused of, they must pay for it with their lives. We need to take them to a public place reserved just for that and set them ablaze or set their bodies on fire in broad daylight. Now we have a choice to make.
What impact is that going to have on the next person contemplating ways to rape another one of our women, kidnap and murder another one of our decent citizens? It is going to have a tremendous psychological impact: it is going to instill in the rest of the terrorists fear of carrying the next deviant and criminal act because they will forever know that the probability for them to get caught and receive the same treatment is highly likely.
Culturally speaking, the French are losing ground in Haiti; the Americans are killing them. The Haitian society is at a stage of cultural reengineering. How long it is going to take for that to settle in is beyond my pay grade.
50 years from today, I think English could become a national language, which to me would be ridiculous. It would be really revolting. That’s why I have been advocating for a monolingual Haiti -a nation of one national language.
Language is the gateway to the world. The more language our kids can effectively speak, the better off they are. Therefore, while Creole should be the sole language officially recognized by our Constitution, since the world is becoming more and more inclusive and integrated, we also must prepare our future generations to compete globally.
We must strongly enforce the teaching of these three foreign languages -French, English and Spanish -in our schools as early as possible to the very last level of the student’s academic journey.
Such measure will be in Haiti’s best interest because, with that, we will no longer have the language-based divided society as we have it today, making most of us Haitians a bunch of foreigners in our own country.
Let’s say 50 years from now English becomes a national language just like French is one today and 200 years from now Spanish becomes overtly influential in Haiti, are we going to keep amending our Constitution to make languages national depending on which one is up and which one is down? That to me would be preposterous. That’s why it makes sense to have a monolingual nation to spare us all this ridiculousness.
Only when we all speak the same language and everything that we do as a nation is executed in that language will we begin to talk of a united Haiti, and only then will we see that all of us Haitians able to come together as one to do what we must do to better our country. Until then, keep dreaming.
ZENGLEN: one of the best Konpa bands
See, this is why I love this guy Fabrice Rouzier. Every single time he opens his mouth to make a statement, he always speaks my kind of language -telling it like it is.
To the question what will the future hold for ZENGLEN if RICHIE leaves, he answered: “If he leaves, Zenglen will have a tough road ahead […] He has been such a dominant figure in that band that it’s hard to imagine Zenglen without him. In conclusion, VERY BAD for Zenglen if he leaves but again maybe RITCHIE feels like he can do better elsewhere. The guys are not getting any younger.”
ZENGLEN will not just have a tough time, it will disappear in no more than 2 years. It is not that RICHIE feels like he can do better elsewhere, he will do better elsewhere.
ZENGLEN’s problem is not RICHIE; it is, rather, the band’s frontman not having what the band needs to make the expected impact in the business. As I had argued before (in many instances, by the way), no one band in this league is playing better than them, yet it seems as though they are struggling; something heavier than anyone could possibly imagine is pulling them.
The band has its own identity meticulously crafted by the one and only GRACIA DELVA, one of the top two entertainers in the business. You are not going to tell me you are going to lose GRACIA and replace him with KENNY DESMANGLES, who cannot come close to being compared to the former ZENGLEN -in terms of stage presence, dominance and charisma -and expect the outcomes to be the same.
Don’t get me wrong, though… KENNY is, like PIPO, one of the top vocalists in the business, but does not have what it takes to be the kind of stage performer ZENGLEN needs. It would not be that big of a problem if KENNY would cooperate and leave. Noooo… he is letting his pride and ego take the best of him. He said recently on KOMPAMAGAZINE that, according to his tenure in the band, he cannot be kicked out; he can only leave on his own terms, and he is not up to that right now. So ZENGLEN is basically screwed with him.
Like Fabrice said, which I wholeheartedly agree with, RICHIE is not getting any younger, meaning if, like I argued in my article entitled Dissip: Richie’s Golden Opportunity, he has 10 more years left to spend in this music business, he ought to make sure that he rakes in the money that would guarantee him a successful, peaceful and financially stable retirement. It does not make any sense to be contributing so much to a business and ending up counting pennies after your retirement because you were being loyal to a company on the verge of living its life expectancy.
My advice to RICHIE is this: If KENNY refuses to leave to bring in a stage actor in the caliber of GAZZMAN, leave the band for him. No one will hold you accountable for ZENGLEN’s demise and unfortunate ending. You are not the one holding the band hostage; rather, it is KENNY DESMANGLES. Talents can be put to good use anywhere they are being effectively used, meaning the same things you were able to do with/in ZENGLEN can be very well done anywhere so long as you are given the proper space and resources to make them happen.
Ti Joe Zenny of Kreyol La
What’s the beef between NU LOOK’s ARLY LARIVIERE and KREYOL LA’s TI JOE ZENNY really about? I guess this back-and-forth nonsense between these two is taking a whole different route, apparently.
I was reading Kompamagazine and stumbled on an answer given by Fabrice Rouzier to a question on the nature and significance of the beef between the aforementioned two; he said: “Ti Joe is walking on a wire with this one. Yes , he is the actor with the funny lines and all but i think the homophobic line may get him in trouble. If i were Arly, i’d ask him what his real problem is with gay men or women?”
How did I miss that homophobic remark of his? I guess I did not dig deep enough. Did he call ARLY a “masisi” (Creole word for gay) or something? Okay… if so, so what ARLY was gay!!!! Does his gayness impact his ability to produce hits after hits on every single album? Does his gayness make him less of a human being to dare taking on TI JOE as a challenge in a trash-talk contest? I don’t think so. So what does his homophobic remark have to do with any strife between him and Arly?
This is the type of ridiculousness we need to correct when these guys tend to forget that they cannot be saying things just for the fun of saying things. When you are an artist, a public figure for that matter, you are so influential that your words, statements and behaviors can negatively or positively impact an entire society because you have people looking up to you. That’s why you have got to be ultra careful.
I did not read TI JOE’s homophobic jab thrown at ARLY, but I do trust FABRICE’s honesty in his reference. I think TI JOE needs to exercise a little bit of political correctness next time, if he needs to avoid drawing unnecessary attention to himself and the band he is a member of.
Ekspoze! -The final word 