Lè Ayisyen Radio, Paredon Records, and Latin American Resistance Music

In November 1969, one year after the Columbia University campus student 1968 riots, a collective of young Haitian leftists created a “musical postcard” radio program entitled Haiti Cette Méconnue (Haiti Unknown). The musical radio program started off as a show designed to inform the public about Haitian folkloric traditions. Yet one year after being on the air the program took a sharp turn. In 1970 “President-for-Life”, François Duvalier, died. Power was immediately transferred to his nineteen-year-old son, Jean-Claude Duvalier. In response to this shocking announcement, broadcasters collectively changed the program’s content. The show was sonically redesigned and renamed the L’Heure Haïtienne (The Haitian Hour). As a leftist political news program, L’Heure Haïtienne provided exiles and a growing New York City Haitian diaspora with global news reports in Haitian Creole, Haitian music that generated nostalgia, and cultural discussions about US social life. The radio program created sonic bridges that connected Haitian migrants back to a homeland that seemed impossible to return to. In between work shifts as garment workers, taxicab drivers, and home attendants, listeners gained pleasure and leisure from listening and were also politicized by reportage about the regime. By playing music from Latin American, the Pan-Caribbean, and Central America, both broadcasters and listeners creatively connected their respective plights to their neighbors. L’Heure Haïtienne listeners learned that US militarism and imperialism in Haiti did not operate within a vacuum. Assassinations, deposed elected officials, dictatorships, and human rights infringement were not exclusive to Haiti. Using L’Heure Haïtienne recordings, Paredon Records’ Central and Latin American music database, and oral histories, this paper analyzes the musical selections of Haitian broadcasters from 1974 – 1985. An examination of broadcasted music from Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chile, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic offers insight into how music became a tool for establishing solidarity between the oppressed.