Last year Walkup Records released Bigga Haitian's ‘Sak Pase’, pronounced "Sock Pah-say", and meaning "What's up" in Haitian Creole, on digital download only format, available at sites like iTunes, eMusic, Rhapsody and Amazon, well it has now been also made available on CD. Due to the popularity of the download Walkup records feel the time is right to give the album a full CD launch, with this also being a first for the label.
The album received great critical acclaim on its original release and indeed it was described by Gibsy on this very blog as “great album, feel good sounds and infectious”, to which I feel I have to concur. It is a very varied sounding album from the dark and brooding "I Am A Haitian", with its Latin sounding trumpets and a guitar lick that by the end sounds almost like a sitar, giving the track a kind of foreboding feel, as the deep almost spoken vocal bemoans the poverty and injustice that has befallen that country over the years and this all before the earthquake.
This is then followed by the excellent White Stripes cover "My Doorbell", which lightens proceedings with its feel good riddim and sparkly brass blasts from the all-star horn section, featuring Clark Gayton (Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Prince, Steel Pulse), Cedric “Im” Brooks (Light of Saba, Skatalites, Bob Marley) and Kevin Batchelor (Steel Pulse, Skatalites, Shaggy), all of whom last appeared together on the multi-platinum Rihanna album "A Girl Like Me"..
Originally recorded in 1983 “Haiti Weh Mi From” is probably Bigga’s best-known song and despite its age it features on here, but as a newly re-mastered version. The dancehall, ragga feel might show its age a bit but this remix gives it a new lease of life and so it doesn’t sound so out of place. To finish things off on the CD is the added bonus of an instrumental version of "I Am A Haitian" featuring saxman Jerry Johnson, recorded in October last year.
The album received great critical acclaim on its original release and indeed it was described by Gibsy on this very blog as “great album, feel good sounds and infectious”, to which I feel I have to concur. It is a very varied sounding album from the dark and brooding "I Am A Haitian", with its Latin sounding trumpets and a guitar lick that by the end sounds almost like a sitar, giving the track a kind of foreboding feel, as the deep almost spoken vocal bemoans the poverty and injustice that has befallen that country over the years and this all before the earthquake.
This is then followed by the excellent White Stripes cover "My Doorbell", which lightens proceedings with its feel good riddim and sparkly brass blasts from the all-star horn section, featuring Clark Gayton (Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Prince, Steel Pulse), Cedric “Im” Brooks (Light of Saba, Skatalites, Bob Marley) and Kevin Batchelor (Steel Pulse, Skatalites, Shaggy), all of whom last appeared together on the multi-platinum Rihanna album "A Girl Like Me"..
Originally recorded in 1983 “Haiti Weh Mi From” is probably Bigga’s best-known song and despite its age it features on here, but as a newly re-mastered version. The dancehall, ragga feel might show its age a bit but this remix gives it a new lease of life and so it doesn’t sound so out of place. To finish things off on the CD is the added bonus of an instrumental version of "I Am A Haitian" featuring saxman Jerry Johnson, recorded in October last year.
Bigga Haitian (born Charles Dorismond in Port au Prince, Haiti) moved to New York at an early age. His father was one of the pioneers of the specifically Haitian dance music known as Kompa and while growing up with these rhythms of Haiti and the influences of both Jamaica and the United States has produced an album of depth and meaning that deserves to be heard.
For the full Gibsy review of the album see
http://springlinejamaica.blogspot.com/2009/03/sak-pase-bigga-haitian-walkup-records.html
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