Appraising Haitian Music-making in Brazil and Projecting Futures Amidst Pandemics and Precarity

“Piti Piti Zwazo Fè Nich”? (Little by Little the Bird Makes its Nest)

Appraising Haitian Music-making in Brazil and Projecting Futures Amidst Pandemics and Precarity

Twenty-first-century Haitian migration to Brazil signals shifts in global migration patterns, simultaneously concerning immigration flows to Brazil as well as Haitian transnational mobility. These shifts are linked to the hardening of Global North immigration policies that have resulted in the increase of the South-South movement of migrants and refugees. In Brazil, the signals are of a new surge of Black immigration in a country where flagrant racial inequality reveals the permanence and weight of colonial legacies. These legacies impact the lives of non-white Brazilians and migrants through differentiated regimes of citizenship. An overlap of the racialized perception of Black migrants by Brazilian society and the widespread denial of structural racism is increasingly manifest in official discourse and policy since the election of nationalist, conservative, and populist president Jair Bolsonaro in 2018. All of this brings to the fore local and translocal perpetuations of colonialism and racism, which makes hearing Haitian voices in Brazil even more important.

Haitian migrants have been integrated into Brazilian society as a cheap labour force. They also live mostly in the urban centres of Brazil’s south and southeastern regions, which are considered “whiter” parts of the country. They work mostly in blue-collar jobs; this is contemporary evidence of how “race is the modality through which class is lived” (Hall, 1978). Parallel to their blue-collar jobs, many Haitians also perform intense musical labour in a variety of contexts. One of the main loci of this musical agency has been the Haitian home studio. Many home studios have been established through patient saving and collective efforts over many years. Through such musical powerhouses, Haitian migrant artists have produced vast quantities of music in an eclectic array of musical genres, always in pursuit of their artistic dreams. Largely invisible to Brazilian society, this musical output circulates mainly within local migrant networks and through transnational circuits of the Haitian diaspora.

As this recent Global South Black diaspora completes its first decade of existence, this ICTM Dialogues session aims to work towards decolonization by empowering migrant epistemologies and ontologies and decentring the researcher – by welcoming Haitian subjects to speak about Haitian issues. This session privileges the voices of four Haitian artists and/or studio owners to debate major challenges and achievements of Haitian music-making in Brazil. Through the accounts of Alix Georges, Poony Btag, Prince Amki, and Very Larose, we explore connections between their musicking and migratory experiences in the local and transnational spaces that connect Haiti to Brazil. We also consider how their positionality as Black migrant artists offers an important view into discussions about racism and migration in Brazil. Lastly, we give special attention to the COVID-19 pandemic and its specific social, sanitary, and economic impact on Haitian migrants in Brazil. The Haitian saying that provides a title for this ICTM Dialogues session suggests a gradual evolution of Haitian musicking in Brazil. Yet, increasing precarity during the pandemic has also meant that many Haitian artists have left the country to seek better lives elsewhere. The pandemic has forced us to consider the transient nature of this diasporic music scene, as well as how the diaspora scene echoes racial heritages of colonialism.

"Piti Piti Zwazo Fè Nich"?

Avaliando o Fazer Musical Haitiano no Brasil e Projetando Futuros Entre Pandemia e Precariedade

A migração haitiana ao Brasil no século XXI sinaliza mudanças nos padrões globais de migração, tanto em relação aos fluxos migratórios para o Brasil quanto para a mobilidade transnacional haitiana, e está ligada ao endurecimento das políticas migratórias do Norte Global, que resultou no aumento do movimento Sul-Sul de migrantes e refugiados. No Brasil, seu início demarca uma nova onda de imigração negra em um país onde a flagrante desigualdade racial revela a permanência e o peso de legados coloniais, impactando as vidas de brasileiros e migrantes não-brancos através de regimes diferenciados de cidadania. A sobreposição da percepção radicalizada de migrantes negros no Brasil com a negação disseminada do racismo estrutural – cada vez mais manifesta nos discursos e políticas oficiais desde a eleição do presidente nacionalista, conservador e populista Jair Bolsonaro em 2018 – traz à tona perpetuações locais e também translocais do colonialismo e racismo, aumentando a importância de escutar as vozes haitianas no Brasil.

Distribuídos majoritariamente nos centros urbanos do Sul e Sudeste do Brasil - considerados mais “brancos” - os haitianos têm sido integrados à sociedade brasileira como mão-de-obra barata, trabalhando até hoje principalmente em empregos precários, em uma constatação atual de como “a raça é a modalidade através da qual a classe é vivida” (Hall 1978). Paralelamente, muitos haitianos realizam intenso trabalho musical em uma variedade de contextos. Alguns dos principais lugares dessa agência musical têm sido estúdios caseiros haitianos, estabelecidos através de paciente economia e esforço coletivo ao longo de anos. Através dessas usinas musicais, artistas migrantes haitianos têm produzido vastas quantidades de música em uma variedade de estilos, sempre em busca de realizar seus sonhos artísticos. Majoritariamente invisível para a sociedade brasileira, essa produção musical circula principalmente através das redes locais de migrantes e circuitos transnacionais da diáspora haitiana.

Comemorando o fechamento da primeira década de existência dessa diáspora negra do Sul Global, essa sessão busca a descolonização através do empoderamento de epistemologias e ontologias migrantes, e da decentralização do pesquisador, privilegiando as vozes de quatro artistas e/ou donos de estúdio haitianos para debater os principais desafios e conquistas da produção musical haitiana no Brasil até agora – colocando sujeitos haitianos para falar sobre assuntos haitianos. Através dos relatos de Alix Georges, Poony Btag, Prince Amki e Very Larose, buscaremos explorar conexões específicas entre seu musicar e suas experiências migratórias nos espaços locais e translocais que conectam o Haiti ao Brasil, e também como sua posicionalidade como artistas migrantes negros oferece um prisma importante para as discussões sobre racismo e migração no Brasil. Finalmente, atenção especial será dada para a pandemia de COVID-19 e seus impactos sociais, sanitários e econômicos para os haitianos no Brasil. Apesar de o ditado que nomeia a sessão sugerir uma evolução gradual do musicar haitiano no Brasil, a crescente precariedade durante a pandemia incentivou muitos artistas haitianos a deixar o país para buscar uma vida melhor em outro lugar, o que nos força a considerar a natureza transitória dessa cena musical diaspórica e como isso ecoa heranças raciais coloniais.

Further References

Reflections

As we presented our session in late May, Brazil slowly left its worst moment in the COVID-19 pandemic so far, but still averaged the shocking number of circa 1,800 daily deaths. At that time, reports of a significant movement of Haitians leaving Brazil were lost amidst the tsunami of COVID-related news. The pandemic’s halting effect on international mobility seemed to be drawing to a close. Ironically, just as I was finally able to begin on-site fieldwork with Haitian artists in Brazil after my vaccination, I realized that my “field” was vanishing into thin air, as multiple research collaborators took “the route” towards the USA in search for better lives. 2021 effectively came to mark a veritable exodus of Haitians living in Brazil, a transnational migration that occupied international headlines only after the October 2021 Del Rio crisis in the Texas/Mexico border. With regard to my ICTM Dialogue interlocutors, the results of this scenario were disparate: though I was able to carry out collaborative music-making with Very Larose and Alix Georges, Poony Btag’s migration to the USA signalled the demise of his enterprise BTAG Studio PSWARK, an essential powerhouse of Haitian diasporic musicking in Brazil.

Questions to Consider

What is the meaning of fieldwork and how does it feel to do fieldwork when the “field” itself seems to disintegrate before your very eyes? Is an ethnomusicology of urgency something possible, or desirable? What should be its tenets and objectives?

What is the ethical responsibility of the researcher (if any) when he witnesses that research interlocutors are prone to taking an extremely long and dangerous transnational migratory route in search for better lives, in many cases accompanied by women and young children?