When it comes to expressing Haitian cultural histories and advocating for awareness of the postcolonial issues that continue to shape Haitian life today, Haitian-Canadian artist Wesli (Wesley Louissaint) has always been a man of many words and sounds. On his seventh album, Makaya, he is at his most loquacious, with 24 tracks that clock in at almost two hours. It’s a maximalist work, but each element of it is placed and executed with clear intent.
Wesli, along with a substantial international cohort of fellow performers featured throughout, puts every tool at his disposal in the service of his storytelling, celebrating Igbo, Congo, Alada, Nago, Yoruba, and Dahomé histories and practices as they have been and are, both on the African continent and throughout the diaspora, especially in the Haitian context. In other words, there’s a lot to listen to and a lot to know.
It’s worth your time. Makaya is not only thoughtful but also exciting. Electronics, festival music, Haitian twoubadou and other popular and folk styles, Afrobeat, and protest songs coexist for a truly kaleidoscopic array of influences and sounds. Chadian producer AfrotroniX gives “Nago Elektro” and “Bontan Iyalélé” plugged-in futurist energy, especially appropriate on the latter track, on which Wesli sings, “You have to know where you’re from / To know where you’re going over.”
Nicolas M’tema brings the liquid blues of Reúnionese maloya to “Maloya Yanvalou”. “Ayayay” puts soukous and zouk face-to-face, presenting continuous cultural interchanges between Central Africa and the Caribbean. “Blackman Samba”, “Chacha”, and “Lanmou Nou” are all based on the clave at the heart of so many sub-Saharan African and Caribbean musical forms, making them especially apt for Wesli’s purposes.
With so much range, there’s no single definitive track that stands out as representative of Makaya in its entirety. If anything comes close, it might be “Banda”, a piece near the middle of the album, based on traditional Vodun music and featuring lyrics arranged by Wesli with fellow Haitian-Canadian singer and composer Sika Valmé. A chorus of layered vocals and handclaps, hefty electronic flourishes, and verses equating drums and dance with resilience in the face of oppression and material poverty make for a piece with true sonic and moral strength. It ultimately feels like the artistic key to the record and, for that matter, all of Wesli’s work up until this point.
In addition to a sense of purpose in his work and a vast repertoire of lore and tradition, Wesli has enough skill as a singer to carry the nonstop variety of songs he’s assembled here under the name Makaya. The soft strength of his voice makes it the ideal instrument for this emotionally charged body of work. His emotions come across as sincere and connected, and it’s this that keeps Makaya engaging from start to finish, making all 24 tracks feel justified.
Wesli believes in everything he does here and chooses collaborators with whom he can realize his ambitious vision. With Makaya, he locates Haiti on a spatiotemporally dynamic and deeply interconnected world map and, with love, tells its ongoing story, in doing so, reminding us of the power of creative acts of solidarity and revolution.