Haiti Music Video > T-Vice Music Video > Carnival

Djakout 1, T-Vice, Carimi not in Labor Day West Indian Parade, Eastern Parkway

October 1, 2013 8:39 PM

The West Indian Carnival, known as the Labor Day Parade, which is held in Crown Heights, Brooklyn every year, is a fun-filled, well-highlighted stage showcasing the wealth of musical genres, interesting sounds and pure talent from Caribbean and South American bands. Each year, dozens of musical acts flock to the carnival that attracts millions and, this year, Haiti's presence was resoundingly hollow, an eventuality, which was foreshadowed after last year's already emaciated Haitian showing.

The festival goers go every year primed to see diverse musical styles coming out of different countries and, since the popularity of the festival has grown so tremendously from its beginnings as a gathering of Caribbean artists, organized by the committee started by Mrs. Jessie Waddell Compton and housed in various enclosed spaces including the Savoy, the lack of any Haitian acts promoting Konpa and other popular forms of Haitian music is a lack the country's music industry can ill afford.

Affordability seems to be the ultimate culprit though, as many of the bands questioned returned the same answer, their participation was not possible because of the lack of money to make the trip. Acts like T-Vice, Djakout #1 and Carimi have stated that sponsorship was almost non-existent for this parade because all the anticipation had been for the Carnival of Flowers, held in Haiti earlier this year, leaving no room in the budget for further sponsorship. Only one group, Djakout #1, who attempted wringing water from the proverbial stone, was only able to scrape together about 50% of the $45,000 fee from groups like Digicel and two others in New York, but the sum was still not sufficient.

Reply to this article