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The question of which came first between language and music is one that scholars will likely debate forever, but what is indisputable is how intertwined the modes of expression are. In this episode, husband and wife Riva Nyri and Monvelyno, who comprise the musical group Bohio Music, sit down with producer Tadia Toussaint to discuss the complex history of the Haitian Creole language, and how they use music to keep its revolutionary spirit alive. • Brooklyn, USA is produced by Emily Boghossian, Shirin Barghi, Charlie Hoxie, Khyriel Palmer, and Mayumi Sato. If you have something to say and want us to share it on the show, here’s how you can send us a message: https://bit.ly/2Z3pfaW
• Thank you to Tadia Toussaint, Riva Nyri, Monvelyno, and Bohi Music.
• Transcript: https://bit.ly/3Btby6s
Brooklyn, USA is a podcast that blends short documentary, hyperlocal journalism, personal narratives, sound art and audiovisual experimentation to reflect the diversity and beauty of our borough. We deliver New York stories told by the people who live them, and cover issues that impact our community in its own voice. #BKUSA
57 | The Language That We Feel In - Episode Transcript
Brooklyn, USA | February 9, 2022
[INTRO]
[MUSIC BED: Alsarah & The Nubatones live performance on B-Side, produced by BRIC TV]
Khyriel Palmer: You’re listening to the Brooklyn, USA podcast – an occasional audio love letter from Brooklyn to the world.
Khyriel Palmer: Music may be even older than language. We may never know which came first, but what we do know is that the two forms of expression have evolved together for tens of thousands of years. So it's only natural that some artists might use music to preserve the power of a language.
Khyriel Palmer: In this episode, producer Tadia Toussaint introduces us to a husband and wife musical duo who compose and perform songs in the common language of their homeland to celebrate its revolutionary power. Here’s Tadia… [FADE OUT MUSIC]
[FADE UP MUSIC: Gentle, marimba with a light beat]
Tadia Toussaint: As a young girl, Riva Nyri Precil would not be allowed to speak her native language, Haitian-Creole, at dinner tables in some Haitian homes. Her husband, Monvelyno, who was an active part of establishing Little Haiti BK, feels race and the western influence from the French has confused the country's identity and embracing of the island's native language. These experiences have helped shape the mission of the band that they have formed together, Bohio Music. Whether as a symbol of revolution or method of preserving the language, speaking and performing the tongue of their forefathers is important for the artists, not only in their music – which they describe as Mizik Angage (Music that Engages) – but also when parenting their two young babies, Loa (age 3) and Afoudayi (age 1).
[INTERVIEW WITH BOHIO MUSIC]
Riva: Hello, hello. Bonswa. [speaking in Kreyòl]. Well, my name is Riva Precil, I am half of the Bohio Music band. And I'm a singer, a dancer, a jeweler, a author, artist, creatrix, mothah! [laughter]
Monvelyno: My name is Monvelyno. I'm a musician, producer, guitar player, singer, painter.
Riva: Creole is very important for both of us. We've both studied it. We know how to read and write it as well as speak it, which is sort of rare [laughter] nowadays. The spelling for Creole is Creole -- C-R-E-O-L-E -- in French and in English. And that's sort of like the universal spelling, because that's how they spell it across the Caribbean for all the other islands who were also colonized by the French, who have that same broken language that's referred to as a "Creole" or a "Patois".
Monvelyno: I don't think it's a problem if they call it broken French, you know.
Riva: Because technically it is.
Monvelyno: We have English in Creole, when we say "black out". Or Spanish, when we say "dekabes[?]", you know, it's not just French. All the languages come from other languages,.
Riva: But Creole, in Haitian Creole, is spelled K-R-E-Y-Ò-aksan fòs -- which is the accent that goes slanted towards the left -- L. That Kreyòl is specific to Haitians. The Creole that is across many other Caribbean countries is different and is not the same. When someone says, “do you speak Haitian", obviously it's because it's a lack of education. They don't know the word Kreyòl.
Monvelyno: Kreyòl is a word that the French created. They created a community of people that they colonized. If we don't find a way to resolve all of these problems, there will always be something that people step on. Kreyòl will always be a problem, you know, but –
Riva: It creates division.
Monvelyno: and that's what the imperialist wants, that's what all these white folks want, to create division in us.
Riva: Mm-hmm.
Monvelyno: Because this language, Kreyòl, was created for independence. We had different parts of Africans all over, and we had to come up with a language that everybody understands. When the Caribbeans hear Haitians speak Kreyòl, they respect that. Kreyòl was the first tool to communicate about what we can do.
[MUSIC BED: Bohio Music track]
Riva: It's a form of revolution in a sense because it's so frowned upon in our community. It's not even the main language of the islands. The principal language of Haiti is still French, and Kreyòl is the secondary. And in the school systems, they speak to the students in French. [school bell rings] They learn their lessons and regurgitate or recite it back in French, whether or not they understand the meaning of what they're being taught or what they're saying. But in actuality and factuality, Kreyòl is the language that we all speak. It's the language that we feel in. It's the language that's spoken at home, in the streets. And unfortunately, Kreyòl has a bad rap because it's the language that was created by our forefathers, you know, the enslaved people who were brought from Africa, from various regions. And they all spoke different dialects, mixed it in with some French, some Taino dialect, and it became a language that we all spoke and communicated in. Because of that, it's just always been in chains, like it can't be free. And many people don't know how to spell it correctly. And there's all these different variations of it, and we can't get on the same accord, on the same page, when it comes to Kreyòl. And when you meet someone formally, you have to speak either French or even English. [MUSIC SWELLS]
Riva: Both of us feel very strongly that it's a big part in the revolution, pushing it, putting it in people's faces, and speaking it properly. When I say properly is like, not Frenchifying it, when we're speaking it. Even I'm guilty of that because I grew up in that sort of society where we speak Kreyòl. But we sort of make it sound a little bit fancier by curving certain sounds and making a little bit more on the French side. But Kreyòl is a very, you know, cut and dry sound. "Sa'w wè a se sa", “what you see is what you get”. In French, there's like four letters that make one sound. In Kreyòl, it's like every letter is accounted for, even in its grammatical sense. It's very telling of what it represents.
Monvelyno: Now, where we stand for language is to normalize it. Because, as we've said, French is the first language of Haiti, but the form of prejudice. Because most of the population speak Kreyòl. I would something about that, I said "[speaking in Creole] nou pale kreyòl, … [?]" It means that “we speak Kreyòl, but we go to a French school. And this revolution that we had in 1804 turned into a devotion for white people.” Because they just are pushing their agenda into the country. Where like now, the problem is getting bigger because the majority of Haitians now wants to speak English, because the Diaspora and Americans has a huge influence on Haitians. [END MUSIC]
Riva: We have many books in Kreyòl and music.
Monvelyno: And then old people around us, like our parents.
Riva: Mm-Hmm.
Monvelyno: You know, when we don't go to Haiti, we speak Kreyòl. And then we listen to them when they're talking. And if there's something that we might not fully understand, then we ask questions and then to find out what exactly that means. We keep the words and then do research and find out when that word is being used.
Riva: Being used.
Monvelyno: Kreyòl evolved, two times kokorat[?] was a part of Haitian. It got out on [?] term. So, when all these people in the street – "kokorat" [?]. But again, kokorat is not a bad thing. Because if you don't have kokorat, then soil, the soil is not being…
Tadia: Sterile,
Riva: Mm-hmm. Sterile. Mm-hmm.
Monvelyno: There's so much confusion in things that people say to other people. They don't even understand the meaning or the history.
[radio tuning] [CLIP from Democracy Now] Amy Goodman: President Aristide, he said, quote, "It is possible to build a new Haiti because of what is on our flag and that is 'united we are strong'." Aristide then flew by helicopter to the site where the revolutionaries declared independence from the French. Today, we are going to take a look back at the roots of the Haitian Revolution and the state of Haiti today.
[MUSIC: Singing in Kreyòl, drums] Narrator: Haiti is located on the western part of the island Hispaniola, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. The French turned it into their most profitable slave colony, but in 1791, the slaves revolted. By 1804, the slave armies defeated Napoleon's legions, making Haiti the first independent Black Republic in the world. [MUSIC SWELLS]
Amy Goodman: And that was the New York Times's Howard French from the documentary "Haiti: Killing the Dream", narrated by Ossie Davis. It was written by Juan Gonzalez. [radio tuning]
Monvelyno: After the independence, they had agendas to keep Haiti under and to keep Haitians along with the chain in your mind. So that's why we pushed for that in New York City, in America, for us to have our own place that wanted to be free. When I moved here, my first question was how come we don't have an environment for ourself?
Tadia: Mm.
Monvelyno: I kept asking all the people I met this question. I'm like, "we don't have our own environment. There's little Italy, there's Chinatown. There's this, there's that. How come we don't fight for a place?".
Tadia: Right.
Monvelyno: I kept asking everybody that, and they told me, "Yeah, that fight started already, but we are still fighting for it." You know when people come, we have a community, and first you have to start with a place, with an environment, if you have a community. There's a lot of Haitian elected officials, and we have a lot of Haitian artists like Jensen Desrosiers [?] who were there to fight for them to put aside a name. We were part of that fight. And it went on the news.
[NEWS 12 CLIP] Reporter: The subway station at Newkirk and Nostrand Avenues in the Little Haiti section of East Flatbush now has a new name, the MTA renaming the station "Little Haiti station" in honor of the neighborhood's Haitian culture. News 12's Zhane Caldwell has this story!
Zhane Caldwell: For years, this area has seen a cultural movement being named Little Haiti back in 2018, and even having streets renamed after prominent Haitian figures. Today, that movement continues with the renaming of the Newkirk Avenue subway station. You can see the new signage on the subway now, says Newkirk Avenue Little Haiti station. Signage on the subway platform says "Little Haiti", and MTA officials say the audio systems have also been updated. Today, elected officials in the community came together to celebrate the station's renaming, playing music and dancing in the street. The station's renaming is part of an initiative, by assembly member Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn and other elected officials, which, according to a bill in the state assembly, is to enhance the experience of the Haitian culture to both residents and visitors.
Monvelyno: I was so happy to witness that because it was big. As little Haiti became what it is, it was always because of the majority of the community of Haitians that live there. They said something, “it was like a beast, it was an animal”, because of the demand that we were pushing. We have a whole Nostrand Avenue called Toussaint L'Ouverture. It is a big thing for us because we speak Kreyòl in the street.
Riva: We definitely try to speak Kreyòl to our children and teach it to them as much as we possibly can.
Riva: [speaking Kreyòl]
Loa: Mèsi [Laughter]
Riva: Although, now that I am living it and experiencing it firsthand, I now see and understand how it can be challenging to teach children a language while also raising them abroad. I have a children's book, “Anaëlle Ak Lasirèn”, which is entirely in Kreyòl to provide something that is familiar to the Kreyòl-speaking reader or to a child of Haitian descent. To see something that's entirely theirs.
Riva: Koman ou ye?
Loa (3): Koman ou le?
Riva: Koman ou ye?
Loa: Komanle?
Riva: Mwen byen
Loa: Mah beh
Riva: Mwen byen
Loa: Mah beh
Riva: Byen
Loa: Beh
Riva: Byen
Loa: Byen
Riva: Bravo
Monvelyno: Bravo
Loa: Byen!
Riva: Our daughter, she's three, and she's communicating a lot.
Riva & Monvelyno: Koman ou rele?
Loa: Komanle!
Riva: She's predominantly English-speaking, but it's so important for us that she understands it, that she hears it all the time. Speaking it around her…
Monvelyno: Koman ou rele?
Loa: Komanourele!
Riva: ...so that it's not so unfamiliar. But I have family members who don't speak clearly to their children at all.
Monvelyno: Mwen rele Loa
Loa: [babble]
Monvelyno: Mwen rele Loa
Loa: Loa
Riva: I think that the best way to do it is going to be to bring them down to Haiti, to really hear everyone speaking around them all the time. In our social settings, we're very much deep in the Haitian community, so they hear it all the time.
Monvelyno: Loa ou bèl
Riva: But it's not until you're forced to be in a space where nobody will understand you if you speak English, that you're going to now have to speak it, you know so, [speaking Kreyòl].
Monvelyno: Mesi
Loa: Mesi
Monvelyno: Loa ou bèl, Mesi
Loa: Oubèl
Riva: The way that we promote it is speaking it among ourselves around our friends, teaching each other, learning from each other, just definitely listening to a lot of Kreyòl music. Like, one of my favorite musicians to listen to is Manno Charlemagne, not only his writings, but the writings of various Haitian poets and Haitian writers, and he was interpreting it and composing with those. So, a lot of great musical resources for our music, and all of our music is in Kreyòl.
Monvelyno: We find it very interesting singing Kreyòl to a non-Kreyòl fan because you can Google things. Now people are texting people and they researching what they're saying to each other. We are in the time where, like language right now, it's not an issue. And especially if you have a cause, music is universal. If you're speaking about freedom, the language is not the problem.
[MUSIC BED: Bohio Music track]
Riva: We just released our children's lullaby of Kreyòl music. It's entitled "Dodo Titit", it came out this past December. We felt it was very important for our youth, not only but also for our adults to be introduced to this repertoire, or reintroduced to it since many of us have heard some of the songs are, don't necessarily know the words or the rhythms, or we've heard various versions of it.
Monvelyno: If you want your kids to keep listening to Kreyòl, you can just play those songs, and that gonna push the kids to ask questions. Then that's how you start teaching somebody a language.
Tadia: Right.
Riva: The vibration reaches the listener, and if it reaches them in that way, then they'll be more curious and intrigued to learn more. A lot of times people tell me, like, "I have no idea what you're saying, but I just can't stop listening." That in itself, to me, speaks volumes that the energy has touched them and has reached them. So, [speaking Kreyòl]. As parents ourselves, we feel that there's a need for that because in researching for music to play for our children, we find that there's a plethora of Latin American music, there's a plethora of African lullabies. There's so much, but for Haitian music lullabies it's very, very sparse.
Monvelyno: Besides revolutionary cultural work, it is also a spiritual work. Haiti was free because of Vodun, Vodou, or however you call it. We have Vodou in New Orleans because of Haitians. We are the father of that town. If you know the history, French give that town to America to just escape trouble with Haiti, because for what we did in 1803. It is all spiritual first. Before music, before culture, before language, it is like a cultural, spiritual movement. It's more universal than music. You can be singing something, the person doesn't understand you, and feel the message, and the person doesn't even know why he keeps listening to you.
Riva: We definitely consciously choose and decide to perform and to create music in Kreyòl and to represent ourselves clearly without any confusion in what we're presenting. For myself, being, you know, of mixed descent and fair skin, it's unexpected. First and foremost, when someone sees me get on stage, they think I'm going to sing a sweet Kompa or a sweet Zouk. We perform and we create various styles, but we are very careful to always keep the essence of the message that we're trying to push. So we will do some Twoubadou, we will do some Kompa. But the bulk of our music is “mizik [?]”. So that means music that is revolutionary, you know, like decolonizing, in a sense. So for me, as I was saying, I find that it's surprising and also contrary and shocking to a lot of people, and intriguing. So [speaking Kreyòl]. I like when people say, like, “her Kreyòl is so rough,” or “her Kreyòl is so, you know, wroght”. I take pride in that, when someone says that. As a child growing up and learning to speak Kreyòl in my katye, in my, you know, in my neighborhood, it was frowned upon. And a lot of people tell me it was very unladylike of me to speak like that, and I had to fix the way that I spoke. Some households, I would be invited over to dinner, they would tell me I wasn't allowed to speak Kreyòl at the dinner table. These are real stories on Haiti. Like people who live in Haiti who would tell their children they're not allowed to play with other kids who speak Kreyòl, like you have to speak French. So for us, you know, with these experiences that we have under our belt, we are trying to retrain, reteach our people, especially in the diaspora, who perhaps don't speak Kreyòl at all and who are still thirsty and so interested in that knowledge.
Riva: One of our friends who teaches Kreyòl at NYU, she uses our music in her coursework to teach certain vocabulary words, phrases, expressions. We always make it a point to put rich Kreyòl in our work. It's just a way to encourage other people to normalize it, to make it okay to not round your mouth a certain way when you're speaking Kreyòl, because that's actually not how it's said, that's actually not the proper term. We're actually speaking improper Kreyòl. We're doing ourselves a disservice and our ancestors, because that's not the language that they spoke when they fought so hard to give us the independence and then to share it across the globe, basically. [MUSIC SWELLS]
[FADE OUT MUSIC]
[VOICE MEMO]
[BEEP] [voicemail audio] Siji Awoyinka: Hello, there, this is Siji Awoyinka. Musician, filmmaker speaking from Crown Heights, Brooklyn, New York. I am of Nigerian descent, from Yorùbá Tribe, I'm a Yorùbá man. My full name, Adesiji Awoyinka, “Awoyinka” means “the crown of protection.” So on language, the Yorùbá language is very tonal. Which, of course, means that one word can have like four or five different meanings, depending upon how you inflect the vowels or even some of the consonants as well, within the language. Within the Yorùbá language, we have three main tones: up, down, and middle, or dead center would say. So, take a word like “eyin” for instance you have “ẹyin [?]” Which is “egg”. You can also say “eyin [?]” which is “teeth”. Or you can say “ẹ̀yìn [?]” which means back. For that same word spelled the same way, you have “ẹyin, eyin, ẹ̀yìn [?]”. I remember a few years back, when I tried writing and singing in Yoruka, you know, I took it for granted that I could actually sing in, in the language, given I spoke it fluently, understood it fluently and everything. But I didn't think about writing or singing a song within the language until the producer was working with at the time, Alex Avery, suggested, "Hey, you're Yoruba, you speak the language, you know the cutlure, why don't you try to writing and singing all of your songs in Yoruba?" You know, I just kind of took it for granted that I could. So, I wrote the song in English as I, as I normally would. I composed it. And then I got to the mic and I tried rhyming, you know, translating in my mind and singing. And none of it made any sense, again because of the tones within the language. You know, I'd rhyme the song – I'd written the verses in English, understand my rhymes were there, you know – but when I translated it into Yoruba, none of it made any sense. So what I had to do was I had to think in Yoruba, and sing and write in Yoruba, as opposed to doing it all in English and then trying to translate into the language, which didn't make any sense whatsoever. So lesson learned there.
Siji Awoyinka: And another great one I was just teaching my daughter the other day is, um, our word for frog is “opolo”, which actually means "frog". Another word which is spelled O-P-O-L-O. You can also have “ọpọlọ”, which means "brain". And then you can also have “ọpọlọpọ”, which means "many people". As a child, we also have this play with words we'd use, it would, like a tongue twister so to speak, which kind of goes like this: "Mo ra dodo n'ido, mo je dodo n'Ido. Mo wa f'owo dodo p'a mo ni dodo n'idodo n'ido." [laughter]. Which is a real tongue twister. Breaking it down, it means: fried plantain is called “dodo”. And we also have a part of Nigeria, part of Lagos, a neighborhood in Lagos called “Ido”. It's the name of a, of a borough, so to speak. And then you have the “ìdodo”, which means "belly button". So those are three words we're playing with now. “Ido”, the town or the borough. “Dodo”, that's fried plantain. And then, “ìdodo”, which means bellybutton. So the rhyme goes "Mo ra dodo n'ido, mo je dodo n'Ido. Mo wa f'owo dodo p'a mo ni dodo n'idodo n'ido." Breaking it down, it means: “Mo ra dodo n'ido”, "I bought fried plantain in Ido.” “Mo je dodo n'Ido.” "I ate the fried plantain in Ido." “Mo wa f'owo dodo p'a mo ni dodo.” I use my, my dodo-grease-stained fingers [laughter] to rub the plantain seller's belly button! In Ido. “Mo wa f'owo dodo p'a mo ni dodo n'idodo n'ido.” “Mo wa f'owo dodo”, "I use my plantain-stained fingers. “p'a mo ni dodo”, to rub the plantain seller's belly button. "Mo ra dodo n'ido, mo je dodo n'Ido. Mo wa f'owo dodo p'a mo ni dodo n'idodo n'ido." So it's a real tongue twister.
Siji Awoyinka: So the language is powerful, it's a strong cultural identifier as well, you know. Yorubas are very witty. And there's so many proverbial sayings which also play with some of the words. You know, which you can find in songs and in the language itself. So, I find it to be very, very powerful and intriguing and a fascinating means of communication among the Yoruba. Thank you, Siji, bye bye.
[BEEP]
[CREDITS]
[MUSIC BED: Jomion & The Uklos live performance on B-Side, produced by BRIC TV]
Khyriel Palmer: Brooklyn, USA is produced by me Khyriel Palmer,
Emily Boghossian: and me Emily Boghossian,
Shirin Barghi: and me Shirin Barghi,
Charlie Hoxie: and me Charlie Hoxie,
Mayumi Sato: and me Mayumi Sato,
Khyriel Palmer: with help this week from Tadia Toussant. You can find Tadia on Instagram at tadia dot underscore.
Khyriel Palmer: Thank you to Riva Nyri, Monvelyno, and Siji Awoyinka.
Khyriel Palmer: You can find Riva Nyri and Monvelyno, who comprise the musical group Bohio [bo yo] Music, at @riva.nyri @monvelyno and @bohiomusic that’s B-O-H-I-O MUSIC on social media, and online at Bohio Music dot com.
Khyriel Palmer: To learn more about the Endangered Language Alliance, support their work, and view their interactive language map, visit www dot E L Alliance dot org.
Khyriel Palmer: If you want to tell us a story, or somehow end up on the podcast, check the show notes for a link to our guide on recording a voice memo on your mobile phone and sending it to us on the internet. And if you like what you hear or think we missed something, comment, like, share and subscribe, and follow at BRIC TV on twitter and instagram, for updates. For more information on this and all BRIC Radio podcasts, visit www.bricartsmedia.org/radio.
Khyriel Palmer: We are on the unceded territory of the Lenni Lenape, Canarsie, Shinecock, and Munsee people. We acknowledge the many Indigenous Nations with ties to this land and we recognize that the Lenape still call Manahatta home.
[FADE OUT MUSIC]
Google doc transcript: https://bit.ly/3Btby6s