Breaking the Thermometer

The American-Haitian singer and multi-instrumentalist Leyla McCalla, who made her name with Carolina Chocolate Drops, won a Songlines Music Award for her last solo album, 2019’s Capitalist Blues. On that record she brilliantly combined influences from Haiti and the American Deep South and here she digs even deeper into her Caribbean heritage.

The album – and an accompanying multidisciplinary theatre project – was commissioned by North Carolina’s Duke University. Six years ago, the institution acquired the archives of Radio Haiti, the country’s first independent broadcaster, which for 45 years, until it closed in 2003, reported in Creole on Haitian politics, society and culture. Combining her own original compositions and traditional Haitian tunes with historical broadcasts and interviews, the result is a remarkable sonic journey chronicling the sacrifices and challenges faced by the Haitian people and the island’s tumult and political unrest. Playing cello, banjo and singing in both English and Creole, McCalla doesn’t pull her punches. ‘Fort Dimanche’, is about the prison where the Duvalier regime interrogated and tortured political opponents, while ‘Vini Wè’ is about the Radio Haiti station owner and journalist Jean Dominique who was assassinated in 2000. The results are starkly beautiful, the melodies graceful and the message compelling.