the World of Coupé Cloué, Mini Records 1979

great !!!

I love Coupe very much but I think you’ll find that Mini Records is still very much alive and well, and that Mr. Fred Paul who runs it may not be happy with you posting his artists. You did ask …

I didn’t, but if he wants me to remove it, let me know..

Thank you for posting this amazing album of Coupe Cloue. I used to hear his songs back in Senegal when I was little. A haitian friend recently told me about Compas, and I didn;t know what it was until I listened to that album. It’s really a great one. Again thank you.

“We try to post only old and out of
print LP’s, no commercial purposes
here. If you disagree with any of
the content posted, we ask you to
let us know. If so, we’ll remove
it as soon as possible.”
That’s asking, in my language. How out of print does a release need to be, in your view, if it’s currently available?

“http://www.minirecords.com/music2.asp?album_id=1081”

Dear Mr. or Mrs. Anonymous, I am very sorry if I offend you by posting an album of which I didn’t know it is still available as CD.
I do not check every old LP I find in dusty second hand recordstores.
I think you can at least tell us your name, in my culture it is very unpolite to criticize and stay anonymous. If you are in some way responsible for releasing the CD we speak about, you can ask me to remove the LP politely. If you’re not, I kindly ask you to cease your comments. Your name please ? Thank you very much.

This album is available in usual stores
www deltarecords com (us)
www antilles-mizik com (france)
www checkoutcds com (us)

Moos, probably you don’t know.
The haitian music business is very difficult. It is a small country, many islands around can’t get familar with this music.

Many classics are reissued. See the shops how many retro records from that band and others you can buy. One rason is that the output in new music is not that big today.

There are Mini records which are classics which everybody has or knows. But I also wonder that Mini had very good music that is rarly to find which bands are underrated – like Samba Creole for example.

And for the web issue.
The people use it on different ways. In different latin countries you will find blogs and boards with unbelievable masses of old and new music. – Haitians don’t blog they share on the private way.

Once I was on a Congo party (all night concert) they played Coupé Cloué before…

Jeanluc,

Are you the anonymous writer and are you asking me to remove this LP ? Be clear please !

The more I think about this, the more irritated I get. You seem to miss the whole point here. My intention is to honour artists and their work. If recordlabels do their work properly, the whole world should know an artist like this. Apperently my promotional work is very necessary since so many people around the world have never heard of this music.
I invest my time and money to search for great music of which I think the world should hear it. I am in the fortunate position I can afford to do this. It feels like I am doing something good here. In my case it works like this, the more music I know, the more music I buy. People get to know this artist through my blog and the general idea is that they go out and buy the music they have discovered. At least, this is my logic. Another question, is it making the artist any better if I don’t post his album ? Do all credits go where they should ?
And then again, what is it to YOU ?
Do you work for Mr. Fred Paul ?
tell me how it is cause this feels like a waist of my time.

You should only offer music which has not been re-released or is otherwise unavailable commercially, and not anything which can be got in a shop. Promoting wonderful artists such as you generally do is a wonderful endeavour and I applaud your efforts. But once we download it I doubt whether we then buy the real item just because the sound is better. You are promoting at a cost, and that cost is at the artist’s expense.

Hey Moos, no, I’m not the anonymous poster. I’m Jean-Luc and I’m a big compas lover from old and new konpa.

Relax, a weblog is a place with the sense of comment and communication.

I am sorry Jeanluc, it wasn’t meant to argument, excuses.
It’s just that I don’t like anonymous reactions which are negative. Sorry again.

Let your fancy flow Moos, despite the controversy. Thanks!

moos I have dwnloaded many albums from your site ,which would have otherwise remained unavailable to me, many many thanks. I have coupe cloue Maximum compas from haiti in my collection if you would like, not sure if it is still available? Keep up the fantastic work.

Chris

A few notes à propos le Roi.

The epithet «Coupé Cloué» (literally “struck nailed”) came from his uncanny ability as a footballer to put the ball into the net with such force and accuracy that a goal keeper had no chance at all to block it. As his musical career evolved, it also had the delightful double entendre in French that reflected his story-telling abilities. His mastery of double, triple, and sometimes even quadruple entendre in the narrative sections of the songs from his solo career were the key to his broad appeal among the peasant class through the most sophisticated, and indeed beyond to include Africa — where he was proclaimed “King” — as well as the rest of the Caribbean and South America. “Tout moun remen coupe” — “Everyone loves ….”

In the sense that Coupé Cloué was and continues to be a major influence in Haitian popular music, he can be classified within the genre of Konpa, and his unique style is often described as “Konpa Mamba” (literally “peanut butter compas”), yet with few exceptions his compositions are not directly derived from «Compas Direct» but rather from the parallel rural traditions that influenced the “Twoubadou” movement of the early 2000s. This in turn was influenced by his association with the Trio Select (later Ensemble Select) earlier in his musical career. The most obvious deviation from typical Konpa is the prominent use of the bongó, which is more typical of Cuban and Mexican conjuntos.

@Anonymous
I have a feeling Fred Paul wouldn’t mind a little free promotion for some of the older items in his catalog, particularly if they aren’t a direct rip from in-print CDs ;)

@jeanluc
Sadly, http://www.deltarecords.com/ went out of business and was liquidated several years ago, but the good news is that this url redirects to The Saint-Louis de Gonzague Alumni Foundation Inc. web site (www.slgafi.org/). This is a very worthy non-profit organization committed to the support of education and literacy in Haiti.