In the Haitian Racine music genre (Roots) , Jean Dufresne, better known as Jan Jan, needs little introduction as he’s made famous his voice and features for more than a decade as lead vocalist of the legendary populist band, Tokay.
Jan Jan burst on the Haitian music scene as a teenager with Tokay’s hit carnival song – Manman Marie— which won the group first place [OF WHAT] in 2000, when the Racine sound was arguably at its peak in terms of polularity and demand. By the age of 19 years, his name was already being mentioned next to some of the great Haitianm root racine singers such as Eddie Francois, Banabe, and Kesey.
Tokay quickly developed a reputation for conscious, anti-establishment carnival sounds that attempted to shed lights on the everyday plight of ordinary Haitians and protested against the country’s non-ideal conditions, including politics. Jan Jan, as the band’s lead vocalist and leading charge, is entrenched as one of the most famous voices of political protest in Haiti. The band, incorporating elements of traditional street Rara and new-age electronics, was thrusted into popularity the country over, reaching a high point with its ties with then Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide and his Lavalas political party.
In 2004, when Aristide got snatched from power and flown into exile, Tokay became a target for the political oppositions that fill the ensuing power vacuum. With threats of prison and death and near escapes, band members had to flee Haiti and exiled themselves to the United States, where they remained scattered about to this day. They would meet up only for scheduled gigs in the US for the Haitian diaspora or during Carnival seasons. Once a year, Tokay would release a protest song to coincide with carnival season.
Operating outside of Haiti has not only fractured Tokay’s membership, but threathened its continusous existence. Being that Racine is not in demand as it was once as the Compas genre dominates, the band finds less to no gigs that can pay meaningfully in a land of cycling bills and taxes. As a result, the music became secondary; all members had to seek out individual survival.
Jan Jan’s popularity obviously is not what it was, but that has not inhibit him from making and publishing music. He has attempted to lead Compas bands, including Watchout— which he formed with a longtime friend— to no lasting success. He has not publish anything that has generate demand as a Compas singer. Jan Jan is a versatile singer with exotic range, but the audience expects but the root racine sound that initially gravitated the people to him.
A true artist to the core, Jan Jan hates to be placed in such musical box. As a matter of fact, Racine was not the first genre of music he learned to sing. Like most youth from Port Au Prince, Jan Jan grew up with an international appreciation for music— R&B, Jazz, Raggae, and Hip-hop— and learn to sing the poular tunes.
“A vocalist should learn how to sing every genre,” says Jan Jan, who initialy started singing Racine because the band Tokay recruited him and gave him his first platform to perform. If a Compas-based band had got to him before, he may have been known as a Compas singer.
Those close to him would conclude that Jan Jan has been limited by root Racine. With this new project, Jan Jan continues his evolution, opting for a francophone sound over electronic accoustics.
This project is for an audience nostalgic for old school francophone love and slow music. In Haiti that sound is often called Chansonette Francaise, which Jan Jan grew up listening to. Unlike Racine which is rooted in social and political messages, this genre tunes the subject of love. Jan Jan believes with everything Haiti is facing, love is what the country needs. He believes love has escaped from Haiti, which he wants to help bring back.
Ochan Pou Manman’m, the first single off the upcoming album, Jean Dufresne pays homage to his beloved single mother who raised him through paramount adversities and challenges. He hopes this is a mother song that ultimately leads it being a mother-song-anthem. This single will follow by Toi, the song that was was supposed to be the first official single off the upcoming album, where Jan Jan sounds off in French about how much his significant other means to him and how happy and lucky of a man he is to have met her. He thinks this romantic song will be a wedding anthem.
