Last updated: April 23, 2026
Music in Saint-Domingue was infrastructure as much as performance. Drumming, singing, and dance ordered ceremony, preserved memory, and could also organize resistance in forms colonists struggled to decode. The same musical practices that called the lwa also helped sustain collective discipline, communication, and courage under slavery and war.
Music and konpa were not outside the regime but part of the cultural terrain through which Duvalierism sought consent.
1791-uprising - The revolt whose mobilization drew on ritual soundscapes and communication networks
caïman-ceremony - The revolution's musical/spiritual launch
Lwa Danbala - Called by Yanvalou
ezili-danto - Possession at Bois Caïman
Lwa Ogou - Called by Nago rhythms
The drums as material culture
Secret Societies - Makaya and Makanda rhythms
as-revolutionary-infrastructure - Music as part of ritual coordination, discipline, and collective action
ceremony-structure - Where the music is performed
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"Music." Rasin.ai, 2026. https://rasin.ai/connections/concepts/music. Accessed 2026-05-05.