Get Rich, Or Die Horse Ridin'

As if channeling African American writer Zora Neale Hurston, I trekked across rare, foreign soil on which probably ninety-nine percent of Americans would never, ever travel. And with the commitment of that treasured author-anthropologist, I braved it.

But only for a week and some change. Small change at that. Like a half dollar's worth.

Each steamy, Caribbean night — well past the bewitching hour — the sound of conga drumming in wild abandon echoed from the smokey hills. Haunting me, beating the soul of me with more intensity than I've ever experienced in a house music club. And I, mind you, dance next to the six-foot speakers in these dark, thunderous dens. (Which is why I now feel damn near deaf.)

But it wasn't the volume of the hillside drumming; it was their deep purpose that had me on edge. The drums were driving traditional religious ceremonies... Every night... Until the crack of dawn.

I rarely slept. Luckily, the hotel bar was always open! I stayed at the Oloffson, a "gingerbread" mansion surrounded by lush gardens. But I was hardly the only wide-eyed guest swizzling a little plastic stick in a glass on the porch at 4 a.m. Not with the drumming keeping us so awake and social.

The location was Haiti. The city: Port-au-Prince. My reason for going there? I was conducting a little informal "research" for a suspense novel I was writing back then (and have recently blown the dust off). It's a story set in "The Industry." Something they used to call a competitive set of corporations vying for our new car and soft drink dollars: an industry. But now, the term seems to belong to Hip-hop.

Hip-hop, indeed, is at the crux of the aforemention novel. Hip-hop also is the topic on which this opinion piece rests... I ask you, "How can black music that so brilliantly echoes the intense, African sentiment of the drums I heard in Haiti seem so overwhelmingly dismissive of its true power and potential uses?"

Article Author: Viqi French

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