Artists

Bissainthe, Toto

image of Bissainthe, Toto Role model for the current roots movement

Toto Bissainthe was a woman of temperament who passionately loved Haiti and its way of life. She sang her native soil with a voice of incomparable beauty. A gifted actress, her textual interpretations reflected all the facets of Haiti, from its sacred songs of voodoo to its popular folk ballads. Voodoo indeed provided her with a repertoire to match her powerful presence. Toto came to Paris in 1953, where she discovered the voodoo that she was later to perform throughout the world, in the spirit of an initiate. In April 1978 she gave her first concert at the Theatre de la Ville in Paris. At the Paris Jazz club New Morning, she took the stage together with Marianne Mathéus, Marie-Claude Benoit and Akonio N'Dolo in the rebellious “Supermarket” performance, depicting scenes of dictatorship set to music. They even risked their lives to perform this collage of sketches in Haiti itself: “While the poor scavenge, the Duvalierists go to the supermarket”. She worked in theater with Roger Blin and Jean Marie Serrault and performed pieces by such politically motivated authors such as Ferré, Aragon and Ferrat. Her words and texts were imbued with a transcendental force drawn from the wellspring of pain and suffering she bore within her, far from her beloved country, that tortured land torn by internecine struggles for power and glory.

On her death in 1994 she left a rich musical oeuvre with poignant lyrics woven around the pantheon of ancestors and the beautiful woman that is Haiti. Toto was a true Samba, who paved the way for the current roots movement.