Érol Josué: Pelerinaj album review — a personal portrait of Haiti

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The title of Érol Josué’s second album, Pelerinaj, which means “pilgrimage” in Haitian Creole, refers to a journey that is both personal and national: a history of Haiti as well as the story of how its singer — a vodou priest and director of the country’s National Bureau of Ethnography — left his country at 19 and spent two decades making house music in Paris, New York and Miami.

The album opens with the echoing processed vocals of “Badji”, giving way to a chanted narrative from the choir of the National Theater of Haiti about a meeting between the island’s native inhabitants and the enslaved Africans who were brought there. “Je Suis Gran Nèg” sweeps along funkily, its smoothness undercut by sawing violin from Daniel Bernard Roumain. The song celebrates King Wongol, a loa in vodou tradition. “Erzulie” follows, a paean to the goddess of love and beauty, with a spaced-out, dubby chug courtesy of Gotan Project’s Philippe Cohen Solal, ending with rhythmic whipcracks. And the electro-dance of “Rèn Sobo A” is a hymn to the Lightning Queen.

Josué then moves from mythology to his own biography and Haiti’s history, Port-au-Prince imagined as a swirling red crossroads on “Kafou” with bluesy guitar from Mark Mulholland. The Haitian earthquake of 2010 and its aftermath run through “Avelekete”. The close-miced opening lament gives way to a slow reggae groove with sharp cracks of percussion. “Pelerinaj Fla Vodoun” comes next, a song that takes pride in a refusal to beg for alms — a plea by analogy for Haiti to be able to do without foreign aid.

“We are too rich to be poor,” urges Josué again on “Kwi A”. We are the children of kings and queens of Africa, of great generals who fought for freedom, he argues over an anthemic wash of synthesiser, before celebrating Haitian revolution leader Jean-Jacques Dessalines and the battle of Vertières. At the end, there is a live recording of a vodou ceremony, rising to a climax of drums and chanting.

★★★★☆

‘Pelerinaj’ is released by Village Hut