Kompa / Compas
Located in 2 routes
Kompa / Compas is Haitian dance music built on steady grooves, interlocking guitar, horn or keyboard lines, creole vocals and elegant forward motion. It is less frantic than many carnival forms, but deeply danceable, with long arrangements and a band-centered feel. Kompa can be romantic, political, festive or diasporic, and its pulse influenced cadence-lypso, zouk and many French-Caribbean dance styles.
History
Nemours Jean-Baptiste popularized compas direct in the 1950s, while rival and collaborator Webert Sicot developed cadence rampa. Haitian bands such as Tabou Combo, Skah Shah, Magnum Band, Coupé Cloué and later Carimi and T-Vice carried the style through local dance halls, New York, Montreal, Paris and the French Antilles. Kompa became one of the Caribbean's most durable band traditions.
Defining artists
Essential listening
Sources
- Haitian music histories
- konpa discographies
- artist catalogs
- streaming/video checks