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30111: Hermantin(News)"Sweet Micky"turns down volume (fwd)
From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>
Posted on Thu, Mar. 01, 2007
‘Sweet Micky' turns down volume
BY TRENTON DANIEL
Hidden behind a towering stack of keyboards, Michel ''Sweet Micky'' Martelly
fiddled with the keys, producing a rapid rat-tat-tat, bearing an eerie
resemblance to gunfire.
Then Martelly -- dressed in drag and fueled by Barbancourt rum -- erupted into
a cackle and screamed into the mic a Creole slang term whose rough translation
is something obscene involving one's mother.
The well-heeled crowd populating the dimly lit, upscale club high above the
slums of Port-au-Prince loved it.
That was a few years ago, when Sweet Micky, a popular singer and keyboardist in
the Haitian compas music tradition, was still on the Haiti nightclub circuit,
and taking his unapologetically raunchy, over-the-top act on the road to Paris
and New York, Boston and South Florida.
But after almost 20 years of playing Haiti's signature musical style, Sweet
Micky has cut back. Retired from his stage act, he still has a hand in the
business, working with another popular Haitian act, hip-hop star Wyclef Jean,
on a record label and hosting the occasional show.
''It's not retirement for good,'' said Martelly, 46. ``I'm still active. But I
don't have to play every Friday, Saturday and Sunday.''
Martelly, who calls himself ''the Bad Boy of Compas,'' says he was exhausted by
the constant traveling and is a family man now.
CHANGE OF PACE
This from a performer who once mooned his audience, and who counted Haitian
paramilitary leaders, military strongmen and gang members among fans.
He now shares a roomy suburban home with his wife Sophia and their four
children in Wellington, an upscale Palm Beach County community replete with
man-made ponds, verdant lawns and security booths. ''Things were impossible for
me in Haiti,'' Martelly said. ``Because my whole family moved, I decided to
join them.''
Martelly wasn't always destined to be a entertainer.
Born in 1961 to a Shell Oil executive and a homemaker, he grew up middle-class
in Carrefour, a seaside suburb of Port-au-Prince known for its red-light
district and impenetrable traffic.
He went to private schools then migrated to South Florida, studying engineering
at Miami Dade College for a while. He dropped out, tried construction, but that
didn't hold his interest either.
He returned to Haiti in the late 1980s and started a band. The musical style:
compas, Haiti's slowed-down version of merengue that saxophonists Nemours
Jean-Baptiste and Wébert Sicot created in the 1950s.
While Sicot, Jean-Baptiste and other compas bands had their friends crowd the
stage, Martelly did something different. He downsized, ditching the brass and
skins for an electronic sound.
At the time, Haitian youngsters listened to zouk, a style of music from the
island of Martinique, as well as American rock and hip-hop.
Martelly changed that: His 1988 debut album, Ou La La, was a hit.
''I came in with flavor -- a lot of energy, crazy, cursing, young and with my
gang following,'' he recalled over a glass of red wine one recent evening in
his Wellington home. 'When I say `gang,' I say all the young guys looking good,
the ones who have money, the ones who want to party. The energy I brought in
with me captured the people's attention.''
So much so that his Sunday night shows at the Le Florville revived Haitian
nightlife, particularly among the well-to-do.
At one show, in introducing him, a friend said: ``This is a sweet Micky for a
sweet people.''
The name stuck.
Michael Emeran, then a teenager, was among the revelers at Le Florville that
night. While a student in Miami, Emeran recalled, his brother in Haiti told him
about the Sweet Micky sensation.
''He's the only reason I listen to compas music now,'' said Emeran, owner of
sakapfet.com, a Miami website that promotes Haitian culture and music. ``He
paved the way for all the bands that came after.''
Marc Lubin remembers hosting Martelly on a call-in show on private Radio
Métropole in 1989. Among the topics: the singer's vocabulary.
'They will ask you, `How far will you go? Will you use profanity?' '' said
Lubin, now a songwriter living in North Miami Beach. 'He said, `Everybody does
it. They do it at home, behind closed doors.' But he doesn't say [the word]. He
starts something and people will respond. You will never hear Micky say it.''
That sort of call-and-response gimmick became a staple of Martelly's raucous,
all-night shows.
Concert after concert, Martelly continued to cement his reputation as the ''Bad
Boy of Compas.'' At a carnival celebration in downtown Port-au-Prince in 1995,
to the crowd's delight, he showed up in a tight-fitting pink dress and matching
bra.
RADIO RIVALRY
In one of Haitian music's most famous rifts, Martelly battled musical rival
T-Vice, trading pwen -- or sly, metaphoric insults -- over the airwaves of
Haitian radio much like hip-hop artists do. He also sparred with King Keno and
Mizik Mizik.
''Micky maybe felt in a way that he was being disrespected,'' said Roberto
Martino, 31, of Kendall, lead singer and guitarist of T-Vice. ``But we felt we
were being disrespected.''
In 2002, the band leaders reconciled.
LASTING INFLUENCE
Now, Martino and others credit Martelly for raising the price for touring
compas musicians. Martelly would tell promoters he wouldn't play unless they
gave him the salary he wanted.
After 14 studio albums and a number of live CDs, Martelly now spends his
retirement managing a flamenco-style band called Strings and makes appearances
at suburban restaurants.
This past New Year's Eve, he and a guitarist and bassist played the Sheraton
Miami Mart Hotel near the airport.
Two weeks later, the trio performed at S.O.B.'s in downtown Manhattan.
His first trip back to play in Haiti in two years was a Carnival gig in
Port-au-Prince.
He also is a pitchman for a South Florida/Haiti cellphone company.
Sophia Martelly, Martelly's wife of 19 years, views his retirement with mixed
feelings. ''It was so abrupt,'' she said. ``But I think he had been thinking
about it.''
Many say she was instrumental in building his career. She notes how Martelly --
never one to hold back on stage -- no longer indulges himself. In many of his
performances, Martelly sipped rum from a bottle and smoked.
``Now he spends time with the kids. But he's still the Bad Boy of Compas.''
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