Biographie
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Date de naissance
12 Février 1961 (âge 64)
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Lieu de naissance
Port-au-Prince, Ouest, Haïti
Michel Martelly has been heralded as a pioneer of a unique brand of kompas music, a style of Haitian dance music sung in Haitian Creole language. Originally, Compas was the creation of Maestro Nemours Jean-Baptiste. Martelly, a keyboardist and the self-proclaimed President of Compas, popularized a nouvelle generation, or "new generation" style, of smaller bands with few members that relied predominantly on synthesizers and electronic instruments to reproduce a fuller sound. Martelly's and Sweet Micky's live performances and recordings are sometimes laced with "burlesque" and humorous sociopolitical commentaries and satires. Outlandish and outspoken,the Sweet Micky Caricature has been known to drink publicly while performing in wigs, costumes, diapers, and Scottish kilts, and occasionally remove his own attire while performing. While arguably the most recognized and applauded musician and public personality in Haiti, Martelly's performance style has sometimes ignited controversy throughout Haitian communities. After completing his high school at the St Louis de Gonzague School, he tried a career in engineering,but his musical talent and his entertainer's skills took over his professional life as he became the most popular recording artist and intertainer that Haiti has ever known.In 2010 he's running to become the next Haitian President where some people think he may get a very good chance to solve the Haitian crisis because he can reunite the nation both rich and poor together on the same platform.
The middle-class son of a petroleum plant supervisor, Martelly taught himself to play the piano by ear. After graduating from high school and unsuccessfully attempting to study medicine, Martelly was briefly enlisted in the Haitian Military Academy before dropping out. He emigrated to the United States with an American wife, where he enrolled at Red Rocks Community College in Lakewood, Colorado and worked in a local grocery store. In 1986, after just one semester, he divorced and returned to Haiti just as Jean-Claude Duvalier, then president-for-life, was heading into exile. He returned stateside with his then-girlfriend, Sophia, and married her in Miami, Florida and had his first child, Olivier. Martelly continued to work on a construction site for a year until moving back to Haiti in 1987. Upon their return to Haiti, Martelly began playing keyboard as a fill-in gigger in local venues in Petionville and Kenscoff, suburbs of Port-au-Prince. One of his regular stints was at El Rancho, a casino owned by Joe Namphy, the brother of General Henri Namphy, who served a short stint as president after Duvalier's departure.
year, he recorded his first single, Ooo La La, which became an instant hit, followed by "Konpas Foret des Pins" which was released in 1989, also a number hit from his debut album "Woule Woule". Since then, Martelly, impersonating as Sweet Micky, has recorded fourteen studio albums and a number of live CDs over the past twenty years. His music has blended Haitian music with new interpretations of compas, roots, salsa, Caribbean soca and jazz-fusion. In 1997, Martelly's appeal to other musical rhythms was evident when Wyclef Jean of The Fugees featured him on the title track for Jean's solo effort Wyclef Jean Presents The Carnival featuring the Refugee Allstars. As Jean proclaims on The Carnival, "Surprise - it's Sweet Micky, y'all!" That same year, Michel Martelly released an album containing one of his most celebrated hits, Pa Manyen ("Don't Touch"). The song is an interpolation of "Angola" by Cesária Évora, the legendary Cape Verdean singer. Pa Manyen went on to be featured in various compilation albums, including the popular Putumayo Presents: French Caribbean in 2003.
Discography:
Title Date
Woule Woule 1989
Anba Rad La 1990
The Sweetest 1992
Men Koze-A 1993
I Don't Care 1994
Pa Manyen 1995
Tout Ce Mately 1996
Aloufa 1997
100.000 Volts 1998
Dènye Okazyon 1999
SiSiSi 2001
Totot 2003
GNB 2005
Bandi Legal 2008
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