Joachim: Honestly, to me, it is - of the instruments, it is the closest to the human voice, I find. What do you love about the flute? I’d like to hear how you would describe it. Tippett: Are you? So tell me about that love affair. But you say that you fell in love with the flute - and maybe you’re gonna play the flute for us a little later. My first and only instrument was the flute, and I was really terrible at it. And I just want to - you have said that your first instrument was piano and that you were terrible at it. Tippett: Now, you are known - you are a flautist you play the flute. “Lamize Pa Dous” actually translates to “Misery Is Not Sweet.” And it was a way of simply stating that “I’m not well at this moment and I’m in this place, but I’m not of this place, and I plan to find life elsewhere.” And that, to me, is such a song of revolution, and really is one of the predecessors to the Haitian Revolution and one of many songs that I think did empower and help covert messages be spread among slaves. Joachim: Yeah, and I think - again, I think partly why I wanted to start with that song is because it’s so iconically Haitian but really, the message of that song works in very much the same way as the Negro spiritual, in that, at face value, the words themselves are quite innocent, but, as we know, so many spirituals were sung in cotton fields as a way of spreading messages and as a way of letting people know that there was going to be a way to lift themselves out of misery.
But you’ve made this striking statement that - you said, “Yanvalou music is to Haiti as the Negro spiritual is to America.” Tippett: One of the things you’ve talked about is that this part of Africa where the Haitian people - where slaves were brought in the 16 th century - that one of the traditions there is Yanvalou. So it’s still so - I do very much connect music to spirituality in my own life. And I love the spirit of it, and I can’t possibly sing that song and not feel like I’m having a spiritual experience. The rendition that I fell in love with is one by a woman named Toto Bissainthe, who is one of my muses for this project.
And so many of the songs that I’ve been including in this project really do connect back to spirituality, in that many of them - like the one that we just heard, it’s called “Lamize Pa Dous” - is really a song that came over to Haiti from Africa. And I think I find that to be a spiritual experience, myself. And I do think that many of my most spiritual moments have been experienced through music, in that it moves you in a way that you oftentimes can’t explain. Joachim: It’s so interesting, because music has always been a part of my life, as you mentioned not just because I’m Haitian, but also because I was very drawn to it, as a child. And I wonder if you would even - maybe not think of it that way, but if music would be something you would talk about as part of the spiritual element of your childhood of your life. I also wonder if music - it sounds - music, I know, is part of Haitian culture it sounds like it’s woven throughout the experience of being with family, for you. And certainly, this project has brought me back to thinking a lot about spirituality - in a very different way than I thought of it in my childhood. We went to church when we were very young, and certainly, both of my parents really have always instilled a sense of spirituality in us. But yeah, religion was an interesting thing, growing up, for us. That or my mom was, I guess, that irresistible. Joachim: But I guess the human side of him got the better of him, eventually. Joachim: Yes, and so I almost didn’t exist, as a result of religion. My dad actually went to seminary school for a very long time. Today, I don’t really consider myself a religious person, though I do consider myself a very spiritual person. It’s an interesting question, I think, for me. And I wonder how you would talk about the spiritual or religious background of your childhood, however you would describe that.
Tippett: Well, I would like to start where I always start my conversations.
She was in the Twin Cities, rehearsing, as part of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra’s Liquid Music series. I interviewed her at the On Being Studios. Nathalie Joachim is a Brooklyn-based flutist and vocalist, and co-founder of the urban art-pop duo Flutronix. Tippett: I’m Krista Tippett, and this is On Being. In an odyssey through music, the songs of women, Nathalie Joachim is immersing in Haiti’s ecological and political traumas, as well as its beauty and its promise. Krista Tippett, host: Nathalie Joachim is a magnetic voice of one of the unexpected aspects of our globalized world - new generations reclaiming and falling in love anew with the places their parents left.
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