Overview:
Haitian musician Paul Beaubrun says his new album, Vertières, connects the historic battle that helped secure Haiti’s independence with his own personal journey of transformation. He will perform the album live in the United States for the first time Saturday, Nov. 14, at Joe’s Pub in New York, four days before the anniversary of the 1803 battle.
NEW YORK — For Paul Beaubrun, Vertières is more than a battle in Haiti’s history. It is also a personal struggle — one that forced him to look into himself, confront himself and rethink what it means to be free.
That idea runs through Vertières, his new album, which draws inspiration from the Battle of Vertières, the decisive fight on Nov. 18, 1803, that helped secure Haiti’s independence from France. Beaubrun gives the historic moment personal meaning, connecting the courage of those who fought for freedom to his journey in making this album.
Beaubrun will perform music from Vertières live for the first time Saturday, Nov. 14 at Joe’s Pub in New York. The concert comes four days before the anniversary of the Battle of Vertières, the historic fight that helped bring an end to the French colonial rule and paved the way for Haiti’s independence in 1804.
“For me, saying Vertières, I don’t take it lightly,” Beaubrun told The Haitian Times. “It’s a way to always shine light on an incredible achievement, to not forget that. But at the same time, on this album, I took that light to myself, to be more personal. So, it’s all about my own Vertières, my own battle within myself and to look at myself honestly.”
The title track makes that connection clear. Beaubrun links himself to figures who fought for freedom and helped shape history, including Haiti’s independence leader Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Dutty Boukman, a Vodou leader and organizer of the 1791 uprising against French colonial rule, and Malcolm X, the American civil rights leader and human rights activist. The song reflects his belief that the people who came before him are part of who he is today.
“I am Vertières, I am Dessalines, I am Malcolm X, I am Boukman” begins the title track, acknowledging that those who came before Beaubrun made him who he is today “I am what I am, I am free, I am what I am, this land won’t bury me,” the track continues.
Musician Paul Beaubrun at Haiti Cultural Exchange during a listening party for Vertières at Haiti Cultural Exchange in Brooklyn on Aug. 1, where he shared new music ahead of the album’s official release. Photo by Bill Farrington for The Haitian Times.
The performance will have two parts, Beaubrun said. The first will focus on the new album, with its songs, the colors, the images. The second will revisit older songs, giving the audience a chance to hear music from different points in his career.
“We want to play past songs and bring them into a whole story of the journey also,” he said. “My personal journey, yes.”
Paul said the audience may also be in for a big surprise.
An album born from personal change
The songwriting process began several years ago, after Beaubrun went through what he described as a major personal transformation.
“I went through a major transformation two or three years ago that definitely ignited this flame, this fire in me, to just write music,” he said. “I didn’t know it was going to be this. But I was just writing what I felt within.”
Beaubrun said he began by writing through what he was experiencing and accepting where he was in that moment. Over time, those songs took shape as a larger story.
“If you listen to the album, it’s a story,” he said. “Every song, the way that I crafted it with the people who were helping me and collaborating with me, it was super intentional, to make sure it’s like writing a book.”
That sense of intention also shaped the album’s sound.
During the recording process, Beaubrun worked closely with his longtime friend and collaborator Kolo, with his uncle Daddy Beaubrun also helping shape the music. Singer-composer Michael Brun produced one of the tracks, “Don’t Let Them Get Away” featuring the rappers known as Xiuhtezcatl and Badio.
He described the recording process as both technical and personal. The collaborators paid close attention to how the voices and instruments were recorded, aiming for a sound that felt raw rather than overly polished.
“There are chapters, and that’s what this album is. It’s a chapter of my life, of the transformation that I was going through.”
“We wanted the architecture of the sound of the album to sound a certain way,” he said. “And to be raw, to be real, and to be felt.”
Paul Beaubrun introduces his upcoming album Vertières during a listening party at Haiti Cultural Exchange in Brooklyn on Aug. 1, where he shared new music ahead of the album’s November release. Photo by Bill Farrinton for The Haitian Times.
For Sarah Bell, a 20-year-old Manhattan resident and recent graduate, Beaubrun’s music offers an experience that goes beyond understanding the words.
“When I listen to Paul, I feel like it’s a spiritual experience,” Bell said. “I feel so many different Caribbean genres tied together through his voice.”
Even without understanding the Creole lyrics, she said, she feels connected to the music.
“Music has no barriers,” she said. “Even if someone may not know what he is saying in Creole, I feel connected to it.”
Bell recalled first hearing Beaubrun perform in a friend’s backyard. The music felt calming, she said, and created a space where people could come together.
“It felt like I was listening to a story,” she said. “Paul was telling a story.”
A family influence onstage
One of the most meaningful parts of Saturday’s concert will be sharing the stage with his uncle, Daddy, a musician whose work helped shape Beaubrun’s own relationship with music.
Daddy is a composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist and a former leader and founding member of the Grammy-nominated band Boukman Eksperyans, best known as a pioneer of the music rasin movement.
Daddy helped guide the younger musician during the making of the album. Beaubrun said his uncle offered advice while allowing him the freedom to develop his own sound.
“He gave me the liberty to express myself the way that I felt,” Beaubrun said. “It wasn’t like, ‘Paul, you need to do it the way that I want.’ It was like, ‘Yeah, I hear you. Go.’ But he was guiding at the same time.”
For Beaubrun, performing alongside his uncle is also a chance to share a moment he once imagined as a child growing up in Haiti.
“When I was a child growing up with Boukman, seeing him was like I was seeing Jimi Hendrix,” he said. “And I’m not joking, because he was that person for a lot of us in Haiti, including me.”
Daddy Beaubrun will join him on bass. The concert lineup will also include Daden Beaubrun on drums, Morgan Zwerlein on Haitian drums and Yatande on Haitian drums.
For Beaubrun, the performance brings together the different threads behind Vertières: Haiti’s history, the music that shaped him, the people who helped him grow as an artist and the personal changes that led him to make the album.
The historic battle remains at the heart of the project. But Beaubrun’s message reaches beyond remembering what Haitians achieved in 1803. It asks what freedom means in a person’s own life — and what kind of change begins when people are willing to face themselves. But at the same time, it represents also the battle within. Are you able to face yourself fully and truly and honestly?” he said.
“If we want any change, any revolution, what I believe is that it has to come from within,” he said. “It has to come from the heart, has to come from the consciousness.”
