Musicians - Toto Bissainthe

Home > Listing Index > Musicians > Toto Bissainthe

	Musicians - Toto Bissainthe

Marie Clotilde "Toto" Bissainthe was a Haitian actress and singer known for her innovative blend of traditional Vaudou and peasant themes and music with contempory lyricism and arrangements. Born in Cap-Haïtien in 1934, she left Haiti an an early age to pursue her studies abroad. Her career started in theatre with the company Griots, of which she was a founding member in 1956. Griots was at the vanguard of négritude inspired cultural institutions in France, and was the first African dramatic company in Paris.

With a groundbreaking performance in 1973 at La vieille grille in Paris, Toto Bissainthe established herself as singer-songwriter-composer, stunning the audience with her soul-stirring renditions of original compositions that paid hommage to the lives, struggles, miseries and spirituality of working class and rural Haitians.

An artist in exile, Toto Bissainthe will be unable to return to the Haiti that so inspired her until the departure of Jean-Claude Duvalier in 1986. However, the multiple disappointments of the unending democratic transition and political infighting would forever embitter the outspoken artist, who had long dreamed of a return to help rebuild her motherland. Saddened by Haiti's social and political degradation, Toto Bissainthe's health would enter a downward spiral ending with her passing from liver damage on June 4th, 1994.

Discography

Toto à New York, Chango, 1975

Toto chante Haïti; Arion, 1977; Prix de la chanson TF1 1978; reissued 1989

Haïti Chanté; Chant du Monde; reissued 1995

Coda; reissued 1996

World Network Vol. 43: Haiti (with Ti Koka); World Network; 1999

Bibliography

"Toto (Marie-Clotilde) Bissainthe" pp 153-159 in Mémoire de femmes by Jasmine Claude-Narcisse, UNICEF Haïti, 1997

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Toto Bissainthe ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Toto Bissainthe; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay