🥁🎶🇬🇵🎤🎹 Mizik Filamonik, released in 1979, is one of the monuments of Gwoka, in the vein of Robert Oumaou’s Gwakasonné works. It was also Luc-Hubert Séjor‘s first album. Born in Sainte-Anne, Séjor is a leading figure in Guadeloupean culture, at the crossroads of traditional music, the transmission of the Creole language and reflection on cultural identity. The album opens with two particularly innovative tracks, Eritage and Pein’ E Plézi, a Gwoka jazz fusion, sometimes with Latin overtones, where Anick Noël’s keyboards meet the drums and percussion played by Roger Raspail, Claude Vamur, Eric Danquin and Rudy Monpierre, in a spirit close to that brought by Jacques Marie-Basse to Gaoulé Mizik. Séjor sings and harangues and mingles with the flutes of Françoise Lancréot and Olivier Vamur. On the B side, Lukuber returns to the gwoka tradition, with a mix of singing and answering, to bring to life the memory of slavery and deportation in three Vouwayages that recount the history and foundations of Guadeloupean culture. The dreamlike cover painting of Mizik Filamonik was painted by Jocelyne Béroard and given to Séjor as a gift. He was struck by the resemblance between the character depicted and Vélo, whom the singer had never met. The album has become virtually impossible to find on vinyl, but is also available on CD.
Mizik Filamonik, Spiritual Sound – Luc-Hubert Séjor, 1979
