Rest in power Gary Didier Perez
Pascale Doresca
Rest in Power Gary Didier Perez!
I once had a crush—my very first celebrity crush—on Gary Didier Perez. It was a secret that I was too embarrassed to utter. I nursed it in my core, protected it against the world, and dwelled in it until— like all crushes do— it dwindled and died. It was the early 1990s, I was a brainy teenager whose worldview was being shaped by the reverberations of the post Duvalier era, the blossoming democratic impulses being hatched by the new world order, and the new music genre or Konpa’s newest version— la Nouvelle Generation— that defined that epoch. I loved that genre for the way it articulated the love of country into the tapestries of every song. I also loved the artistry with which it reaffirmed our identity and the joy that was infused into the melodies. The musicians of the New Generation were bold in a sense that felt new. They were meticulous and confident. They honed their craft as if their lives depended on it. Beethov, Emeline, Fabrice, Master Dji, Ralph Conde, Gary Didier Perez were among those trailblazers charting a new path. While I loved and still love all things Beethov through this day, I was in love with Gary Didier Perez. His voice was a treat that could put me into a trance. I never got a chance, though, to see him perform live.
Fidel was a manifesto for the New generation. It details what the genre was about: loyal, unapologetic, Haitian. In Ou Te Met Ale, another favorite, he is telling a girlfriend who wants to leave Haiti that she can leave and move on, that he will be ok, and that he has everything he needs in Haiti, peyi lanmou, peyi tandrès. At times It felt like the woman in question was one of those Haitians who at the time were wrestling with the to-leave-or-to-stay dilemma. But at other times, the woman in question felt like the anti-Haiti cool aid that Haitians were being fed, and the song was urging them to wake up into their power and be governors of the dew, sons of the sun, and the true freedom fighters that had ever existed.
Most of all, I loved the poetry of the songs, the tender inflections that undergird them. In Souvernir, someone in the diaspora is calling someone at home and asking “are the beaches still breathtaking? Are there palm trees and mango trees still?” For some reasons, the artists of that generation shouldered the burden of carrying Haiti’s flag and doing the leg work that the rest of society refused to do.
We, who were coming of age, were lucky in a way we did not understand at the time. We were bathed in poetry, spoon-fed beauty, renewed over and over. Thank you Gary Didier Perez! Hearing of your passing, I am reminded of Cat Stevens’s Oh Very Young:
Oh very young, what will you leave us this time
You're only dancin' on this earth for a short while
And though your dreams may toss and turn you now
They will vanish away like your dads best jeans
Denim blue, faded up to the sky
And though you want them to last forever
You know they never will
You know they never will
And the patches make the goodbye harder still
Oh very young what will you leave us this time
There'll never be a better chance to change your mind
And if you want this world to see a better day
Will you carry the words of love with you
Will you, will you ride the great white bird into heaven
And though you want to last forever
You know you never will
You know you never will
And the goodbye makes the journey harder still
Will you carry the words of love with you
Will you ride, oh, ooh
Oh very young, what will you leave us this time
You're only dancin' on this earth for a short while
Oh very young, what will you leave us this time
https://youtu.be/bP6B9HttRI8?si=-0kXP6Y-HjJ7sQuo
Pascale Doresca
8/31/2025