Celebrate Brooklyn 2007

As part of their yearly summer festival, Celebrate Brooklyn hosted Bonga, the Vodou Drums of Haiti, and the founding fathers of Zouk, Kassav on Saturday August 4th. This is Celebrate Brooklyn 30th year bringing world-class music to the borough of Kings. Brooklyn is a melting pot, thus diversity is no stranger to Brooklyn, and as such, with its large French/Creole speaking residents, especially Haitians, Prospect Park became a piece of the Caribbean as Kassav and Bonga jammed a crowd of approximately five thousands.

Under the leadership of the percussionist Gaston Jean-Baptiste aka Bonga, the Vodou Drums of Haiti rocked the crowd performing Haitian roots with the essence of Africa. Whereas, having been out of New York City for at least a decade, Kassav unbelievably jammed the long awaited crowd.

One common comment from the crowd is that everyone has relived the 80’s for the event was reminiscent of the 1980’s. Alix Dubuison 45 years old of Queens shouted "I am feeling younger again; this is the Kassav I knew as a young man growing up in Saint-Marc, Haiti". This is after all what music is all about and Celebrate Brooklyn does a good service by providing just that.

Haitianite.com takes pride in congratulating the organizers of Celebrate Brooklyn, in particular, Liana Hawes, for Bonga and the Drums of Haiti and Blake Zidell of Prospect Park, whose efforts contributed greatly to the success of this event. I encourage you to visit and support Celebrate Brooklyn events as they strive to bring us world-class music.

Click Here for pictures of this event.