Moonlight Benjamin

Nicknamed “The Caribbean Patti Smith” by The Guardian, Moonlight Benjamin plays powerful and original music blending Caribbean Vodou melodies and 70s blues rock inspired by Dr John, Alabama Shakes, The Black Keys, and Oumou Sangaré.  Creative Alliance presents Moonlight Benjamin’s new performance, Wayo, which is a spellbinding cry of pain showcasing her thundering vocals and lyrical themes on faith, energy, and our connection to the source. These new songs from Haiti’s Vodou priestess delve deep, immersing her philosophical messages in heavy blues rapture; killer riffs; and hand-clapping, foot-stomping percussion.

Lineup
Moonlight Benjamin | Vocals
Matthis Pascaud | Guitar
Matthieu Vial-Collet | Guitar, Backing Vocals
Quentin Rochas | Bass, Backing Vocals
Bertrand Noel | Drums

Note: This will be a limited-seating dance party. Please email info@creativealliance.org for any accessibility needs.

Artist Bio
Moonlight Benjamin was born in 1971 in Haiti, and grew up in a protestant orphanage, learning how to sing at church. But she quickly left Church songs and gospel behind to find a more personal musical frame. She says: “I had a desire for music and after a few years in a Protestant orphanage, I felt the need to go to meet my original culture. The practice of singing in church was not enough for me anymore. I felt away from my culture and I had to confront myself, meet the strength of the earth, the strength of my country, this age-old strength that makes Haiti.” She sung then with many Haitian artists before leaving for Europe.

Welcomed in France in 2002 to perfect her musical training, Moonlight Benjamin’s first projects merged when she encountered musicians from Toulouse. She first became known with the band Dyaoulé Pemba (with which she’s been world music artists selection on the famous Printemps de Bourges Festival) then under her own name, under her own project, following her will to make Haiti and its story and culture better known.

Since 2013, she has performed with major jazz artists like saxophonist Jacques Schwarz-Bart and pianist Omar Sosa (projects: Jazz Rachine Haiti, Voodoo Jazz Trio, Creole Spirit), who were impressed by her vocal skills. In 2018, 12 years after she began her world music artist career and after two albums, and in parallel with jazz and world music collaborations she started with Omar Sosa and Jacques Schwarz-Bart, Moonlight Benjamin releases a new personal project and a third album Siltane, focused on a more electric music, supported by jazz-rock guitarist and arranger Matthis Pascaud.

Not afraid to experiment and not shackled by what is considered mainstream, she holds soul and fire of all Haitian people. She represents her country with unimaginable style by putting her voice on her own concerned lyrics or lyrics from famous Haitian writers. Moonlight Benjamin is a culmination of all your favorites from the heart of a woman who shares her culture with the rest of the world through her voice. She offers with her new album Siltane a journey along a revisited blues rock version of an authentic Creole culture which has a history of struggle for its recognition although it was the first “Black Republic” ever established in the world.