“DEEP ZOUK”: THE RESONANCE OF EPIGENETIC HEALING Le "Deep Zouk" : résonance de cure épigénétique En Fr

Résumé 0

Among the diverse theories that can be elaborated on the long-lasting curativepowers of music, there is one that has consistently been eschewed: the idea thattraumatic heritage appeals for a particular type of prognosis involvingtransgenerational artistic/psycholinguistic healing. This academic blindness isfurthermore evidenced by the scarcity of ethnomusicological studies devoted tothe genesis of specific black music in Western societies (Nettl 1990) and their rolein the communities that created them. The present paper aims, therefore, to showthat a collective transgenerational trauma like transatlantic slavery has had a long-standing impact on the “prolonged disorders of consciousness” (Magee 2018)affecting Afro-diasporic populations, but that it has also generated a ‘chorus ofcommon memory’ (Phillips 1995) suffusing Caribbean and Transamericanpoetics. In this respect, Zouk events, dances and concerts (since Zouk is an Afro-diasporic heritage) have counteractively played a major role in healing the psycheof Afrodescendants.Our thesis is consistent with the idea that trauma is not exclusively synonymouswith loss or suffering, as Patrick Chamoiseau deftly remarks when he associates itwith birth and creation: “[if] life is otherwise a long succession of happy times,this means, too, that trauma would not only be, as we too quickly imagine, theprivileged locus of pain, but also one instance of the formidable joy and exaltationprocured by the epiphany of beauty” (P. Chamoiseau, “L’esclavage : quelleinfluence sur notre poétique ?”, in Bowser & Charles-Nicolas, eds., L’esclavage :quel impact sur la psychologie des populations ? 2018: 446-447 – personal translation).While sublimating the horrors of the past, Zouk artists have inherited andcapitalized over an archive of communal experiences binding Afrodescendantsscattered all over the Americas with the aim of combining the diagnosis of thetrauma with its corresponding cure. In the process, they have developed acomplex aesthetics based on the dichotomy between the rhythms of diurnal epics(fighting, marooning and survival) and those of nocturnal aegis (remembranceand healing, wakes, and musical composition). These, and other aspects, willenable us to probe the depths of Zouk in the forty years of its evolution sinceKassav’ made it known to the world