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Former star singer Joseph Jacques, higher referred to as Joe Jack, died in Montréal on April 11, 2025, at 88. Blind since infancy, Jacques captivated generations with the heartfelt tales in his music, abandoning a robust legacy that helped form Haitian tradition.
CAP-HAÏTIEN — Singer Sheila Degraff was casually scrolling on Fb whereas she sat shotgun in her buddy’s automotive on Friday, April 11, round 5:00 p.m. They have been on their approach to a style present in Brooklyn, New York. Degraff all of the sudden stopped scrolling on one of many posts and browse it with a heavy coronary heart. Shocked!
“This morning, Haitian music misplaced considered one of my favourite artists, Mr. Joe Jacques,” the publish’s first sentence from legendary pianist Fabrice Rouzier learn.
Joseph Jacques, a blind accordionist, pianist and singer higher referred to as Joe Jack, was additionally considered one of Degraff’s favourite singers since she was a baby within the Seventies. She shared the information together with her buddy and the 2 listened to considered one of Jacques’ most well-known hits collectively within the automotive, “Pwofesè Lekòl,” Creole for Faculty Instructor.
“A legend left, however he was somebody who accomplished his mission,” Degraff informed The Haitian Instances in a telephone interview on April 13.
“I reminisced on how a lot of an infinite expertise Joe Jack was [while listening to the song],” Degraff added. “I’m listening to the way in which he put his verses, the way in which he transitioned, the way in which he informed tales. I discovered yet again how large of an artist he was.”
Jacques died in Montréal on April 11. His household and family members have but to announce the reason for his dying. He was 88.
The dying of the Haitian Konpa singer has left many artists and followers from the older era with heavy hearts. Jacques was a sensation in Haiti’s musical scene in the course of the Seventies and Eighties. His music was usually performed on the radio, mesmerising younger men and women along with his soothing voice and heartfelt lyrics. He usually informed a sensitive story that resonated with the viewers.
As an illustration, in “Pwofesè Lekòl,” he sings a couple of girl he was eager about who misplaced curiosity as a result of he didn’t make a lot cash as a instructor. Later within the music, after changing into a star, he tells her he might now introduce her to somebody much more enticing thats eager about him.
“I needed to see what destinities the blind man had as a result of a number of the time while you’re blind, folks suppose it’s over.”
Ritchy Jean, content material creator
Jacques captured the eye of his viewers along with his expertise, regardless that he had been blind since he was one. Jacques’ artistry and perspective left a legacy rivaled by only some, along with his blindness providing a singular lens into his storytelling.
“His voice, his sensitivity, his humor, and his contact, regardless of his blindness, stay good, Rouzier writes on Fb. “What number of instances have I listened to his recordings, what number of instances have I reread his autobiography, ‘The Blind Man with a Thousand Destinies’? Thanks, thanks, thanks.”
From escaping dying to rocking Haiti
Jacques hails from Gonaïves, the capital metropolis of the Artibonite Division. He moved to Boston in 1955 to attend Perkins Faculty for the Blind. In Boston, depressed as a result of he was going by many hardships concurrently, similar to affected by racism and his mom’s breakup along with his stepfather, Jacques tried to commit suicide by consuming 4 razor blades rolled up in a bit of tissue, in keeping with his autobiography, “The Blind Man with a Thousand Destinies.”
After shifting again to Haiti, Jacques taught English at École Saint-Vicent, a college for youngsters with disabilities, and in 1965, he recorded his first music, “Les Quatres Cloches,” French for “The 4 Bells.” He later moved to Montréal in the course of the Eighties.
Nicknamed the One-Man Band, Jacques produced a few of his most well-known hits between the Seventies and Eighties, together with “Pwofesè Lekol,” “Timidité” (or “Shyness”), “Love Story,” “Simplement Joe” (“Merely Joe”) and Stay in New York, amongst others, as reported by Le Nouvelliste.
Whereas Jacques is generally remembered for his music, he was additionally identified for his righteousness and sometimes advocated for human rights. Most millennials, together with Haitians born within the Eighties and early Nineteen Nineties, are unfamiliar with Jacques’s music and first heard about him because the music neighborhood has been discussing his profession after his dying. Some had heard his songs earlier than however didn’t know who the singer was.
A 2000’s child sudden love for Joe Jack’s music
Ritchy Jean, a content material creator in between jobs in Port-au-Prince, is among the few born within the 2000s who was a fan of Jacques earlier than his dying. Jean first heard about Jacques when he went to the Alliance Française library in Jérémie in April 2024. The title of Jacques’ autobiography caught his consideration, so he borrowed it to learn it.
“I needed to see what destinities the blind man had as a result of a number of the time while you’re blind, folks suppose it’s over,” Jean, 24, stated.
Jean began listening to Joe Jack’s music whereas studying the e book. His father and aunt have been shocked as a result of Jacques was not a part of his era. After listening to about Jacques’s dying, Jean was devastated, notably as a result of he felt that the late singer had unaccomplished goals, similar to constructing faculties for folks with disabilities, a dream Jacques shared in his autobiography.
“He had a number of goals,” Jean stated. “He made a number of them come true, however a number of them didn’t flip into actuality… I like his audacity. If he, as a blind man, did all this, us who can see can do the identical or much more.”
To a lot of Jacques’s die-hard followers, it will likely be a very long time earlier than Haiti can witness such a proficient man once more, so he should be remembered.
“These folks don’t come on earth like that,” Degraff stated. “He was a pillar, one perhaps each thousand years. He was an entire man, an important man.”