Female Rappers in Haiti Find Their Voice

Eunide Edouarin, aka Princess Eud, is relatively small but she commands attention, her voice strong but easy, a sly smile spreading across her face.

“I just got out of my head any notion that girls don’t rap or whatever, and I did what I needed to do,” says Princess Eud.

She grew up in a poor neighborhood on a hillside overlooking Port-au-Prince. She was one of seven children. She sang in church, and then joined a neighborhood rap group, followed by several bands including the group Mystik 703. Then she went solo, pairing up mostly with fellow 703 member, Ded Krezi.

Her growing fame at home led to invitations to play overseas, in Cuba and Japan. No matter that she raps in Creole.

Eud is now working on her first solo album, combining rap with a variety of other styles, to show off her range.

There is another popular Haitian female rapper, maybe less polished but just as powerful.

Jean Cylien Marie Innocent, aka Captain J. Ruff made a splash in 2006, when Wyclef Jean held a hip-hop competition in her Port-au-Prince neighborhood Belair. The theme: cleaning up the streets.

Of the 12 finalists, she was the only woman.

At the time of the competition, Belair was just recovering from a period of politicized gang violence. And J. Ruff began to work with a Brazilian group, Viva Rio, working with children as young as seven-years-old who had been drawn into the violence, in her neighborhood and others.

Her rapping focused on Belair, the violence but also the positive energy and the artists that have emerged from the neighborhood.

Like Eud, J Ruff is working on her first solo album. She recorded some in Rio and some in New York, and she’s living in a quieter neighborhood above town, but she hasn’t forgotten where she came from.

The name of the album: “Belair stand up.”