CD Review | Saponification (Self-produced, 2023)

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Saponification
Waahli
Self-produced, December 2023

Buoyed by the success of his album Soap Box, which earned him a nomination at the 2023 ADISQ Gala in the “Album of the Year – Multilingual and Other Languages” category, Montreal singer-songwriter Waahli, also named Révélation Radio-Canada 2023-2024, releases his new EP, Saponification.

On the menu are four songs in the Afro-Caribbean artist’s distinctive style. He celebrates his Haitian cultural roots by infusing them with the influence of a number of Afro-Caribbean and Afro-futurist artists, with grooves that combine Creole funk, reggae, Afro-beat and, above all, alternative hip hop. The artist’s entire musical offering is based on this style of music, in fact, which perfectly reflects his commitment to his community. The text of the fourth song, “Diaspo en diapo,” which is dedicated to the Haitian diaspora, attests to this.

The new mini-album is co-produced by Lou Piensa, a member of the hip-hop group Nomadic Massive, co-founded in the early 2000s with Waahli. It was with Nomadic Massive that Waahli released his first solo album Black Soap in 2018, followed by Soap Opera in 2020. Curious fact: the recurrence of the word “soap” and related words in the musician’s titles refer to his other profession—he’s an organic soap manufacturer!