Marcé & Toumpak

Drummer Marce Pago, along with Dede St. Prix, took the torch first lit by Eugene Mona in the '70s and ran with it to bridge the gap between the growing early-'80s zouk scene and a rural percussive form of Martiniquan music called chouval bwa. Dispensing with chouval bwa's large bass-drum-like tambour, but adding electric instrumentation to the basic lineup of rhythmic vocals, hand drums, bamboo flute, and occasional accordion, both Marce and St. Prix took chouval bwa to a level of popularity right alongside zouk. Marce coined the term for this new form, "zouk chouv'," with his 1987 album of the same name. His early albums, prior to Zouk Chouv', are not strong on electric instruments and are, in fact, in many ways more in keeping with the return-to-roots trend of the '90s.
© Gene Scaramuzzo /TiVo