It’s Kanaval time once again and Haiti’s most popular bands are gearing up for the annual battle of the bands, being held in Cap-Haitian Feb. 10, 11 and 12. New music is being dropped left and right and the lyrics are filled with shots at the opposition.

Each band competes in hopes of winning that year’s Kanaval title by giving the best performances and having the strongest fan base. Bands will go great lengths to win, sometimes even hunting down the juiciest gossip about an opposing band, all at the delight and amusement of fans.

Last year, T-Vice’s Kanaval title was “CEC La Qualitee,” purposely written to mimic Shabba, one of the Djakout1′s lead singers. Shabba mistakenly used the word CEC when he was given a list of homophones during a concert between T-Vice and Djakout1. In return, Djakout1 titled their Kanaval, “Bato Fransè Maron,” it was taken from an interview when Roberto Martino, T-Vice’s lead singer, made a grammatical error.

T-Vice ended up winning Kanaval in Les Cayes, thanks to great success of both their songs and videos. The band also won at Carnaval Des Fleurs, which took place over the summer in Port-au-Prince. For that, T-Vice believes it is “Mèt Beton,” loosely translated as masters of the streets – or best in the business.

Djakout1, one of T-Vice’s greatest competitors, believed they should have won Carnaval Des Fleurs, so competition is expected to be especially fierce this year. On Friday Jan. 25th, Djakout1 dropped “Kite Koken” which translates to “Stop being a Thief,” and Jan. 28th, T-Vice dropped “Lage Bonm Nan” translated as, “drop the bomb.” The polemic goes on … as
CaRiMi dropped, “Chimano Manay” against Kreyol La who dropped “Mimi Bwè Le Lait.” K- Zino dropped, ” Bay Lari a”, with some of the lyrics intended to mock Michael Benjamin for his failure with the band Kon’Beat.

T-Vice and Djakout1’s lyrics claimed there wouldn’t be a Kanaval without their presence… We
can only wait to see who’s going to own the BETON this year.