Michaël Brun Brings Bayo Block Party Tour Back to Little Haiti

In late July, while commercial music festivals around the country were inundating revelers with days-long performances, Haiti-born DJ/producer Michaël Brun ignited Central Park's SummerStage with a Haitian-Caribbean fusion unique to his native country. The jam-packed experience culminated Brun's summer Bayo Block Party Tour, a unique concept he started seven years ago in Jacmel, Haiti.

"We were in the studio, had some free time, and went into the downtown area by the water and wanted to play music," Brun recalls. "We set up a car to light the street, and then we brought out a speaker and started playing music. A really close collaborator, J. Perry, was there, Walshy Fire, and another artist called Strong G. We started freestyling and putting on a show, and people walked up. It was like maybe 50 people in the beginning, and when we did that experience, I realized I loved the sense of community we had created."

After that impromptu block party in Jacmel, Brun brought the concept to Port-au-Prince and Thomazeau, a small hamlet outside the capital, to make the shows accessible to locals. Since then, the 31-year-old global DJ has expanded the tour to the U.S., where he's headlined a string of sold-out shows alongside a bevy of Haitian, Caribbean, African, and Latin American performers.

In July, he went from Montreal to New York City, where he surprised the crowd with 20 special guests, including French singer-songwriter Lolo Zouai, Miami-based Haitian party curator DJ Bullet, Masego, Naika, J. Perry, and other iconic Haitian artists. The last stop of the October leg of the tour will bring the experience back to the Little Haiti Cultural Center on October 28. The show will mark the first time the tour has returned to Miami since 2019 and its digital experience in 2020.

Brun, who lived in Miami for seven years, says Little Haiti represents the diasporic connection at the core of Bayo, which means "to give" in Haitian Creole.

"I've always considered Miami a second home. My Guyanese side of the family lives here. I'm half Haitian and half Guyanese, so I came to Miami often growing up, and it feels like an extension of a lot of the things I knew growing up in Haiti," Brun tells New Times. "Doing the events here almost feels like doing it in a safe space. I was like, 'Oh, okay, these are my people.' This city is truly an inflection point of the Caribbean across all of these different countries."

Brun has built a reputation as a global DJ who tinges EDM and dance tracks with traditional Haitian genres, such as rara, konpa, and rabòday. He also weaves Caribbean and Latin influences into his productions; most notably, he scored a hit alongside frequent collaborator and friend J. Balvin with the 2018 World Cup anthem, "Positivo."

On his recent EP, Fami Summer, he packs the three-track offering with artists and production styles from all over the globe. "Shut Up and Dance" pairs Puerto Rican-American actor/singer Anthony Ramos and Trinidadian soca band Kes with Ghanaian singer-songwriter King Promise. The sun-kissed track "Closer" features dancehall artist Stalk Ashley's and British multihyphenate Kojey Radical's vocals over pop-amapiano instrumentals. And Brun's and J. Perry's konpa hit, "Jessica," recruits dancehall singer Charly Black, Guyanese-American rapper Saint Jhn, and J. Balvin for a cultural link-up reminiscent of a Caribbean fete.

Brun, along with Miami-based manager and Creative Titans label head Ron Telford, traveled to Kingston, Jamaica, at the beginning of the year to record the EP and to collaborate with some of the feature artists like Stalk Ashley and Charly Black. Brun says the trip was the catalyst for the EP's collaborative element.

"We went down there for a few weeks and linked up with so many artists out there," Brun says. "At the same time, I was working on stuff with a couple of other people remotely. I worked with Buju [Banton] remotely, and it was a nice combination of the new artists coming up and those '90s dancehall stars who influenced me growing up. It was an honor to work with intergenerational icons at every level."
"Jessica," a traditional konpa track Brun collaborated on with Haitian pop singer J. Perry, was workshopped and released piecemeal on social media before becoming an official song. The fans became the most important collaborators on the song while Brun and Perry crafted it in real-time, an intimate creative process fans seldom get invited into.

"We had always talked about doing a konpa song but had never done it, neither of us. It's a drum rhythm, a really simple guitar; it's the keys and the konpa solo. I did it as a voice note first," he explains, demonstrating the rhythm of the song with his voice. "Right as I was about to lay down everything, I looked at [Perry], and I was like, 'Let's build this song on the internet.'"

By the time the summer stops on the Bayo tour rolled around, the song was among the most anticipated by fans. When J. Perry couldn't make the Montreal show, Brun FaceTimed him so he could witness the song being played in front of a crowd for the first time. What he heard from the crowd gave him chills.

"I could hear the energy and all the people singing 'Jessica.' I had goosebumps the whole way through. It was amazing," Perry tells New Times.

Brun released a series of singles leading up to the EP, including the Masego, Jozzy, and Bayka-assisted "Charge It," a whirlwind track steaming with a dancehall and R&B infusion. He also teamed up with Latin pop star Becky G and British singer Anne-Marie on the bright Latin pop track "Coming Your Way."

Brun's music not only builds on his experimentation but synthesizes the core of his Bayo concert series: community and connection.

He forgoes a festival roster and only hints at special guests by adding an "and friends" addendum. Bayo is meant to be immersive, not a flash-in-the-pan production. He dances, jumps, sings, and engages directly with the crowd while bringing out artists, from esteemed Haitian pioneers (in 2022, Wyclef Jean joined him on stage during the tour's New York stop at Pier 17) to Nigerian artists like Mr. Eazi. The experience is communal and welcomes everyone to experience the magnetism of Haitian pride and culture.

"I want there to be love and passion and connection, and the way I know how to do that best is through art and creating spaces that feel welcoming," Brun says. "You're getting a chance to see the best of the best from Haiti on the same stage as the best of the best from anywhere in the world, and there's no difference in quality."

Brun plans to keep traveling Bayo all over the world and wants to become a global bridge linking genres and artists across the African and Latin American diasporas. Like Daft Punk to EDM or Pharrell to fashion, Brun is a cultural ambassador via his genre-bending, boundary-defying production.

"I don't want anyone to question when you hear a song that's multilingual or transitioning genres within the same song," he expresses. "I want it to feel natural. The cultures are united. I think of my job as a DJ. You don't know where the mix starts or ends. It takes you on a journey, and that's what a great bridge does. It takes you on a journey."

Bayo Block Party Tour. With Michael Brun. 6 p.m. Saturday, October 28, at the Little Haiti Cultural Center, 212 NE 59th Ter., Miami; bayotour.com. Tickets cost $66.57 via dice.fm.