canada - Haiti Observer Blog

Wyn Belotte is a promising Canadian footballer who was a standout at the Nantes youth academy. The academy club is recognised for its rigid but effective youth system, as well as the national teams at 17. Belotte scored four goals in World Under-17 Championship qualifying tournament. Then he decided he wanted first-team football and bolted to Norkopping in the Swedish Premier where he couldn't play until turning 18.

Though Belotte's parents were from Haiti, he was born in Canada in 1984. He is not the first footballer of his family as his uncle André played for the Haiti national soccer team of under-16. Belotte was called for the youth national team for the World Youth Cup competition in 2001.

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Maxime Fortunus, a Canadian professional ice hockey Defense player, was born on July 28, 1983, in La Prairie, Quebec, Canada. A son of Haitian parents, who immigrated to Canada before Fortunus was born, he is one of only a handful of Haitian-American professional hockey players in North America. He currently plays for both the Dallas and Texas Stars in the National Hockey League (NHL).

Maxime Fortunus, at five-feet eleven and two-hundred and two pounds, began his ice hockey career in early 1999, with the Midget AAA hockey team in the Charles Lemoyne Riverains League. Later in 1999, he began playing junior ice hockey as a second-round draftee choice, for the Baie-Comeau Drakkar team, under the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League banner (QMJHL). He became a professional player in 2003, playing for the Louisiana Ice Gators team.

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Obed Cetoute was born on January 7, 1983 in Montreal, Canada, as the son to a Haitian woman who had migrated to Canada to escape the poverty that is so rampant in the Caribbean country. At the tender age of 14 he expressed his desire to play well organized professional football. His mother was reluctant to let him go, as she wanted his son to follow the path to academic excellence. It took the intervention of Obed's uncle, who took it upon himself to convince her that football is a noble profession.

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Antoine Craan was born in Port au prince on the eve of January 17, 1931. He relocated to Canada at the age of 24 years to play professional soccer for Le Tricolore de Montreal in the province of Quebec. He made history by being one of the two black players in the region. He then went on to work in the Ligue de Soccer Minuer in the 1960s. He continued to ascend the career ladder when he became the technical director of Federation de Soccer du Quebec, which recognized his contribution to soccer and embedded his name in its soccer hall of fame in 2001.

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Melissa Laveaux is a brilliant music artist of Haitian origin born on January 9, 1985 in Montreal, Quebec. Her songs are based on different themes and genres. She has inspired a lot of new talent in the Canadian music industry. She is a song writer, a vocalist and a guitar player. Her lyrics are quiet touching and are inspired by her life experiences. She has great talent and is very determined.

Melissa Laveaux has spent most of her childhood times in learning guitar on her own. When she was of the age 6, she lost her check which was meant to pay for her piano teacher. With discipline and constant practice, she worked her to expertise on her guitar and vocal skills.

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Muzion, a rap group popular in Canada and Haiti was formed in Montreal in 1996. The group actually stated up by the rap artists belongs to Haiti origin. The three young resilient artists behind this group were Dramatik, impose and L-kyll. With very little time, the trio could confirm their talent and established the posse as the best rap group in Quebec.

The group Muzion bags many of the awards and the most renowned are the Félix Awards which the group got first in the year 2000 for its debut Mentalité Moune Morne and then in 2003 for their second work in the Hip Hop category J'Rêvolutionne. With these awards their recognition in the industry becomes more obvious. La vi ti neg, the track is the one that provided the group it first international acclaim.

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Ottawa has been a birth place of many Canadian hip hop, rap and pop music artists. Olivier Jarda is one such name. He was born in Ottawa and belongs to the Haitian origin. He has interest in the music since his childhood days. He spent most of the time of his youth in New Brunswick playing drums and guitar for his two local music groups; Turnstiles and Ted Neely Beard. He completed his under graduation from Halifax and went to University Of Oxford for his masters studies.

While returning to Canada from UK, Olivier Jarda made up his mind to pursue the music career. He worked hard on his compositions and singing and finally came up with his debut album Diagrams in the year 2008. His constant efforts towards his pop music career have helped him to get a special recognition in the music industry over a small period of time. His new album Good Luck Cartel has got appreciations from many artists. He worked on this album for two winters and gave it a final recording at the Halifax.

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She is a well to do musician who has been able to gain a lot from her career. Regine Chassagne was born in born 18 August 1977 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada where by Canadian-Haitian parents who had immigrated to Canada during the reign of president Duvalier who was a renowned dictator in the country facilitating the death of so many of the country's citizens and the fleeing of a larger group of people.

Regine Chassagne was thus raised in Canada where she also noticed her interests and talent in the music industry and was involved with a couple of bands where they did a couple of great hits. She then met Win Butler with whom they co-founded the band group arcade fire which was a huge success for them.

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Roi Heenok is also known as Heenok Beauséjour. He is Canadian rapper of Haitian lineage. He was born in 1974 in Haiti but currently lives in Montreal. He always used a weird slang and terminology with a lot of repeated sentences, more similar to a contact language.

He used this language so as to be understood by various audiences. Roi Heenok directly translated English terms to French and used them while rapping. This gave his music some humor. For example the song pute nègre, translates to bitch nigger. His lyrics were sung slowly when compared to other raps. He does his music in a tortuous style of a loan as shown in the first album titled Rap Music Cocaïno. It was launched in 2008.

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Born in Ottawa of Haitian of Haitian parents, DL Incognito has given remarkable hip hop music to the world. He started his music career in 1998 and faced many challenges and stiff competition. He never gave up despite all his life's ups and downs. His challenges have been a real inspiration for him. The real name of DL Incognito is Oliver Nestor. He is a Canadian hip hop rapper as well as a producer. With his real hard work and awesome hip hop tracks, he has been nominated for the best rap recording for couple of times by the Juno Award.

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