Cerin, Nathalie

Nathalie Cerin has been singing all her life, but it wasn’t until 2009 that the singer-songwriter-performer decided to seriously pursue a career in singing. Talie, as she calls herself on stage, is Haiti-born and raised, but is pretty much a Philadelphian. Her creativity goes beyond songwriting; one of the fiction pieces she wrotewas recently anthologized in the book So Spoke the Earth. She also plays the guitar.

The singer-songwriter-guitarist has a BA in music, and is currently pursuing a graduate degree in Multicultural Education. Yes, she sings, but beyond the stage, she strives to be an intellectually-stimulated soul. Her stage presence is reminiscent of that of Joan Armatrading, the folksy-jazzy singer from the 1970s era. Her vocals? It’s hard to really pin-point her voice and draw comparisons. Maybe Talie can only be compared to, well, Talie.

While she has been known for her impressive song covers, Talie’s even more at home singing her own creations: like “Ti Nèg Shèlbè” and “Bèl Tifi” At the crux of the song “Ti Nèg Shèlbè” lies every woman’s nightmare: unrequited love. Wouch! The song is also about lust at first sight, and just plain admiring manly beauty. The song also touches upon gender role reversals. “Bèl ti gason, mwen wè se pou li tèt mwen ap pati/Sanble fwa sa m’ pral f’on deklarasyon! (Ooh, that fine boy/I’m going ballistic over him/Looks like this time around I’m going to have to tell him about my feelings). “Don’t do it girl! Don’t do it!” says the old-fashioned voice. “Go for it, go for it,” says the hardened feminist. The narrator’s confidence wanes and uncertainty comes into play. Podyab. “Tout kò’m komanse swe/Si li tonbe ri’m, li pa twouve’m bèl tifi,” reads the next set of lyrics [I’m sweating all over/What if he laughs at me/What if he doesn’t think I’m that pretty]. The song leaves the listener with a cliffhanger. But judging from all the vacillation that goes on from verse to verse, most likely the narrator decides to keep her feelings pent up. The Ti Nèg Shèlbè will never know how much he is admired; at least he won’t hear those words from that particular girl.

Check out the dope bridge at 1:25. The singer is practically doing vocal somersaults. Both songs are produced by beatmaker Poppy Duverne, who it turns out, has done a lot of production work; but Talie’s tracks are my first introduction to his work.

“Bèl Tifi” rings to the ear as the Haitian answer to India Irie’s song “Video” and singer Cherokee’s “I Love You…Me”. Self-love isn’t something that’s explored too much in Creole-language songs. Haitian women are so devalued at times, in spite of the fact that they are the stronghold of the Haitian community. And that devaluation often begins with the self.The lyrics depict a self-abhorring individual, who looks in the mirror and cannot manage to find anything to love. But as the lyrics indicate, the said individual’s reliance on others opinion of herself is slowly (but surely) corrupting her view of herself. A self-esteem that starts out weak in the beginning, slowly decays into negative self-talk, and bad self-image.

A song like “Bèl Tifi” should become many a woman’s self-love, self-esteem-raising anthem. How many of us look in the glas, the mirror and instead of admiring every God-gifted curve of ours—the shape of our noses, the size of our breasts, our height, and legs—we frown and look disheartened. Instead of grinning back at our reflection, we seem to say to the mirror, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, I know I’m ugly; but just thought I’d take a look.” When, in reality, we are bèl tifis.

Beyond talented, Talie is just what the Creole language music industry needs: originality, songwriting that speaks to the heart, music that cannot necessarily be pigeonholed into one category, but that attracts the ear regardless.

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