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Richie’s body of work speaks for itself. He has written many hit songs for Zenglen and himself. In only 10 years, he already has 7 albums under his belt: “5 Dwèt”, “Let it Groove”, “Do it Right”, “5 Etwal”,
“Happy 50”, “Back to the Future”, “5’em Vitès”, and now “10 Ans Plus Tard/A Decade Later”. Furthermore, he wrote the majority of these albums.
No one can undermine Richie’s talent as an outstanding musician and a good songwriter. No one in in modern days Compas has written more songs than Richie. However, just like every great performer and songwriter he has reached the point where he can no longer evolve. His head has hit the ceiling. His pen game started to get rusty on the “Back to the Future” album, where he failed to deliver at least a major hit song. His lack of inspiration has started to show tremendously; there have been far too many “adaptations” on every album started from “Happy 50” to this solo album with the exception of “5em Vitès”. Was it necessary to have two medleys (combination or mixture of many different songs turn into one song) on this album? It’s ok to remake or remix classic hits, but Richie seems to over-doing it with the “medleys” and he hasn’t been properly given credit to original authors of those classics hits that he’s been remaking. By simply writing “doits reserves” as credits for these songs doesn’t show artistic integrity.
This review was written with honestly and respect for art. It is not to undermine or discredit Richie as a talented musician and songwriter as well as to deny his outstanding contribution to Compas, but simply to contribute to the advancement of the Haitian music.
“Cap Haitien Je T’aime” and “Happy 20” were the first two singles of the album; this review will not focus on them.
