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The following is an excerpt from a PBS documentary about Toussaint Louverture that aired in 2009. The whole program is available on YouTube. I was familiar with the name, but didn’t know much else about the history of Haiti.
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An acquaintance of mine was in Managua for the Concierto por La Paz in 1983. He recorded much of it and made me some tapes. “El Sombrero Azul” was my favorite song on those tapes. When I came back from Nicaragua in 1988 and was suffering from severe reverse culture shock, I played it over and over and over until the tape wore out. But fortunately, the concert was video recorded and many of the performances have been uploaded to YouTube.
Alí Primera was a musician, composer, poet, and Venezuelan political activist.