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A person with short-cropped blonde hair sits in front of a set of drums, hands resting on their drumsticks.

Photo by Richard Louissaint.

Artists

Val Jeanty aka Val-Inc

She // Her // Hers

Afro-Electronica Composer, Turntablist, and Drummer

Lowell, Massachusetts

Vodou culture has always been my source of inspiration as it introduces abstract compositions that encapsulate new ways of thinking and creating. Each rhythm produces its own unique set of resonances, and all of these sounds have at some point influenced one another, merging into a vibrational ocean of Haitian ancestral legacy.”

Val Jeanty, also known as Val-Inc, is a Haitian Afrofuturist, drummer, turntablist, and Professor at Berklee College of Music. Jeanty is a pioneer of the electronic music subgenre called Afro-Electronica (also called "Vodou-Electro") incorporating Haitian folkloric rhythms with digital instrumentations by synergistically combining acoustics with electronics and the archaic with the postmodern.

Jeanty’s Afro-Electronica performances include the Whitney Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Venice Biennale in Italy, and the House of the World’s Cultures in Berlin. Jeanty is the recipient of various grants including the 2017 Van Lier Fellowship, the NYSCA/Roulette 2019 Residency Fellowship, and the 2022 Toulmin NYU / Center for Ballet and the Arts Fellowship.

Donor -This award was generously supported by the Barr Foundation.

This artist page was last updated on: 08.19.2024

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“The Electric Vodou Sound of Val-Inc” on BESE Meets.

Video by BESE Meets.

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“Experience Ginen” (Haitian Kreyòl: “where we came from,” in Vodou), Traka by Val Jeanty.

Video courtesy of Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.