Clara Lyon: Where does the story of Fanm d’Ayiti begin?

Nathalie Joachim: My maternal grandmother passed away in September of 2015. She was a really important voice in my life and losing her had me thinking about her voice, and also what female voices in Haiti have meant to me, historically. 

One day after she had passed, I was having a casual conversation with my parents, and it was weird: I was thinking about these voices and how they are such a part of who I am, but also that – except for Emeline Michel – I couldn’t actually name any other female Haitian artists. So my parents and I started talking about which female artists they could remember. I still actually have the handwritten list from that evening, and there were really only a dozen names on it.