Vodou Child

Erol's work was a far cry from the U.S. music industry's version of Haitian music — bubbly compas tunes, a few balladeers, and rapper Wyclef Jean. The island nation's melodies haven't enjoyed the popularity of those of Afro-Cuban, salsa, or reggae. Haitian musicians who have succeeded incorporated other styles: Popular bands like Top Vice and Karess infused rock and jazz, while Nineties groups such as RAM and Boukman Eksperyans had a strong reggae flavor with some vodou-inspired beats.

"When I heard him, I was just amazed," says Valerie Jeanty, a Haitian immigrant living in New York who produces and performs what she calls "Afro-electronica" music. "I had goose bumps."

Adds Whitney Hunter, a New York choreographer and dancer: "His performances are really transcending. I can see a direct parallel of how he is as a spiritual leader and how he is as a secular performer, singing a song. He has a connection to the earth. You sense that he's really there, at that moment."

Erol spent the next two years living in Brooklyn with his older sister, Emelyne, and traveling the Northeast. He worked with the Interfaith Center in New York (a group devoted to religious tolerance and education) as a mediator for Haitian immigrants who were in court. He also did consulting at the Boston University Medical Center, where he taught med students about his culture's traditional faith healing. In 2004 the Boston Globe wrote about Erol's folk medicine: In Haiti, he explained, people ingest black-eyed peas to cure infections and mint leaves for stomach problems; he also showed how to use a wicker-and-wood chair to sap the power from a negative spirit.

In May 2007, Erol released Regleman on Mi5 Recordings, the world music division of EMI. It's a love letter to the vodou faith. The CD's first song, "Hounto Legba," reveals a conversation between the spirit of the drum and the god of wisdom, who opens the gates for all the spirits to enter the ceremony. The songs invoke the goddess of water, make reference to freed slaves, and refer to Erol's abuse at Catholic schoolteachers' hands. Traditional Afro-Haitian drumming is at the core of all of the disc's 13 songs, but each contains a different, funky gem — a violin here, a samba beat there.

Critics have loved it. One reviewer on poplife.com wrote, "The music on Regleman is so beautiful and the presentation so hip and nonchalantly pretty that it makes the zombie-slave blood-of-Satan notions of vodou look even more cartoonish than they already do."

The album is sold on Amazon.com and on iTunes, where one of the tracks is also featured on a world music compilation. In August the disc was highlighted on the "Global Hit" segment of BBC's The World radio program. Erol spoke about Haitians' relationship to music. "Music is our bible. For example, any situation in life has music. The music in Regleman is universal and I try to do a common language for people, but it's also personal. I can be inspired by that microphone and that situation and sing it."

Around the time the CD was released, Erol shifted his home, once again, to Miami. He says he missed the sun, the palm trees, and the texture of Little Haiti. Although he couch-surfs back and forth between Miami and New York, he considers Miami home base.

His nomadic life underscores his artistic personality. Erol is quirky, soft-spoken, and delicate in manner yet strong, with a dancer's body. He isn't punctual and, at times, is a bit dreamy. He laughs a lot — tiny dogs especially make him chuckle — and speaks French so fluently and beautifully that when he orders a bottle of wine in New York, a waitress is stunned by his pronunciation. "I don't think I've ever heard French spoken so well," she stammers. Erol giggles, partly because he predicted she wouldn't expect a black man to purr such fluent français.

He doesn't have a car — he doesn't know how to drive — and he is one of those people who knows how to live well, dress fabulously (in Dolce & Gabbana), and travel effortlessly, without being encumbered by things such as credit card bills and budgets. He pops up seemingly everywhere. Just a few weeks after making Miami his home, he appeared at a Broward County rally with a sign that read "Stop the injustice" to protest the detention of 101 Haitians who had washed ashore in South Florida.