W.E.R.F. records invites Don Kapot & Renette Désir

A daring encounter between Haitian poetry and power jazz Renette Désir is a Haitian singer who is very well known in her home country. In November 2024, her plane was fired upon by gangs upon landing in Port-au-Prince and riddled with bullets. After a long and difficult period – including her departure from the Verenigde Staten, barely two days before her visa under the Trump administration would expire - Renette arrived in Brussels in March 2025. There she began working with Don Kapot. A year later, they came out of the studio with an album that tells the different phases of Renette's exile, while her asylum application was still being processed. The eight songs on the album depict the diverse stages of Renette's journey, from the everyday to the profound and spiritual. Sometimes the songs describe concrete events, such as the terrifying and surreal scene on board the plane. At other times, they take the form of dreamy, mystical journeys or refer to the traditional Haitian vodou culture and African roots. The album captures the full complexity of an exceptional exile that is simultaneously recognizable to so many other stories. Het Britse music magazine Mojo describes the music of Don Kapot as: "The Brussels trio’s grooves go blurringly hard, offset by quieter fluctuating nuances." According to the Belgische Knack, Giotis Damianidis (bass, guitar, and effects), Viktor Perdieus (saxophone and various instruments), and Jakob Warmenbol (drums, percussion, and electronic samples) create music that is "sometimes angular, often hypnotic, always with the head on." The album will be released in November 2026 by W.E.R.F. records.