Photo: Davide Belotti

Brussels trio Don Kapot and Haitian singer Renette Désir have teamed up for a new collaborative album titled Nou Pran Bal (We Took Fire). Following I Love Tempo, which was one of our 15 Album Picks of 2023, and a couple of EP’s, the new record sees the trio of Giotis Damianidis (bass and guitar), Viktor Perdieus (saxophones and various instruments) and Jakob Warmenbol (drums and samples) joining forces with one of the most charismatic voices in the contemporary Haitian music scene.

The collaboration came about after Désir was offered the opportunity to work with Don Kapot through her management. What began as an artistic project soon took on a different dimension as the situation in Haiti continued to worsen. After being caught in an incident in which the plane she was travelling on was targeted by gang gunfire near Port-au-Prince airport, returning home was no longer a safe option. Désir applied for international protection in Belgium the following month and eventually arrived in Brussels in March 2025.

Nou Pran Bal will see the light of day on November 20th through W.E.R.F. Records and ahead of it, they have shared the album’s first single, ‘Poto potopow’, an ecstatic and magnetic track. Here it is.