About this picture: Originating in Haiti, rara is a form of festival music used for street processions, typically during Easter Week.
The music centers on a set of cylindrical bamboo trumpets called vaksen (which may also be made of metal pipes), but also features drums, maracas, güiras or güiros (a percussion instrument), and metal bells, as well as sometimes also cylindrical metal trumpets which are made from recycled metal, often coffee cans.
The vaksen-s perform repeating patterns in hocket and often strike their instruments rhythmically with a stick while blowing into them. In the modern day, standard trumpets and saxophones may also be used. The genre though predominantly Afro-based has some Taino Amerindian elements to it such as the use of güiros and maracas.
The songs are always performed in Haitian Kreyòl and typically celebrate the African ancestry of the Afro-Haitian masses.
Vodou is often implemented through the procession.
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