Firmin Viry

In La Reunion, Firmin is known as the man who came to the rescue of maloya, the traditional Creole music, whose survival – as well as that of other oral traditions – was seriously menaced by a heavy and partisan assimilation by the state. Firmin has preserved the total instrumental transmission: we come across the rouleur, the bobre, the triangle, the kayamb.

Firmin believes in "maloya la case, maloya la kour." Family and friends gather to sing and dance. The past, lightness, chronicles of work and time going by are cultivated. —Courtesy Calabash Music