“La Nation Créole” is the place to find Creole music from all over the world. It is run by Cedric Watson, who has the goal of reconnecting the world with Creole music.
“Join me, four-time Grammy nominated Creole musician Cedric Watson as I take you on a tour around the Creole French speaking world. Let’s connect the lands through Creole music,” the KRVS website reads.
Watson is a native Texan who was exposed to zydeco music at a young age given its popularity in the town that he grew up in.
He eventually moved to Louisiana, where he has family, and he deeply loves the Creole culture that can be found here.
He believes that the Creole culture in Louisiana is very strong and wants to spread it with others.
He shared a resource with The Vermilion called “Ti Liv Kréyòl,” which is a book that gives lessons on how to speak Creole, including pronouncing letters, basic greetings and a lot of vocabulary.
An introduction of the book states, “Whenever trying to use an unfamiliar language to communicate, a degree of accommodation is required. The variety of language taught in this booklet will, with a little effort, allow you to communicate effectively with any other speaker of Louisiana Creole.”
However, Watson stressed the importance of listening to it being spoken.
He suggested listening to Christophe Landry, who holds a doctorate in American history, on YouTube because of his effective explanation of the Creole language.
Watson also believes that learning Creole is easier than learning official French, as he speaks both in conversation.
“I would like to see that language come back,” he said. However, he goes out of his way to speak strictly Creole when he can.
“I speak Creole every day of my life,” Watson said. “I got friends that speak French and Creole, and we keep in touch. We even have little groups on Facebook. We’ll have a little meeting sometimes where we are speaking only Creole no French.”
He would like to see more Creole spoken and hopes that there will be daycares that speak it, on top of the immersion schools that already exist.
Watson decided to work with KRVS because of how much of their stuff is in French, and he has been listening to them for the past 20 years.
La Nation Créole can be heard at 4 p.m. on Sundays on the KRVS radio station, 88.7 FM.