Haitian Music Loses One of Its Greatest Sons: Dadou Pasquet (1956–2025)

The iconic guitarist, co-founder of Magnum Band, and architect of modern kompa has taken his final bow.

Port-au-Prince / Miami – November 23, 2025 The Pasquet family announced today, with profound sadness, that André “Dadou” Pasquet, one of Haiti’s most beloved and influential musicians, passed away peacefully surrounded by his loved ones after a long illness. He was 69 years old.

Born on August 19, 1956 in Port-au-Prince, Dadou grew up in a home filled with music. His uncles, accomplished musicians themselves, put a guitar in his hands while he was still a child. By his mid-teens in the 1960s, he had already left Haiti for New York, where he began his professional career with the band Tropicale.

The 1970s saw Dadou join the legendary Tabou Combo, one of the most important groups in Haitian music history. His fluid, soulful guitar lines and velvet-smooth background vocals became unmistakable trademarks of Tabou’s golden era and helped push kompa onto the world stage.

In 1976, Dadou and his brother Claude “Tico” Pasquet made a decision that would change Haitian music forever: they founded Magnum Band in the heart of Miami’s Little Haiti. Blending traditional kompa with jazz, funk, soul, and pop influences, Magnum created a sophisticated yet danceable “old-school” sound that dominated Haitian parties in the diaspora for decades.

From their explosive debut in Queens and Brooklyn clubs to their first international tour in 1980, Magnum Band became a symbol of Haitian excellence abroad. Classic albums such as Nou Rinmin Pou La Vie (1984), Afrika (1986), La Seule Différence (1990), and the recent Generations (2024, with Kahmik) remain staples at every Haitian wedding, baptism, and family gathering. In 2014, Radio Télévision Caraïbes honored the group with the prestigious Honneur et Mérite award.

Dadou was never flashy. Musicians who shared the stage with him speak of his humility, his perfect intonation, his subtle phrasing, and the way his guitar could make an entire room cry one moment and dance the next. To generations of younger guitarists, he was simply “the Maestro.”

In his final days, surrounded by family, Dadou left the world with one last instruction: “Jwe mizik lan” – Play the music.

That is exactly what the Haitian community is doing tonight. From Port-au-Prince to Brooklyn, Miami to Montreal, Paris to Guadeloupe, Magnum Band songs are blasting from car stereos, living-room speakers, and nightclub sound systems. Because for Dadou Pasquet, music was never just notes – it was prayer, it was joy, it was Haiti itself.

L’Union Suite extends our deepest condolences to Dadou’s wife, children, brother Tico, the entire Pasquet family, the Magnum Band family, and to every Haitian who ever danced to his guitar.

Thank you, Dadou, for every riff, every solo, every smile behind the strings. Your body may be gone, but your music will never stop playing.

Jwe mizik lan. Forever.

Rest in perfect peace, Maestro. August 19, 1956 – November 23, 2025