From DAT7 to Kliché: The Story of a Kompa Splinter Group That Refused to Disappear

A look back at one of the more dramatic breakaways in modern Haitian Music Industry (HMI) history — and how, a decade later, its founder built a second act under a new name.

Splits and breakaways are nothing new in Haitian kompa. Bands form, musicians clash over money or creative direction, and new formations rise from the wreckage. Few episodes, though, capture that pattern as cleanly as the birth of DAT7 out of T-Vice in the mid-2010s — and its unexpected second life more than ten years later as Kliché.

A Mass Exodus from T-Vice

By early 2015, T-Vice — one of the most dominant kompa bands of the era, led by brothers Roberto and Reynaldo Martino — was bleeding personnel. Within a short span, several core musicians left or were dismissed, among them bassist Gérald Kébreau, gongist Eddy “T-Eddy” Viau, and drummer/tambourineur Ricot “T-Tanbou” Amazan. Lead singer Olivier Duret, who had already left and rejoined T-Vice once before over the years, was also drifting away from the group, even as he publicly denied for a time that he was involved with a rival project.

That rival project turned out to be DAT7. The new band brought together Olivier Duret as lead singer with three instrumentalists carrying real pedigree of their own: Ricot “T-Tanbou” Amazan and Eddy “T-Eddy” Viau, both fresh off T-Vice, and Vladimir Alexis, formerly the drummer for Kreyòl La. Backed by promoter Gérald “Kaliko” Firmin as manager and owner, DAT7 was formally presented to the press in Port-au-Prince in March 2015, with radio and TV personality Mike On The Mic serving as MC for the launch. The name itself, according to Amazan, was meant simply as a statement of identity — “this is our thing,” as he later put it in an interview — with “Ti Tanbou” credited as the one who coined it.

Verdict and a Short-Lived Run

DAT7 wasted little time getting into the studio, releasing its debut album, Verdict, in 2015. The record produced songs like “Se Konsa,” written by Amazan and performed live by Duret, giving the new band an early foothold in a kompa market crowded with long-established acts.

But the momentum didn’t hold. Despite the star power of its four founding members, DAT7’s run in the HMI was brief. Member turnover, uneven promotion, and the sheer difficulty of competing with heavyweight, well-financed bands took their toll, and the band’s activity wound down not long after its debut — a familiar fate for many of the breakaway projects kompa fans have watched come and go over the decades. Duret would go on to pursue a solo career, eventually becoming known to a newer generation of fans primarily through that solo work, even as bios and interviews continued to note DAT7 as a formative chapter of his career.

A Decade Later: The Attempt to Revive the Name

Roughly ten years on, Ricot “T-Tanbou” Amazan — the drummer and de facto creative anchor of the original lineup — tried to bring DAT7 back. The attempt to relaunch the group under its original name did not come together, whether for legal, business, or logistical reasons tied to the “DAT7” branding itself.

Rather than abandon the project, Amazan regrouped under a new name: Kliché. He assembled a fresh lineup built around himself as band director and lead creative force, joined by lead vocalist Jhonson Dabel (“Clemay”), keyboardist and composer Mardoché Noel (“Tino” or “Tino Keys”), and vocalist Saïda Prosper.

Kliché Debuts with Nan Lide Yo

Kliché’s debut project arrived in the form of the album Nan Lide Yo, released in May 2026 — a 13-track record distributed through Pibel Production LLC. Reviewers picking up the album noted that longtime fans of DAT7 could hear a clear family resemblance in Kliché’s sound, even without needing to know the backstory to enjoy it, thanks to open melodies, friendly sequencing, and guest features that helped ease new listeners in.

In many ways, Kliché represents less a break from DAT7 than a continuation of it under different packaging: the same creative hand behind “Se Konsa” a decade earlier — Ricot “T-Tanbou” Amazan — is credited as the primary songwriting and directorial force behind Nan Lide Yo as well, this time surrounded by a new supporting cast rather than his former T-Vice and Kreyòl La bandmates.

Why the Story Matters

The arc from T-Vice, to DAT7, to Kliché is a small but telling case study in how the Haitian Music Industry regenerates itself. Talent doesn’t disappear when a band folds — it resurfaces, sometimes under a familiar banner, sometimes, when that banner isn’t available anymore, under a brand-new one. DAT7 may have had a short shelf life in the 2010s, but its DNA — Amazan’s songwriting, the tight vocal-and-rhythm chemistry that defined kompa’s golden run — lives on in Kliché’s Nan Lide Yo, a reminder that in Haitian music, a “verdict” is rarely final.