Experience 7 was a Guadeloupe

Guadeloupe

Guadeloupe is an archipelago located in the Leeward Islands, in the Lesser Antilles, with a land area of 1,628 square kilometres and a population of 400,000. It is the first overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. As with the other overseas departments, Guadeloupe...

an cadence

Kadans

Kadans is a French Creole music genre, which started off in Haïti, and made popular in Dominica and the French Antilles of Martinique and Guadeloupe. Kadans is the French creole term for cadence.-History:...

 band formed in the mid 1970s, led by Guy Houllier and Yves Honore. It was also one of the very first band to emphasized future Zouk

Zouk

Zouk is a style of rhythmic music originating from the Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe & Martinique. Zouk means "party" or "festival" in the local Antillean Creole of French, although the word originally referred to, and is still used to refer to, a popular dance, based on the Polish dance, the...

 pioneer band such as Kassav'

Kassav'

Kassav' is a Francophone zouk band formed in Paris in 1979. The core members of the band are Jocelyne Béroard, Jacob Desvarieux, Jean-Philippe Marthély, Patrick St. Eloi, Jean-Claude Naimro, Claude Vamur and Georges Décimus...

. However unlike this bands such as Kassav' or Malavoi

Malavoi

Malavoi was a Martinican band consisting of Mano Césaire, Jean-Paul Soïme, Christian de Negri, Denis Dantin, and Marcel Rémion. They formed in 1972, naming themselves after a kind of sugarcane and a street on Gorée, a Senegalese island...

, the small band produced most songs with Henry Debs in Guadeloupe

Guadeloupe

Guadeloupe is an archipelago located in the Leeward Islands, in the Lesser Antilles, with a land area of 1,628 square kilometres and a population of 400,000. It is the first overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. As with the other overseas departments, Guadeloupe...

.

Career

Born in 1976, the group, created by Guy Houllier and Yves Honore added that the successes such as "LA OLA Mizik YE" and "PLAS BAY LI". It also represents the great Romantic era marked by slows immortal as "Whilfried", "Vivre pour toi", "Isabelle" ... and such as the Zouk Love precursors with "Carmelina", "Lanmou sé on danjé". They are decidedly melt in love. Indeed, they have the audacity, in the Carnival (1983), is an album of "straining your" winning a huge success as it was unexpected. But with "Goudjoua" and especially Roro

RORO

Roll-on/roll-off ships are vessels designed to carry wheeled cargo such as automobiles, trucks, semi-trailer trucks, trailers or railroad cars that are driven on and off the ship on their own wheels...

, that was the first hit to reached the national charts, they are not forgotten about the explosive atmosphere that it gives off. As memorable as the Hurricane Hugo

Hurricane Hugo

Hurricane Hugo was a classical, destructive and rare Cape Verde-type hurricane which struck the Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe, Montserrat, St. Croix, Puerto Rico and the USA mainland in South Carolina as a Category 4 hurricane during September of the 1989 Atlantic hurricane season...

, the song "Sois belle" becomes a hymn to the hope of rebirth of Guadeloupe

Guadeloupe

Guadeloupe is an archipelago located in the Leeward Islands, in the Lesser Antilles, with a land area of 1,628 square kilometres and a population of 400,000. It is the first overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. As with the other overseas departments, Guadeloupe...

 as they were the ambassadors around the world. They have indeed raised the flag of Guadeloupe in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, Surinam, Martinique

Martinique

Martinique is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of . Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados...

, Guyane, Réunion

Réunion

Réunion is a French island with a population of about 800,000 located in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar, about south west of Mauritius, the nearest island.Administratively, Réunion is one of the overseas departments of France...

, French Polynesia

French Polynesia

French Polynesia is an overseas country of the French Republic . It is made up of several groups of Polynesian islands, the most famous island being Tahiti in the Society Islands group, which is also the most populous island and the seat of the capital of the territory...

, Seychelles

Seychelles

Seychelles , officially the Republic of Seychelles , is an island country spanning an archipelago of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean, some east of mainland Africa, northeast of the island of Madagascar....

, New Caledonia

New Caledonia

New Caledonia is a special collectivity of France located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, east of Australia and about from Metropolitan France. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of...

, throughout West Africa

West Africa

West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 and the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

Musical Style

Through the years, Experience 7 used various styles of Caribbean music from mid 1970 to very late 2000. Those songs have spanned genres as diverse as biguine

Biguine

Biguine is a style of music that originated in Guadeloupe and Martinique in the 19th century.-History:Two main types of French antillean biguine can be identified based on the instrumentation in contemporary musical practice, which is call the drum biguine and the orchestrated biguine . Each of...

, kadans

Kadans

Kadans is a French Creole music genre, which started off in Haïti, and made popular in Dominica and the French Antilles of Martinique and Guadeloupe. Kadans is the French creole term for cadence.-History:...

, cadence-lypso

Cadence-lypso

Cadence-lypso, popularized as simply Cadence is a cultural music of Dominica based in Guadeloupe in the early 1970s. Cadence-lypso is a fusion of Dominican and Caribbean/Latin rhythms and has totally revolutionized the music scence in its genre, and it has now become the main dance Music of...

, slow, world music

World music

World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...

, and later zouk

Zouk

Zouk is a style of rhythmic music originating from the Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe & Martinique. Zouk means "party" or "festival" in the local Antillean Creole of French, although the word originally referred to, and is still used to refer to, a popular dance, based on the Polish dance, the...

 in the 1990s.

Influences

The work done to bring the group Zouk Machine

Zouk Machine

Zouk Machine is an all-female zouk group from Guadeloupe which had several hits particularly in France, such as the summer number-one single on French SNEP Singles Chart "Maldon' ", in 1990 that sold over 1 million copies well more than any others zouk band, even Kassav.-History:Founded in 1986 by...

, the band leaders create and composed, to the highest steps of the charts international (including the famous title Maldon), made them somewhat let the band.

Zouk and late career

With the pressure from their fans, drives them to reoffend after 1995, when Zouk Machine split. They realize then three Zouk Love albums on which emerge from songs like "Pou Vou" (1996), "Sirena" (1997), "Extreme tendresse" (1998).

The 21st century saw the creation of Guy Houllier solo album called "Tendans" that takes three SACEM prizes, rewarding the 25-year career of the Guadeloupean "crooner" in 2001.

Discography

• 1976 : Experimental Whilfried
• 1977 : Vivre pour toi
• 1978 : Osibisa
• 1978 : Isabelle
• 1979 : Adieu Carmélina
• 1980 : Banzaï
• 1981 : Siw Bizwen Milyon
• 1983 : Je reviendrais
• 1984 : Tendrement vôtre
• 1985 : Diva
• 1985 : Roro
• 1987 : Goudjoua
• 1990 : Sois belle
• 1996 : Zouk N'Love
• 1997 : Sirena
• 1998 : Extreme tendresse
• 2001 : Tendans (Album solo) Guy Houllier
• 2008 : Mistè lanmou