From TikTok to Haitian Compas Festival: How this celebration is bridging generations
He’s the masked rapper whose blend of English and Creole, layered with Haitian cultural references and internet humor, has earned him a devoted TikTok following and made him one of the rising stars in the diaspora music scene.
Known as Burger Marty, the anonymous Broward rapper emerged last summer after his songs began going viral and his use of a clown mask generated intrigue around his persona. Now, the unsigned artist who just dropped his first album is set to take his biggest stage yet: Haitian Compas Festival.
“It’s really like the best feeling,” Burger Marty, who has 50,000 TikTok followers and another 24.5K on Instagram, told the Miami Herald in an interview. “I feel like of all my performances, this one is going to mean the most to me. It doesn’t matter how many people I had in front of me before — just knowing that the crowd is my people…really means the world to me.”
Until now, his largest audience came during a club performance at Truth Lounge in Fort Lauderdale earlier this year. It was there, he said, that both he and his dad realized the extent of his exploding popularity as the crowd sang along to his viral song “Bring Custo,” a partly satirical track with a video featuring him performing with Haitian flags waving in the background while wearing a clown mask and a plaid shirt he bought at Ross.
“The image I was trying to portray was just being a clown,” he said.
But beneath the humor is music reflecting the artist’s bicultural ties to Haiti, where he lived until he moved to the United States at the age of 8. Until “the country got really bad,” Burger Marty said he traveled to Haiti every summer, where his mom still lives, and developed a liking for the highly popular fast-paced and high energy rhythm known as rabòday alongside influences like rappers Tupac, NBA YoungBoy and Kodak Black, who is of Haitian descent.
“I’m very connected,” Burger Marty, 22, whose name came from his initial TikTok account, said about Haiti. “I just found the beat, and I was like, ‘Oh, this is a really nice beat’. Then, I was like, let me just try to make something for Haitians — and it just went crazy.”
Much like his music has grown since he first started dropping clips online last summer, so too has his following, which is how the organizers of this year’s Haitian Compas Festival discovered him.
And that says Evrose Noel, is one of the reason’s the Haitian Compas Festival, known for featuring the top names in Haitian Konpa music, decided to also include the local rapper in its line up this Saturday at North Miami’s NoMI Village.
“The younger kids, they really follow him,” Noel, the festival’s administrative director, said. This also includes her 14-year-old son and 21-year-old daughter. “They all love him,” she added. “Everybody loves Burger Marty. So we’re like, you know, let’s bring him on stage.”
Noel pointed out that there is something for everyone in this year’s lineup. “The community is morphing, so Compas Fest is just keeping up with the times,” she said.
Among the 17 acts are roots band Koudjay, which recently had local officials dancing during Miami-Dade County Commissioner Marleine Bastien’s Haitian Heritage month kickoff party at Greynolds Park; Zile, who is part of a new generation of females Konpa artists, and familiar names like T-Vice, Kai, Vayb, Klass and Disip, which is returning after a long absence. DJs include Nicky Mixx, DJ Bullet and AndyBeatz.
Haiti Heritage month, flag day
The festival intentionally coincides with Haitian Flag Day on May 18, which commemorates the creation of the Haitian flag during the fight for independence from France. While the holiday remains celebratory, it has taken on a more bittersweet tone as gang violence continues to grip parts of Haiti, including communities surrounding the coastal town of Arcahaie, where the bicolor blue and red flag was created in 1803
In South Florida, the festival is also happening during Haitian Heritage Month, a month also unfolding against the backdrop of immigration fears as some 340,000-plus Haitians wait to hear if the U.S. Supreme Court will grant the Trump administration’s request to end their Temporary Protected Status, which has protected them against deportation back to Haiti.
The looming immigration threat is the reason why Compas Fest, after years of being staged at Bayfront Park in downtown Miami, was moved last year to NoMI Village in North Miami.
This Saturday it’s once again returning to the North Miami site with doors opening at 2 p.m.
The city’s partnership has been a good fit, said Noel, who understands the nostalgia many Haitians and longtime festival goers feel for Bayfront Park, whose waterfront helped defined the festival’s communal and familiar atmosphere for many years. But there is also the growing reality of staging large outdoor events in Miami, from booking bands to covering production and promotion costs.
“Outdoor events in general are suffering,” she said. “It’s not just Compas Fest. It’s overall, in general.”
Hallmark of Haitian-American culture
The Haitian Compas Festival was co-founded by Noel’s husband, Rodney, and his business associate Jean Michel Cerenord. They’ve described the event as “a hallmark of Haitian-American culture.”
It’s a culture that this weekend, starting with Friday’s All Black kickoff party at Club M2 in Miami Beach, will be on display in the bands’ performances and in the various displays of Haitian pride and identity, from flags waving on cars to T-shirts. More than a music festival, Comps Fest and its after parties is a cultural gathering.
“Really the reason why Compas Fest was created was so that families can come out and enjoy the music,” Evrose Noel said about the Saturday event. “And how do we keep Konpa alive if we don’t create a space where, across generations three or four, we see people bringing kids on their shoulders and in strollers, wearing flags.”
Burger Marty was one of those kids. But his presence at the festival— until this Saturday — wasn’t as a spectator but rather as a worker, helping his aunt, a restaurateur who was among the many vendors who sell food during the performances. .
Now as he prepares to take the stage, there is excitement; not just because of the audience but because his mom, who is back home in the country’s gang ravaged Lower Artibonite region, will get to follow his performance live on the biggest stage so far of his still evolving career.
“It means a lot to her that I’m performing in front of Haitians,” Burger Marty said, recalling how proud she was when she saw the Haitian flags waving in his video for “Bring Custo.” “That means a lot because, a lot of people don’t do that. So I know it’s gonna make her happy that I’m performing in front of a bunch of my people.”
If You Go:
What: Haitian Compas Festival
When: Saturday, doors open at 2p.m. Show starts 3 p.m.
Where: NoMi Village, 12351 NW Seventh Ave., North Miami
Ticket: Available at HaitianCompasFestival.com
Cost: Kids under 10 are free; Ticket price $70 in advance, more at the door
This story was originally published May 14, 2026 at 6:57 PM.
