Love Peace Harmony Song Topping the Charts

SURINAME — Radio Apintie, a radio station based in Paramaribo, the capitol of Suriname, has been serving the local airwaves for over 60 years. For more than 3 weeks, a special recording of the Love Peace Harmony song has been #1 on the top of their charts.

This recording was created by the initiative of one of our Love Peace Harmony volunteers, Peggy Anijs.

This special recording features the vocals of Johan Misiedjan, who sings in the local languages of Aukan, Saramaccan, and Sranan Tongo — which is the most commonly used language for people to connect with each other every day in Suriname, making it very relatable and easy to connect with for local people. Between the verses of the song, Johan also shares the calling for people “We have to connect more in love, peace and harmony, and when we do that, we are very strong.”

Peggy Anijs, our volunteer who led this project, lives in Amsterdam Southeast, an area of Amsterdam, Netherlands, known for its diversity. Every day for more than 5 years, Peggy has led her community online in singing Love Peace Harmony, and for over 3 years on Mondays in person with seniors. It is through this group, known as the Kraktie Choir, that this special recording project took shape. The quality of the community’s singing inspired Peggy and the community to take their work to the next level and make their first Love Peace Harmony special recording, which is of their choir, which you can listen to here.

Peggy shares the inspiration for this project, “I always thought what can we do to spread this empowering message of unity much more and reach a wider area? And we came to this as an answer.”

Another inspiration came to connect with popular musicians, who already have a following, as a way for more people to connect with this harmonizing message, and who perform in different styles, and different languages, to share the message to a broader spectrum.

Their producer connected with several internationally acclaimed musicians, including Johan Misiedjan, Freddy Gumbs, and Oscar Harris with this special request. Freddy Gumbs performed the Salsa version which you can listen to here, and Oscar Harris performed the Jazz version which you can listen to here.

The chart-topping recording of the Love Peace Harmony song (which you can listen to at the top of this page) was performed by Johan Misiedjan in local languages of Suriname and in a local style known as Kaseko. Johan is well known for his unique and dynamic ways of bringing Surinamese music to the world. He lives in Belgium, has been recording music for 40 years, and is honored among people in Suriname as well as throughout Europe. Visit his website here.

As this special recording was played on the airwaves of Radio Apintie, it started to pick up steam, and soon took off and flew to the top of Apintie’s charts. Due to the radio station having been around for decades, its music charts are renown, and, although being located in Suriname, by virtue of the internet it is popular around the world.

Peggy shared a very rewarding moment where one of her colleagues shared that they heard their recording of Love Peace Harmony on the radio. This reflected to her that her dream of spreading the empowering message of the Love Peace Harmony song through her project has been coming true. We look forward to many more projects like this one, sharing Love, Peace and Harmony with the world.

Check out the other recordings created through Peggy’s project:

Click here for the Choir version, performed by the Kraktie Choir of Amsterdam-Southeast under the guidance of Benny Alwart, in Sranan Tongo, Papiamento, Dutch, English, and German.

Click here for the Salsa version, performed by Freddy Gumbs in Papiamento, Spanish, Sranan Tongo, and English.

Click here for the Jazz version, performed by Oscar Harris in Sranan Tongo and English.