Part 2 of Solibo Magnificent is a radical departure from the rest of the text. In Part 1, the text is written in prose punctuated with lyrical passages. However, Chapter 6 is written more like a prose poem or a freestyle rap set to Sucette’s drum beat, rendered in onomatopoeia in Chapter 5. Within the logic of the book, Part 2 becomes a representation of the narrator Patrick’s account of Solibo’s words on the night he died.

Solibo’s final story also illustrates the finer nuances of Oral Tradition as a Marker of Creole Identity. For example, Solibo notes that agricultural workers who were illiterate knew Martinique better than those who have had a colonial education and learned their “A.B.C.D.”—that is, those who have learned to read. While they know the names of geographic locations on the island of Martinique better than the “congo,” or enslaved worker, they no longer have a visceral, firsthand knowledge of the land. Solibo emphasizes that the loss of this oral tradition has also caused the people to lose aspects of their own unique culture. As he says, “We sing Vauclin Mountain, don’t know Voklin Montin” (165). The two renderings of the name “Vauclin Mountain” denote the connection between oral tradition and the Creole language. “Vauclin Mountain” is the formal French name of the place, and Voklin Montin is a Creolized rendering of the same name. Solibo further mocks the people of Martinique, including himself, for replacing their Creole and local knowledge with formal French and with a desire to align themselves with the French republic. As he ironically states, “I myself Solibo who can talk in the mouth I yell Vive de Gaulle on July 14” (165). With this admission, Solibo makes it clear that even he, who speaks Creole and represents Creole culture, lauds the president of France (Charles de Gaulle) on the French national holiday, July 14.

Solibo is careful to emphasize that his form of storytelling is different from traditional Black folklore such as “the tales about Br’er Tiger, Br’er Rabbit” (166). These are morality tales that blend Aesop’s Fables with African and Caribbean folklore, passing on lessons in survival under enslavement. Instead, Solibo says that he isn’t there “to give lessons or to make you roll on the ground laughing” (166). His stories are a reflection of a deep cultural memory and of life itself, and they are not overly virtuous. As he told Patrick at the beginning of the novel, “Too much virtue is boring, son, and it does you no good” (4). Solibo’s lack of seriousness about himself is underlined in his final words, Patat’ sa, which mean, “that potato over there.” Thus, his last words are a nonsense phrase that contains a resonance like the beat of Sucette’s drum, connecting his oral language with the music that undergirds it.

Solibo completes his story in the moments before his death with a description of an anticolonial utopia. It is a world without white overseers (békés) or plantations. Solibo emphasizes that in this utopia, “Air-France got no terminal” (172), indicating that the land is no longer tied to the metropole; it has been returned to its people. Solibo then describes an idyll “where the blackman is all joy all music all dance” (172). After painting a picture of an ideal future, Solibo dies, and this pattern is evocative of the religious symbolism highlighted in Chapter 1. Like Moses, Solibo has described an ideal place, one that is symbolically flowing with milk and honey (or as the text renders it, “all syrup”), and he has tried to lead the people there. However, also like Moses, he dies after glimpsing this promised land but before he can enter it himself, and it will be up to others to carry that torch and realize his vision.