After the undeniable success of her album sold in Gibraltar more than 250 000 copies, Abd Al Malik comes back even stronger with his 3rd album: Dante. Rapper signs words of the 13 tracks on this album is spiritual set to music by Gerard Jouannet and Bilal for melodies. Alain Goraguer meanwhile, arranger history of many albums of Serge Gainsbourg, it also raises his mark "with the old arrangements."
Generally we give an album title for the name of a song, the name of a song on the album. This album is called "Dante". Why?
This album is called "Dante" because it is above all a state of mind, a way of being in the world and a desire to redefine something. In this case I would say, proportionately and in all humility, that the idea is to bring something different to break down in music. And that it is essential to get out of our ghettos. The relationship between Dante and popular culture, in my view, when Dante is going from Latin to Tuscany by writing "The Divine Comedy." Knowledge that is reserved for an elite is brought to the greatest number. In a way
, it may be an anachronism, but it creates a democratization of knowledge. I feel that every artist does the same manner.
This album is always a rap album, an album of slam, songs, nothing else, an album of another kind?
This album is simply a rap album. I am convinced that this is the rapper who rap and not the reverse.
You have in this record is once again appeal to people who are references to the song "classic." You have a duet with Juliette Greco. You appealed to Gerard Jouannest to compose half of the album. You used to Alain Goraguer, arranger and composer history of French song. Why this appeal to those great seniors ?
By working with these great elders, the fact of working with Juliette Greco, Gerard and Alain Jouannest Goraguer is to say that in France we have a wonderful artistic and cultural heritage. The idea is to cultivate and preserve the heritage of modernity. There is this idea really is. All these great artists should not end up in a museum. We must be able to feed energy, their dynamics and be able to bring something today, and almost tomorrow. If you want to do something relevant and rich, can not act as if nothing had happened, as if it happened suddenly. That's interesting. My fathers rappers in the U.S. eat their heritage, soul music ... I think our heritage we are equally rich. The idea is to show the link and it is our duty to be in the momentum generated by these heroes, these artists. This is how I believe we can do something relevant, that makes sense and is in line with France as it is today.
Will you tell us how you work with Gerard Jouannest, and how you worked with Alain Goraguer studio?
My way of working with Gerard Jouannest is fairly simple. It is a method that was started in my previous album "Gibraltar". Gerard Jouannest turns at the piano, he plays things. And I say "Hey, that was good. Do what you can replay it? He replays the loop and I take a pen, a sheet and write. His music brings the words, it comes straight out. We proceeded in that way. Then when I had honed my writing and I have the model, that is to say, piano and vocals, we gave everything to Alain Goraguer. He has added the arrangements, all the work around to give this magnitude that I wanted to give. It has been fairly smooth and simple. Everything was natural. It's as if all three had worked together previously. In this case, two of them had worked together. Besides, it's me Gerard Jouannest reported that the first person he
have provided work in the trade was Alain Goraguer there are more than fifty years.
In the studio, how did it go? They recorded the orchestra and you raised your voice above? How it happened?
In the studio, it was done to the old. The musicians are there. Alain Goraguer conductor is on the panel and directs the orchestra. Jouannest is at the piano, me behind a microphone. It looks, one two three, and recorded. There was this idea of something living. There are things that happen in their eyes is wonderful. Again, it went very smoothly. Taken two at most, no more. Two taken and the matter was settled on each piece.
That means that, as there are six songs recorded with the orchestra, two each taken, you were two days in the studio to save half of the album?
No, there were two or three hours, half of the album. After it was flat patterns but it was very fast. It was a day in the studio and there were actually two hours. By the time the musicians settled, microphones ... Once we started recording, it went very quickly. Alain Goraguer told me that everyone worked like this before. They made albums in two days, recorded and mixed the next day. It was that fast at the time. Today with technology can be
more things but strangely, it still takes more time. I enjoyed myself doing the former.
You had already worked with the old, with direct contact with the orchestra? You have so far worked mainly as do all people in the rap recording studio in length. What makes it work so quickly to the voice, the expression?
Working as quickly it brings a certain spontaneity and something natural. In terms of emotion, there is something new that circulates. It is like capturing with the same energy as a live but with all the arrangements you can do with a recording studio. It is this kind of power that emerges in terms of emotion
. It is especially at this level. In terms of emotion, there is something much stronger. Obviously, I work upstream and they also blow it facilitates. Mais il ya quelque chose de l'ordre de la spontanéité, de la fraicheur et de l'inédit. Magic, a spark that someone like me, who has long worked in a conventional manner with the bands, can not find. Something not found. A little bit something different.
Is that working with these people, you sense to continue a tradition, a work? Do you feel there is no gap between the likes of Brel, Gainsbourg, who worked with
Goraguer and you, what you're doing?
I feel when I work with Alain and Gerard Jouannest Goraguer continue something, to be a tradition, but without any pretension. The idea is that these great artists who came before us gave us something in relay. I have this feeling at all cases. What they gave us in relay, I think that this is not to leave it in a museum or view it as something insurmountable. This is just to be in the same energy in this desire, in this same spirit that is both artistic and, to quote Jacques Brel, "also not be
to sell." Just be an artist. Again, I say this without any pretension. This is not to exceed or be at their level. It is to be oneself. I feel that is what they tell us, the singularity. The fact of not being afraid to be itself. It's wonderful if we can feed on their work, this wonderful heritage
and each brings its particularity. That's what interests me.
Nougaro is a character I found. There is even a story. Of NAP with Bilal, who composed the other part of the album and NAP with me ever since we was in concert in Toulouse and our guide was a crazy Nougaro. We knew Nougaro and without him we said "Nougaro Nougaro ...." Bilal said he would go and buy the anthology Nougaro to have done. It starts with the anthology, he listens and he called to say "You know, Nougaro's really good, there are things to do." It makes me listen to music and it's wonderful. It is true that for me Nougaro is a monument but not a
artist to which I would naturally. I discovered, I told myself it was wonderful and had to do something. I did "But Paris" in reference to his "But Paris, the same way I did the others on the reference of Jacques Brel. This is to honor and bring down today, and show that what is wonderful about art in general is the possibility of timelessness. The emotion through time and through the ages. Bilal and I was paying homage to Nougaro in that way.
ago as a tribute to Aimé Césaire. Aime Cesaire died while you were trying to write and produce the album. It is a tribute to him very hard as you go. For you, that is Aime Cesaire, the theorist of negritude or primarily a poet, a politician?
On Aime Cesaire, the story is this. Aimé Césaire is dead, that's what I'm talking about in the text. I'm in Morocco, I zap the TV and I see the various tributes that he makes. It speaks of him as a politician, as a theorist of negritude ... And I feel that this is not enough, it is not only that. I feel that to truly pay tribute to Aimé Césaire's spoken discourse on colonialism and the great poet he is. The fact that he is the theorist of negritude, or politician, it was an accident due to the background. If he were born today or a century later, it was the same poet, that it was not an accident. For me, it is to know to truly honor his poems, known as a great poet he was. Huge French poet. I told myself I would humbly say what is
intellectually, ideologically, philosophically Cesaire to me and say that all this does not matter. That's why at the end of the text I say we go to what belongs to Césaire Césaire and I said one of his poems. For me to pay tribute to Cesaire's it.
The cover, the packaging of the album is extremely neat. It is currently a trend for major artists to make records very neat. You take a lot to be CD? You accustom to the fact that the discs for many people are only Digital? I really love
disk object. Not so much because we are in the download, or in the virtual today. For me it is equally important and I always made sure to have something neat. For me, a beautiful paper gift omen of a gift.
A shock to listen to your album is "The Tale of Alsace." You rap in French and suddenly you start rapping Alsatian language. Why? How did this happen?
In "The Tale of Alsace", the rapper made in Alsace was a desire for a very long time. But he lacked music. I was with Gerard Jouannest, I play something and I said 'That's it! . It is this piece that I've been waiting a long time to put in Alsatian. It is a sort of Alsatian waltz and it came naturally
. In "The Tale of Alsace," I talk about the history of my family, my parents. What interested me is the paradox that is not in one. My parents are from Congo Brazzaville, they arrived in Alsace and they made their lives in Alsace. I wanted to show that appropriates land when our heart beats in unison with the earth, with this people. But parents, myself and all of us, it feels really Alsatian. At the same time, our African roots and Congolese had and still count a lot. I wanted to put this story on the complexity
Alsatian. It was natural to speak Alsatian.
This disc talks a lot of France, of French identity, the French culture, the French flag. Is what you might say you're some kind of patriot?
Totally. I dare say and I say it loud: I am a patriot. My whole artistic process is an extension of that. I explain it artistically, the fact from my point of view, everything has its origins in the culture. It is culture that gives the flamboyance. I dare say I am a patriot. And I really feel that there is a French genius, something that gives us something special. There is something that the world puts us in a particular way. What is wonderful is that the richness and diversity of the national community gives more strength to the French genius. It adds even more richness to the French genius. That's what I want to do with my music, wear the flag.
Is this a hard policy ?
is a very political record, it's a hard citizen. This is not a hard political sense politicking. It's a hard activist Sartrean sense of the term, and at the same time a disc eminently spiritual.
You refer in your drive to many writers, Dante, Deleuze, Sartre, Aime Cesaire. When we say that Malik is a nerd, you agree?
I say that Malik Malik is just as it is. Everyone has their own label but I'm just me. After it is a matter of perspective. The music I make, I feel and I saw him it can save lives. Without any pretension. Me when I was a kid, there are artists who made me want to read books, to me
asked about myself, who participated in the fact that I say. I want to be one of those. I think an artist is not there to bring the facility but the complexity. It is my view and I'm here for, to bring the complexity.
An artist does not live next to or on the periphery of society. An artist is traversed by eddies, society movements and the world. From my point of view, an artist is a kind of oracle or oracle. Sometimes we say things beyond us, things we saw. From there, we going to say will necessarily be linked with the everyday concerns of the people, people. So I can not force me to do something simple and different. I'm just me. I suffer with everyone, I have concerns everybody, I'm going to say and write
be connected to each other's concerns. It will be connected to my own concerns. I can not pretend. I have a bounden duty to be me.
Will you tell us about your duet with Juliette Greco?
I have long wanted to work with a rapper. Since the beginning I told myself that I worked with the rapper number one in France. And this singer named Juliette Greco. I had this great honor to work with her. That's what I can say.
You also worked as a couple, you've written and recorded with Wallen. How did it happen?
Working with Wallen's always very simple. We do not prepare. She has her career and I have mine, there is a kind of emulation, we look at each other's work. In the studio, it came when we did "Paris but, she listens, she said" you could do it in chorus, turning the chorus like that .... " I told her she can do
and she does. It happens like this, like I see it in the studio. In the song "Tell me Madagh" I told him: "If you had to write something, in both music and lyrics, what would you do? . One day she told me to come to the studio and she has something. On this piece, we are big fans of the work of Thom Yorke. It's a bit inspired by that.
There is a way that our friends south will inevitably point out is "The Marseilles", a song staggering. Marseille Marseille and spirit is important for man and rapper Malik?
Marseille is doubly important for me. It is important for man Malik because I have friends in Marseille. My manager is from the area, it made me know and love this area. It is important for the artist Malik because every time I did a concert, there is a kind reception and special warmth. They received me as if I were one of them and that's wonderful. And there's this story I tell in "Le Marseilles". It is a Marseille who came to our house in Alsace in Strasbourg. I tell his story. He spoke to us of Marseille. Marseille for me was something wonderful. The day I saw Marseille truly I saw and I knew he was right, Marseille has a particular spirit. A similar spirit, different but close to the Alsatian soul. My impression is that particularism is one thing, but inside there is something that connects. There is a strong identity which we find ourselves. I found myself in Marseille, as when I'm home in Alsace. The city resounds especially for me.
Interview by Bertrand Dicale
0 comments:
Post a Comment