Composer George Crumb (1929-2022) was an iconoclast, a kind of UFO in the world of music. Somewhere between Henry Cowell and Ligeti, he was one of that breed of composers who knew how to be both avant-garde and appealing because of their deeply expressive approach to creative music. Where others would only do the bizarre for the lucky few who already thought the way they did, Crumb used sonic and interpretive innovations (such as his graphic scores in the form of spirals or Peace symbols) to create sound worlds in which music lovers could immerse themselves and feel a flood of emotions and sensations. In other words, he was a composer of the heart before he was a composer of the brain.
This Thursday, July 20, at the Festival de Lanaudière, we’ll be paying tribute to this exceptional creator, who is still under-performed on our stages. For the occasion, an ad hoc ensemble made up of Maude Paradis, mezzo-soprano, Olivier Hébert-Bouchard, piano, Diane Bayard, violin, Stéphane Tétreault, cello, Alex Huyghebaert, flute, Mélissa Tremblay, oboe and Charlotte Layec, clarinet, will perform a concert musically choreographed to create a narrative and dramatic framework linked to Crumb’s music, but also to that of composers from whom he drew inspiration, or even quoted.
PAN M 360 spoke to cellist Stéphane Tétreault about this concert.
PAN M 360: Hello Stéphane. What makes George Crumb’s music so special and interesting?
Stéphane Tétreault: Its originality, but also its surprising beauty. You don’t expect that when you look at his scores, which are so precise, so elaborate, almost scientific. But everything is designed to make the music attractive and remarkably expressive. Oh, not in the sense of easy melodies with mellow harmonies, but rather a transcendent, enigmatic and sometimes dreamlike beauty. It’s all about mystery. And certainly not in a cerebral, cold, mechanical way. It’s not dodecaphony or detached, formalist serialism. It’s about direct communication with the listener.
PAN M 360: People often talk about Crumb’s graphic scores. I put myself in the shoes of the layman, unaccustomed to contemporary music: what’s the point? Does it really influence the final result? Can you hear the difference?
Stéphane Tétreault: That’s a good question, of course. I think it does. Take, for example, a score like Makrokosmos, in the shape of a circle with central bars (a Peace symbol). It conveys an idea of infinity, of the continuation and fluidity of lines that you end up wanting to recreate in concert. In the end, perhaps we’re more successful in doing this than simply using words like Fluid written above the scores. As performers, we’re inspired by it in one way or another. And, in the end, it serves the music.
PAN M 360: What will you be playing?
Stéphane Tétreault: It will be a panorama of his production, conceived in a logical and thematic sequence by Olivier Hébert-Bouchard. There will be excerpts from Vox Balaenae, the Sonata for solo cello, Makrokosmos, Night of the Four Moons and lots of other things, but interspersed with excerpts from pieces by Chopin, Strauss and Bach. Crumb was strongly influenced by these composers of the past. The “scenario” of the concert, with no intermission, is based on the theme of death, a subject that was very much on Crumb’s mind. But not morbid death, no. Rather, death as transcendence, as hope for something else, perhaps, regardless of one’s beliefs. Death as a vector of the positive, of beauty. Beauty, once again.
PAN M 360: What can curious music lovers expect from the concert?
Stéphane Tétreault: I think people will be spellbound by this universe. Crumb is a creator of unique and captivating worlds, like Ligeti or Claude Vivier.
PAN M 360: He passed away last year. What legacy do you think he left to music?
Stéphane Tétreault: Two things. Firstly, a radical innovation in musical practice, and secondly, a warm, human side to contemporary music. Yes, it’s a demanding form of music, requiring concentration and investment of attention on the part of music lovers, but in return, it offers them deeply moving experiences.
Sona Jobarteh, an accomplished musician from Gambia, has been immersed in the world of music from an early age. For her, music is a natural talent, almost a vital function. What makes her an even more exceptional artist is the instrument she has adopted and through which she has made an international name for herself: the kora. Traditionally reserved for men, Sona Jobarteh is one of the few women in the world to have mastered this instrument to perfection. In addition to her musical career, she is the founder of the Gambia Academy, a school designed to offer a complete curriculum to Gambian children, in addition to teaching them traditional music and dance.
PAN M 360 spoke to this exceptional musician on the eve of her first concert in Quebec, as part of the Festival international Nuits d’Afrique.
PAN M 360: Hi Sona, thank you so much for your time. Growing up, you were surrounded by music. When did you decide that you were to pursue a career as a professional musician?
Sona Jobarteh: It’s hard to know because I don’t think I woke up one day and suddenly decided thatn. So I don’t really know what happened. It has been the norm of my life to be in music and to share music.
PAN M 360: What made you decide that you wanted to pick up the kora as your main instrument?
Sona Jobarteh: The kora is a hereditary tradition. So it’s something you are born into. It’s less about choosing the instrument, it’s more about the history of the family.
PAN M 360: What about the other instruments that you play?
Sona Jobarteh: There’s a different story for each one. I came to some of the other instruments I play sometimes through my relatives. For example, my older brother plays the cello, so I started doing that. The guitar is an instrument I came to around 12 years old. I was somewhere where there was a guitar and I tried it. Then, whenever I saw a guitar, I had to play something on it. There were very organic affinities with the instruments I play, you know?
PAN M 360: You are also very active in the education field. Could you tell us more about your mission at The Gambia Academy?
Sona Jobarteh: The Gambia Academy is not especially a music school, it’s an academy with a full curriculum. That’s what I’m working on developing. Music is a part of it too, like any other mainstream education institution. It’s a place that puts a lot of emphasis on culture, history, traditions, and several other things like that. People are a part of education. Music is a part, too, obviously.
PAN M 360: Let’s talk about your music specifically. Which message are you trying to convey with your musical work?
Sona Jobarteh: I’m not sure that it would be true to say, in my case, that there is a specific message that I want to convey. It’s not my intention to have a mission or to make you know who I am. Ironically, I talk about this in one of my songs. I talk about analyzing and dissecting things to the point that they become untruthful. I don’t put things together in some sort of plan.
PAN M 360: That being said, how do you see music in general?
Sona Jobarteh: Music is very much an integral part of not only human existence but individual existence. When we are musicians, we play music, of course, but it also becomes our private form of communication. Just like when I’m speaking to you, I’m not planning which words I’m going to use. It’s the same in music. The focus is not about what it is and how it is, the most important is that I’m speaking. Or playing. What I mean is that music is in a whole other class. It’s bigger than anything. Music as a whole is bigger than the specificities of my music.
PAN M 360: So music has the same status as a language?
Sona Jobarteh: I use music because I was in contact with it, I grew up with it. Like anybody, you know? If you are born into a great education, that becomes part of your life, right? I use English because I have been exposed to it. If I was in France, I would be using French. So it’s not so much the language of music or the specificity of the music. What is important is what you are trying to communicate. It doesn’t really matter how, right? And it happens to be different for other people. They might choose voice, it might be the guitar or the piano.
PAN M 360: What do you sing about when you compose a new song? What are your current themes?
Sona Jobarteh: For me, it depends on what the music’s message is, and what it wants to communicate. It’s different for every song. I won’t talk about all my songs, because that would take all of your time to go through all my songs. But I can say that, now, my songs are very much in line with the work that I do in connection to the Gambia Academy. They are in connection with social development, economic development, and educational development. My songs are very much linked and connected to all of those important areas of social development that I work on on a daily basis, away from music.
PAN M 360: You also composed a score for a movie. How do you approach this kind of work?
Sona Jobarteh: Just because it’s a film, it has to be different. You are no longer creating music that is sung by itself. It now has to take a secondary role, to serve the purpose of the visuals. So by its very nature, it’s going to be different than mu own personal music. I have to subject myself to the message of the film, the message of the videos, or the frames that I am dealing with. So it’s a very different experience, and what’s being composed can testify to that. It’s a different platform altogether.
PAN M 360: Which projects await you in the future?
Sonah Jobarteh: Well, to be honest, the most time-consuming work that I’m doing is really the work towards the Academy. Since I’m running the Academy, it’s a full-time job in itself. It’s been tough being away for long periods of time, with this intense schedule that I have at the moment. It’s been hard to maintain both.
PAN M 360: We are especially lucky to have you, then! How do you see your presence at Festival international Nuits d’Afrique?
Sona Jobarteh: I’m looking forward to it! I was in Canada a couple of weeks ago but in a very different area. So it’s the first time that I come to this particular region of the country. Yeah, I’m looking forward to it.
The Bongo Hop is a dynamic band that refuses to be categorized by any generic label. Its members hail from the four corners of the globe, and their distinctive sound bears witness to this: the group’s songs are resolutely international and mixed. French trumpeter Étienne Sevet, who wrote the instrumental compositions for The Bongo Hop, is the driving force behind this unique project, which originated in Cali, Colombia. The group is frequently joined by Nidia Góngora, a Colombian-born singer and one of the most prominent voices of Afro-Colombian culture.
Just hours before The Bongo Hop’s concert at the Festival international Nuits d’Afrique, PAN M 360 caught up with Étienne Sevet and Nidia Góngora by phone to find out more about the group’s origins.
PAN M 360: Hello! Tell us a little about the origins of the band. How did you arrive at this musical fusion?
Étienne Sevet: It all started when I was in Cali, Colombia. I was there to make a documentary on salsa. Then I discovered Pacific music first, and then other styles. That’s what made me want to stay. Then I started working as a music journalist, organizing parties. It was only after that that I started learning music and composing.
PAN M 360: The Bongo Hop often collaborates with Nidia. How did this collaboration come about, and what does it involve?
Étienne Sevet: I first got to know Nidia musically, when she was part of one of her first traditional music groups. Originally, I was putting together The Bongo Hop project for a rap group in Cali. When I met Nidia in person, I thought it would be interesting to include vocals in my project. And that’s when I simply proposed a track to Nidia, and then another, which mixed my experience in Colombia, inspired by the West African music I love.
Nidia Góngora: For me, there’s a dynamic that has to do with collective creation. I write the lyrics for the songs I collaborate on. And the instrumental part is done by Étienne. There’s a process in which we talk, we look at the music. We listen to the instruments, and then we have a discussion about the theme we’re going to choose. How will it interact and create musicality to build the whole? There’s an important aspect: in every song, in every sound, there’s the sign of each of us. We’re trying to give The Bongo Hop a distinctive sound that’s consistent with my own.
PAN M 360: How would you describe this distinctive sound you are talking about?
Étienne Sevet: The identity of The Bongo Hop is that it’s not just one musical genre. Often, when people describe us, they talk about Afrobeat. Or, even worse, some people say cumbia, which has nothing to do with it. Because it says Colombia, people think Cumbia. But no, that’s not it. So I try to make music that isn’t tied to any particular genre. That doesn’t mean I want to do just anything, either! It does mean that I have influences from West African and Colombian music. But I don’t particularly want to do a particular style. When I do a Congolese samba, I add a Haitian colour, for example.
I’m always looking for a kind of imaginary journey that’s created in the tension between two places, without being exactly in one place or the other. That’s where the imaginary works.
PAN M 360: So, you draw your inspiration from international music, and your music transcends musical genres?
Nidia Góngora: I believe that music transmits and nurtures diversity. I believe that this diversity, our origins, is transposed into a sound proposal. The project is based on collaboration between African, French and Colombian musicians. This is clearly evident in the group we’ll have with us tonight in Montreal. These diverse origins are reflected in the musical proposal and in the melodies.
Étienne Sevet: I agree. All the members of the group have travelled a lot, and the inspiration is almost geographical. It’s geographical poetry or poetic geography. We see this back-and-forth between our origins and the places to which we’ve been transplanted.
PAN M 360: What are your favourite subjects when you write songs? What do you sing about?
Nidia Góngora: Generally speaking, I write music that has to do with reality, with my experiences and my environment. Anything to do with everyday experiences, whether positive or negative. I like to sing about nature and all it has to offer. I talk about the respect due to nature and humanity.
PAN M 360: Finally, what does your presence at Nuits d’Afrique mean to you?
Étienne Sevet: For me, it’s the culmination of a lot of things. We’ve been in discussions with the Nuits d’Afrique team for a very long time, even well before COVID. We’ve been wanting to come here for several years, but it hasn’t worked out. What’s more, we’re currently wrapping up a short tour of Canada. It’s nice to be able to finish this tour in Montreal, which I think is very significant in terms of the music. We’ll be back, no doubt about it! We love being at these big “world music” festivals because we get to meet some really interesting artists.
Nidia Góngora: It’s always a great joy for me to take part in festivals that show a diversification of music, and to be able to share with great artists and reconnect with our roots through music. When I hear about places where there’s Africanness, if you can put it that way, it’s important for me to be there, but also to come back. There’s a visible connection in these spaces that connect us with Africa, albeit outside Africa. It’s a pleasure to be able to share music in this kind of context. These are universal spaces, with other sounds, and other cultures. That’s precisely one of the main aims of music, and spaces like Nuits d’Afrique make it possible.
Rebecca Jean is Haïbécoise, as she says herself. This unique identity, based on dual belonging, has been built up over the years. But it is now well established and proudly claimed.
A concert as part of the Festival international Nuits d’Afrique 2023, on July 20, is just the prelude to several others to come across Quebec during the summer. The singer whose grandparents “ploughed the land“, like those in Mes Aïeux (which she quotes from a song from the Quebec trad music band), is only too happy to meet one of the two halves of her cultural people, that of Haitian immigrants and that of regional Quebec.
In PAN M 360’s opinion, an artist like her should also have her own stage at the Francos (Les Francofolies Festival). The fact that this is not the case shows that there is still work to be done to decompartmentalize many artists from so-called “diversity”. There are more and more of them, it’s true, but still too many remain unfairly on the sidelines. Anyway, that is for another debate…
I met up with Rebecca Jean and we talked about her cultural roots, French songs (which she grew up listening to) and the language that she loves to protect and help the younger generation discover.
PAN M 360: Hello Rebecca. Last year you released the album Antidote, with which you’ve been touring all over Quebec ever since. The album shows a fine melodic quality in your songs, as well as a nod to Quebec and French chanson. For example, you quote Mes Aïeux in Haïbécoise…
Rebecca Jean: Yes, that’s true. I like to remember that my grandparents ploughed the land too! We have so much in common. We need to reiterate these things because we’re too often overwhelmed by details that divide us. I also did an adaptation of Yves Duteil’s La langue de chez nous and Charles Aznavour’s Hier encore. I would have liked Mr. Aznavour to hear my version of Hier encore, but it was too late. On the other hand, I sent my version of La langue de chez nous to Yves Duteil and he really liked it. I’m delighted.
PAN M 360: Why is this important to you?
Rebecca Jean: I grew up listening to this music, loving the lyrics. It nourished me throughout my youth. I want to give that love back to the younger generation. In addition to all my own compositions of course, which make up the bulk of my output, and where French is very important.
PAN M 360: So you grew up in a very Francophile family environment…
Rebecca Jean: That’s right. This also means that my Haitian Creole roots were not very present in my home. My father listened to a few Haitian songs but in the style of the great French chanson. I didn’t know Konpa, Zouk and those other more typically Haitian styles. It was as an adult that I had to make up for lost time, discover these rhythms, the artists and so on. That’s when I realized that all this was going on inside me without me even knowing it!
PAN M 360: When listening to Haïbécoise and other songs, one gets the impression that your dual identity is very harmonious and fully assumed. Has it always been this way, or is it the result of a hard process?
Rebecca Jean: Yes, it was a process. When I go to Haiti, people don’t think I’m 100% Haitian. In Quebec, people still ask me where I’m from! To make it on stage, you feel you have to put in a lot more effort. You always have to prove yourself. But Antidote is an album of healing! It’s about reconciliation: between men and women, between men and nature, between parents and children. Ultimately, it’s a reconciliation between the two fundamental poles of my identity.
PAN M 360: Was this self-built peace and serenity accompanied by family pressure regarding the “viability” of an artistic career?
Rebecca Jean: Oh yes, absolutely! It’s classic: when you come from an immigrant family, you’re pushed into professions like lawyer, doctor and so on. Art isn’t seen as a profession. It’s a natural activity, something you can do on a daily basis for fun. But you can’t make a living from it. I had to prove myself. When I got my first grant, things started to change! It was a substantial amount and my mother felt she had less to worry about. But I can understand how she felt: she had sacrificed so much, worked so hard and hustled so hard to give us the best options for the future that she was scared to death to see me having hard times. Now she understands and is even the first to send my videos to all her friends.
PAN M 360: Do you have any other projects in the pipeline?
Rebecca Jean: I’d like to release a music album for children. I’d like today’s youth to have role models of diversity, much as I was touched by Passe-Partout. I’d like them to see the same thing but through the eyes of families from cultural communities. To show all the things that are, at heart, similar to those of “native” Quebec families.
I also have a project underway with the artist Jean Jean Roosevelt, a star of Haitian culture. We’re going to Africa for a month at the end of August to work on it.
PAN M 360: Let’s imagine the next St. Jean-Baptiste Day show, for which you would be on stage with your ideal artists from the Quebec scene. What would the line-up look like?
Rebecca Jean: Oh, wow… what a great question… Wait a minute. I’d say Les Cowboys fringants. They have great poetry and great melodies. Mes Aïeux of course, then Louis-Jean Cormier and Karkwa. Then Elisapie and Sarahmée.
Sophie Lukacs was born in Hungary, grew up in Toronto, and made Montreal her home (along with her entire family) and the kora her new life. The young artist, trained on the classical violin, went through a period of emptiness in early adulthood, a journey that led her to completely rewrite the book of her life and make the kora, that hauntingly beautiful African guitar-harp, the foundation of a musical life that is now blossoming and flourishing.
She had to learn all over again, treading on her pride as an ultra-performing classical musician and having to measure herself against 5-year-olds who already played better than she did. She lived in Mali for nearly 8 years, immersed in the griot culture, the only one of her “ethnic” group (white), and the only one of her gender (female) daring to face the demands of a musical apprenticeship rooted as much in method and technique as in communication, history and oral tradition.
That she is today respected and appreciated by the great masters of this exceptional music is a testament to the strength of character of this young woman, who is increasingly revealing herself as an important and unique voice on the artistic scene. I had the great pleasure of chatting with Sophie Lukacs, the only Westerner woman to master the kora, classical Mandingo music and a suitably Montreal blend of these roots with a most pleasingly caressing folk-pop.
PAN M 360: Hello Sophie. You learned to play the violin for over 15 years, culminating in serious studies at McGill. But one day, you stopped and went to live with authentic griots in Africa to learn the kora. You started all over again. Why and what gave you the strength to face such a challenge as an adult?
Sophie Lukacs: Strength comes from experience, but also from passion. The kora and learning a whole new repertoire and musical culture came at a time when I needed it. After years of classical studies, I was feeling a little lost, unsure of what direction to take for the rest of my life. Then, when I lived in New York for a while, I discovered the kora and became obsessed with it. Non-stop. But I didn’t dare question everything in my life. I was born in Hungary, and in that culture, in my family, you learn an instrument and master it all your life. I wondered how I could go about learning a new instrument practically from scratch, how I could make a living, what I would do, and so on. But one day I took the plunge. And it wasn’t easy!
As a young adult, I found myself feeling that I wasn’t as good as the 5-year-olds who played it. I was in Mali (where I lived for several years), alone, because I was a single white Western woman who wanted to learn an age-old art practiced only by men from families that had been practicing it for generations. I didn’t speak the language, I caught typhoid and malaria… But, in spite of everything, to answer your question, the strength I used came from my conviction that this was the right path for me, from the passion that drove me and still drives me for this instrument and this culture, and because, after years of wandering, I felt that I had found the path that would take me to the end of my life. So it’s a mix of will, passion and necessity.
PAN M 360: Your efforts are bearing fruit. You’ve released your first album (Bamako), which is going really well, and you’re a regular on Nuits d’Afrique. How does it feel to be recognized in this way?
Sophie Lukacs: I’m always amazed every time someone buys an album or a concert ticket! Being invited to the Festival, it’s a blessing. You never know what’s going to happen when you embark on this kind of adventure. But what’s happening to me now is really beautiful. I’m really grateful.
PAN M 360: You were born in Hungary and grew up in Toronto. Your French is very good. How did you learn it?
Sophie Lukacs: I went to a French school in Toronto, but I loved the language. I read books in French, watched films and so on. And then I came to study in Montreal for several years.
PAN M 360: And you never left…
Sophie Lukacs: The truth is, yes I did. When I went to live in Mali, it was after I arrived in Montreal. But by then, my whole family had moved to Montreal! We really like the city, its European character, its culture. So when I came back from Mali, I was literally back home when I came here. And the art and music scene is excellent. There are so many musicians. Everyone crosses paths and talks to each other. There are so many opportunities for exchange and projects.
PAN M 360: I feel there are many affinities between the kora, its playing style and repertoire, and Western classical music. Do you see these potential links? Are you interested in eventually writing pieces for kora and, say, classical musicians?
Sophie Lukacs: Yes, there are affinities. The kora requires a long apprenticeship, as well as having a refined sound and playing style. It lends itself well to small-group music, like chamber music. And, yes, indeed, the combination of the two is on the agenda, as it’s a bit of a feature of my next album! I want to invite musicians from both worlds and make an album with that in mind.
For this year’s Festival Nuits d’Afrique, vocalist and bandleader Lavanya Narasiah will be presenting an exciting and original showcase of music that goes beyond borders.
PAN M 360: Hey Lavanya, thanks for being here. Your show this year stands out for featuring so many different musical traditions. Can you tell us a little bit more about it?
Lavanya: Of course. This show is really the culmination of a dream of mine where I wanted to create a space where many of my ‘world’ music colleagues, mostly from the Montreal area, but also a few from India, were able to collaborate. For each track on my first CD, Dharani, that I made 10 years ago now, there were many many musicians featured. Unfortunately I couldn’t launch that album the way I wanted to, life got in the way, my mom had fallen sick, but eventually I wanted to come back to this project and find a way to make it something we could actually perform, you know, with all these different musicians and styles. The question was what in a matter of essence could we take, and how could we move forward with it? We still perform that material but now with a more condensed group. We’ll have some special guests at this show though.
PAN M 360: Dharani is such an incredibly compelling project. I have my reservations about terms like fusion and world music, but what you’ve managed to achieve with this instrumentation is fascinating. It makes me curious about your musical journey. Do you have a strong basis in Carnatic vocal training?
Lavanya: Well since a young age I was learning about Carnatic music from my father. So yes, my base has always been in classical Carnatic music but then in my teens and all, I started really getting interested in other things, especially Brazilian music. When I first heard some of that music I just fell in love and I keep saying, I feel like I was Brazilian in a past life! Like most of my best friends are all from Brazil too.
Eventually I started working on this project. I called it Sertão, and that was back in Sherbrooke, and I had a band there for many years. And then we came to Montreal with that band, I changed the name to Chandra Lua. We were taking some of these Brazilian classics, you know, songs from the 1960s and 70s with a lot of social and revolutionary spirit behind them, and then I naturally added a sort of Indian touch and started playing around with a bit of konnakol and all that. So I had a strong affinity with Brazilian music for a long time and from there I was getting the chance to travel for work, and I was able to go to Mali and was really touched by the music I heard there, there were even some Indian melodies that I heard in it. I thought wow, it would be super cool to try to do something, something that’s not fusion, but like a new sound bringing all these instruments together. Like you said, I also have reservations about world music and all, but then again I don’t know how best to describe this music.
PAN M 360: Fair enough. While music is of course a universal language, technically it must present some challenges bringing all these sounds together, what was that process like?
Lavanya: Good question, but usually the compositions begin with a melody that I start to hum and once I feel like I have something, I bring it to the band. From there maybe the kora player will say that he can’t play something exactly like that but will play something that is the closest equivalent we have in our tradition. In that case maybe I might ask him to omit certain notes instead of having to add them, because I really like to respect the raga in the compositions. I like to concentrate on one raga per piece as much as I can. So there’s a lot of compromise and a lot of communication, and eventually we add a bass and a rhythmic structure that is sound with the percussionists finding their way to meld with the music best.
We do of course perform some of the songs from the first album but we’ve also been working on some new material, things that have yet to be released because of the COVID epidemic. I’m actually a healthcare worker, so that’s why there was another long pause in my music making.
PAN M 360: Yes, I know! It’s incredible to me that you manage to be an artist and a medical professional at same time.
Lavanya: It’s tough, it’s definitely tough. I’ve been working for 25 years as a family physician, and so there have been a lot of challenges, but also it’s because of music that I have been able to survive and stay in this profession as long as I have.
PAN M 360: Would you say music has genuine healing properties then, beyond spiritual and emotional relief.
Lavanya: Absolutely, right? We have yet to completely understand our bodies’ response to music. But it’s clear that something happens in our body when we hum, or even just think of music. Sometimes you don’t even have to be singing, but just the thought of music can have a real physiological effect on us, and even just our general wellbeing.
You know, with Indian music, when I don’t have time, I can put on the tanpura box and just sing my sa re ga ma’s, and sometimes that is all I can do between a meeting, but it aligns something in me, it grounds me, it completely grounds me.
PAN M 360: I’m excited to feel that for myself. Wishing you a great show Lavanya.
Lavanya: Thank you!
Sound System culture is huge in Europe and the UK, but thanks to World Wild Sound System it is becoming more and more noticeable in Montreal and Quebec. Started around a decade ago with Guillaume Alexandre and his colleague Pierre FX after they moved to Quebec from France, WWSS, has been hosting Sound System parties in Montreal and around the world after finding rare Reggae, Dub, Caribbean, etc., vinyl and linking up with some OGs in the culture and the Jamaican community.
If you don’t know what a Sound System is, it consists of large speakers, a turntable, and a preamplifier and is meant to be portable and blasted in the streets. This year at Nuits D’Afrique, WWSS will play a show with the mighty Jah Observer, a legend who helped perpetuate Sound System culture in the UK. We spoke with Guillaume ahead of the Nuits D’Afrique show to learn about the history and importance of Sound Systems and how the culture is slowly jumping into North America.
PAN M 360: I just kind of wanted to learn more about World Wild Sound System and Jah Observer. It’s kind of a new world for me and some of our readers.
Guillaume Alexandre: Of course. So basically, World Wild Sound System is influenced by the system movements originally born in Jamaica around the ’50s, developing during the ’60s and ’70s. So basically, it started in Jamaica, because of the radio stations. The music that was played over there on the radio stations was based on the BBC structure, so it wasn’t Jamaican music, it was mostly Rhythm and Blues from America, a little bit of punk rock, blah, blah, blah, but no Reggae or Calypso even before the Reggae. So, the Jamaicans started to put speakers on the street, stack them together, and then hang out there, and listen to Jamaican music. And eventually, it became a huge party in downtown Kingston.
PAN M 360: So it was kind of like a revolution then?
Guillaume Alexandre: Over there at this time yes. The militants and as you said, the revolution … but this little cultural revolution was done out there. And this movement was developing because of all this vindication they have; it was mostly poor people descending from slaves and the slave society that was over there at the service time and was just ending. So there weren’t slaves anymore, but they were obliged to work in the countryside for like little money and it was very difficult. So they started to lose interest in this society that the government was offering to them. And then this injection of new music became the link to all that.
So yeah, obviously now in we are in a different configuration. But we still, with our parties try to put people in the same on the same area and to try to communicate a peaceful message, message, sharing unity, and love. We also travel to different countries in the world to find these very rare vinyls, and then we play them. So it’s very rare if you can share them. That’s why people come to our parties because they’re gonna listen to very spiritual music with a message and they will have fun, but it’s still very conscious of the movement.
World Wild Sound Systems
PAN M 360: And during these SoundSystem parties, there is always an emcee kind of explaining where these songs came from?
Guillaume Alexandre: Yes and in this case with the Nuits D’Afrique it is Jah Observer. So Jah Observer is one of the foundation artists of the Notting Hill Carnival in London, UK. It’s the second biggest festival in the world celebrating Jamaican culture. In the ’80s there were riots going on at the same time, but now, if you go, it is a very popular festival. So Jah Observer is one of the founders of this culture and for maybe 30 years he used this homemade Sound System with like tubes and valves. He is from Jamaica, but he immigrated to Notting Hill in his 20s I think. So he was part of this Sound Systems movement in the UK which was a bit more militant than in Jamaica actually. When he came, the UK was not into playing Jamaican music, so it was much more underground but conscious. Me and my colleague, we are born in France, and moved to Quebec 10 years ago. So at this time, we were definitely more influenced by the UK Sound System movement and culture. But now, we have more links to the Jamaican community, we invite them, and we have a link with the President of the Jamaican Association. So we’re trying to have people discover this culture again because, in Europe, you could sell 2000 tickets easily…
PAN M 360: Right, so the Sound Systems movement and its history are still quite new here?
Guillaume Alexandre: Yes exactly. It’s at the beginning, but we estimate that it will become more popular over time by having these parties, because of the nature of this kind of music. It is still music for the poor.
PAN M 360: So when did you link up with Jah Observer? Have you done shows with him in the past?
Guillaume Alexandre: No, No, No. It’s kind of a long story, but I was in Notting Hill in 2012 to see him play on his own Sound System. Because these Sound Systems artists do travel to play, but when they play on their own Sound Systems, you really understand what they are trying to do. So I saw him play his show but didn’t get a chance to speak with him. But last year, we went again and he was playing again, but not on his Sound System because he is retired now, but we linked up with him. Just saying ‘Hey man, love your work we are based in Canada. And he’s in Jamaica now, so that’s not too far from Canada so we started the conversation. And because my colleague and I have been doing this for so long, we know lots of the players in the Sound Systems movements, not personally, but he could check out for contacts and see if we were for real. If we play on a real Sound System with a real preamp and real passion. And that’s obviously what we do so yeah, it’s not that far to come from Jamaica.
PAN M 360: So you and your colleague Pierre are kind of opening the night and then it’s Jah Observer?
Guillaume Alexandre: Yes we are doing a little warm up and we have one deck and one mic—like they did it traditionally—that is specially made for our Sound System. We built the speakers ourselves here in Quebec with Canadian wood and we did import the speakers from the UK and we built and now it’s approximately 12,000 watts and we afford the amps to drive that and such. So basically we do our sets, we play we just whole records and then Jah Observer will play. He’s the star of the night and he will be the highlight. He is playing records that are very rare too and he’s speaking over the mic. So he will help the people. Telling them ‘What is the story all about? And what is the vision? About Reggae probably, wrapped in Sound System culture. It’s always the same discussion through music around being together supporting each other, and so on.
PAN M 360: And this could be his last show for a long time since he’s retired. Maybe his only show in Canada?
Guillaume Alexandre: Yes. You know we were planning to work with Jah Shaka [Zulu Warrior] and he, rest in power, passed away a few months ago. But Jah Observer is around 70 years old and this is his first time coming to Quebec and maybe Canada, so yes, it could be the last time to see him play.
Makossa, bikutsi, esséwé, rumba, afrobeat, jazz, soul, R&B, you name it. Valérie Okoumé inspires and breathes out all this music in her afropop, a globalized repertoire she concocts with her husband Guy Nwogang, a master percussionist. Born into a music-loving family, the Cameroonian-born French singer was encouraged from an early age to pursue a career, which led her to the American School Of Modern Music, where she studied voice, piano and other rudiments for five years. This training earned her a choice job with the late Manu Dibango, “her benefactor from whom she learned the meaning of performance”. She has also worked with Youssou N’Dour, Flavia Coehlo, James BKS, Alisha Brilla and Delia Fischer, and has released the albums Kwin na kinguè (2017) and Monè (2022). A woman with a head and a heart, a strong and stubborn woman, Valérie Ekoumé is part of this new generation ready to transgress the codes of African pop and cross all the frontiers of the known universe.
PAN M 360: By videoconference, we’re at your place, in this rustic and very attractive room in your home. Is it in the Paris region?
Valérie Ekoumé: No, we’re in the east of France, near Besançon. I’m a former Parisian who doesn’t regret Parisian life at all.
PAN M 360: You’re really here! Yes, it’s great. It’s been reported that a lot of people have been fleeing Paris in recent years.
Valérie Ekoumé: Yes, and it got worse during the pandemic.
PAN M 360: Have you ever been to Montreal?
Valérie Ekoumé: The first time I came to Montreal was with Tonton – Manu Dibango. I think it was in 2010, something like that, we played at Nuits d’Afrique.
PAN M 360: What is your relationship with Cameroon, the country of your parents and ancestors?
Valérie Ekoumé: I was lucky enough to have an extraordinary childhood. I was born in France, but as my parents separated at a very young age – I must have been a year old or something – I was sent to Cameroon to live with my grandparents.
PAN M 360: That was a real immersion experience for you.
Valérie Ekoumé: Exactly! It all started when I was very little. When I was six, I came back to France, but two or three years later, my mother decided to change air and I went back to Douala until I was 13. So I was really immersed in my Cameroonian culture. In fact, I have a double culture because I’m also French.
PAN M 360: What do you express today as an artist with multiple identities?
Valérie Ekoumé: Cameroon is part of me for sure, so it’s essential that what I express is as authentic as possible. And then fate led me to accompany artists like Manu Dibango, and that was that.
PAN M 360: You started out as a singer, but gradually became a soloist.
Valérie Ekoumé: I come from a musical family, and I’ve always wanted this career. When I started singing, I must have been 15, and it was my goal to be able to express myself. For me, being a chorister was one of the steps that would enable me to learn my trade.
PAN M 360: Not every chorister succeeds in becoming a soloist. There are super choristers who are excellent singers, but who don’t have the authority on stage as a soloist. Clearly, this is not the case for you, as you have a solo career that seems to be going very well!
Valérie Ékoumé: As I was saying, it’s always been a goal. I trained myself, I went to music school, I learned the piano, I learned to read music, to write it, I studied singing. Today, I’m well looked after by Guy, my husband, who also has a very deep-rooted musical culture in Cameroon.
PAN M 360: It really is a family business!
Valérie Ekoumé: That’s the way the times are too. We’re all entrepreneurs, musicians, and directors. We don’t have a choice. You have to fend for yourself. The music ecosystem is very difficult right now. You really have to get organized, but in the end, we’re happy. In any case, when we started out, ten years ago, we were a bit annoyed. What used to be the case for artists was signing with a management team and a record company.
PAN M 360: And now?
Valérie Ekoumé: Not any more. We’re producers, we own our work. We don’t have to prostitute ourselves. And that’s fine. Anyway, that’s the future. That’s the way it’s going to be. It’s a question of positioning ourselves well. Streaming, on the other hand, is very complex. Revenues from recorded music are lower than they used to be. So you have to do more live shows. And when you’re not touring, you’ve still got things to do: looking for bookings, taking care of the administrative side, etc.
PAN M 360: Husband and wife, parents, creative and business partners, it’s total fusion!
Valérie Ekoumé: It’s a fusion, yes. And then our daughter comes to concerts and tours with us. We travel as a family.
PAN M 360: That’s great because this business isn’t really easy on married life.
Valérie Ekoumé: That’s true. Quite early on, I realized that people expect the wife to stay at home and look after the children. When I had our child, I said to myself, “My life’s over, I can’t do anything else, as I love to travel and all that. And so, our life has adapted to this context, and that’s good. I’m part of a generation of women artists who travel with their children.
PAN M 360: As long as they don’t go to school, it’s perfect!
Valérie Ekoumé: Even when they’re at school, you can still get them to work when you’re away for a while. I prefer to travel with my child because, in particular, if you leave a child at home, you don’t know who you’re leaving him with. And we’re two parents in the same business, so we can help each other out.
PAN M 360: Let’s get back to the music. The music you make is inspired by earlier generations and also more recent Afro-pop. It’s also quite respectful of Cameroonian music, which, as we know, is rhythmically diverse.
Valérie Ékoumé: Actually, that’s really Guy’s part, because it’s all about rhythm, and he’s a real rhythmist.
PAN M 360: He’s a percussionist, producer and manager. He does a lot of things! He plays with you on stage, he works with you in the studio and so on. How does it work when you’re making songs?
Valérie Ékoumé: I sit down at the piano, compose the basics and then it’s a bit of a production line. I pass him the stuff and he integrates the rhythms. We like to represent all the rhythms of Cameroon and not make anyone jealous. Cameroon is musically very rich.
PAN M 360: And yet this is not a folk repertoire from Cameroon.
Valérie Ekoumé: People like to see Africa as more traditional, whereas Africa is big and increasingly modern.
PAN M 360: It’s true that some people still have this fixed (and colonial) image of Africa. Your Africa is clearly more global.
Valérie Ékoumé: It’s not embarrassing to make little nods to other cultures, because that’s always interesting for us as musicians. If you’ve listened to Strong Beautiful Ladies (SBL), for example, it’s really an Afrobeat sound, a nod to Fela Kuti and Tony Allen.
PAN M 360: Would you be interested in incorporating a little electronics? At the moment, it’s not really part of your sound, with a few exceptions.
Valérie Ekoumé: It’s true that we’re much more acoustic with our instruments. But maybe in the future… We like our music to be able to renew itself.
PAN M 360: And on stage?
Valérie Ekoumé: The arrangements are different, and that’s the point. Personally, I’ve never liked going to a concert to listen to music the way I listen to it on record. I’ve already got the record.
PAN M 360: There’s also the energy on stage, which changes things.
Valérie Ekoumé: Exactly. And then there’s the interaction with people. And when you want to communicate with people, they have to be able to see who you are. Before, I was really focused on how I presented myself, my image and all that, but in fact, people don’t care. As long as they can see you for who you are, that’s what matters.
PAN M 360: There are 4 of you on stage?
Valérie Ekoumé: Yes, there are 4 of us: bass, drums, guitar and me, who does a bit of keyboard work as well as singing. We also have pre-recorded sequences that replace the arrangements. And communication with the audience means that the audience becomes the 5th member of the band.
PAN M 360: Any Canadian dates this summer?
Valérie Ékoumé: In Canada, we’re doing 6 dates, including 3 in Quebec. It’s our 2nd year in a row there, by the way. We like it there; we often have the impression of being better understood.
The seasoned Afrobeat group from New York City will be making an appearance at this year’s Festival International Nuits d’Afrique. I spoke with drummer Daniel and guitarist Eric about their music and their upcoming show.
PAN M 360 : Hey thanks for being here! Are you tuning in from Brooklyn then?
Daniel: Yep! I’m with my friend Eric, the guitarist, we just finished a rehearsal.
PAN M 360 : Well I’m sure you must be busy these days, especially when the covid restrictions were first lifted. Has Afrobeat come back with a vengeance?
Daniel: Well for sure there’s a demand for live music generally, and afrobeat of course makes for an especially good time. People know that. So I would definitely say so.
PAN M 360 : It feels like there is sort of an Afrobeat resurgence, with groups from London especially. Do you see yourselves as part of the same sort of movement, or not really?
Daniel: I think that resurgence has actually been going on for a while now, at least in New York. I mean it goes back to the Fela Broadway shows and that brought a lot of mainstream attention to the genre but that was a while back now. I’ve been here ten years now and that well before my time. As a group, we’ve been around since 2014, which is a good amount of time, but we still feel like a newer band on the scene in general, but then again we’re also touring with Kaleta, and he’s someone who’s been doing this since the 1970’s. So it’s kind of like, you know, there’s two different movements within the movement,
PAN M 360 : Would you make a distinction between modern Afrobeat and classic Afrobeat?
Daniel : That’s a great question. I mean, you know, you hear people definitely putting a modern spin on it nowadays. But I mean, even like, I don’t know, even listening to Tony Allen’s discography, it progresses and it gets more modern. His early records from the 70s are very like, you know, they sound like the early Fela records and then, later in his career, he’s doing techno stuff with Jeff Mills and working with Jimmy Tenor, so maybe it is a natural progression of things. Afrobeat itself, when Fela created that style, it was clearly a blend of so many different things, so bringing in different things is in the DNA of this music.
PAN M 360 : I would love to know how you guys got interested in this music and how the Super Yamba Band came to be.
Daniel : Yeah, it’s kind of interesting. Obviously we didn’t grow up on West African music. I grew up on blues and rock and jazz and I’m sure Eric’s kind of in a similar boat. But a few of us were living in North Carolina before we moved to New York and we just kind of randomly met this man named Mamadou Mbenge who was a Senegalese talking drum master. Just like a phenomenal talking drum player. And he actually got us hip to African music.
He taught us some of the like rootsy Senegalese drumming traditions. Our band started to take in some of that stuff and because we were the only band nearby that fused any kind of like an African beat, we started getting new opportunities opening for bands that were touring. We ended up opening for Fela’s son, Seun Kuti and Egypt 80. We opened up for Antibalas a couple of times. I still haven’t been to West Africa, so I don’t really feel like an expert, but we’ve just been kind of around this stuff for a long time now.
PAN M 360 : Is that how you ended up meeting Kaleta?
Daniel : Well sort of. We moved to New York shortly after that and started Super Yamba as a way to explore Afrobeat and to play gigs up there at some of the clubs that cater to that style. And, you know, for whatever reason, it all happened pretty quick and we started gigging a bunch and started to build a following. We went to make our first full-length album and the idea behind that album was to record different tracks that we could have guest singers on, you know, singers from the different regions and countries of Africa.
Somehow we felt like we could never find one singer that could sing all these specific styles. So, anyway, we were making the record, and I actually asked a friend of ours, Nick Hill, who used to be the bassist for Antibalas, for a recommendation for someone to sing our Nigerian songs and he put us in touch with Kaleta. We knew who he was since he had been playing in Fela’s band Egypt 80 and with King Sunny Adé. We learned he was from Benin and when we showed him some of our more Benin inspired stuff, he was like, whoa, let me hear the other tracks. He ended up singing on 8 songs!
PAN M 360 : So at this show will you be mostly playing from Mèdaho?
Daniel : We have a lot of newer songs, but we have a bunch of tunes at this point, but it’s usually about half and half, because we have to play the classics, you know.
PAN M 360 : Afrobeat has been historically a music of protest and resistance, do you still see the music in those terms?
Eric : I mean we do, but to be perfectly honest I don’t know the lyrical content of all of our songs, because I think they are in about seven different languages. Kaleta, who has lived some of that stuff, is coming from a different place than us, and so we definitely have some numbers that speak to certain political and cultural situations.
PAN M 360 : I’m sure the both of you must have some really great recommendations. Aside from Fela and King Sunny Adé, what are some other names that you think we should be aware of?
Daniel : Of course. I have so many favourites and a lot of them are just like part of some random compilation or a 45 where I don’t know how to find more from this particular band. Aside from Fela and King Sunny Ade, there’s a band called the Funkies. There’s also the Psychedelic Aliens, which is a wild name, but they are really awesome, and they are from Nigeria as well. .
Eric : Ebo Taylor and Pat Thomas. The Super Djata Band from Mali have been a big influence on us.
Daniel: Yeah, that’s a few, that’ll get you all up.
PAN M 360 : Much appreciated guys. Have a great show!
Cameroonian Blick Bassy, founder of The Jazz Crew and above all Macase, a leading Bantou-Groove band, handles pop with a painter’s touch, particularly since the start of his solo career in 2006. His basic palette is that of his roots, the traditional colours and light of his homeland, to which he adds traces of electro (increasingly present), groove and funk. But what he infuses most strongly into his albums are central themes with strong socio-political connotations.
In Madiba (2023), water is the discursive foundation, greatly channelledto animpressive panoramic effect thanks to a soundtrack with almost symphonic ambitions. On his previous album, 1958 (2019), he paid tribute to Ruben Um Nyobé, a hero of Cameroon’s anti-colonial struggle, but in truth, he took the opportunity to deepen the link with his own roots and identity. A few days before his visit to the Festival International Nuits d’Afrique, as well as the Festival d’été de Québec, the singer, songwriter, producer, guitarist and percussionist, but also author, filmmaker and socio-political actor (he was recently appointed co-director of the Commission mémoire sur le Cameroun instituted by French President Emmanuel Macron) spoke to me not only about music but also about community, humanism and the importance of being part of the “Chain of the Living”. Explanations.
PAN M 360: Your albums take a militant, sociopolitical and consciousness-raising turn. Why and when did you first feel the need to get involved?
Blick Bassy: Back in the days of Macase, I always put forward a conscious approach to writing, to talk about the problems that prevent human emancipation. Since the start of my solo career, I’ve simply deepened my approach. I tell myself that since I have a public platform thanks to my artistic profession, I might as well use it to share my thoughts on what might enable us to achieve, perhaps one day, a kind of osmosis as humans. I want to raise people’s awareness of how important it is for each individual to be part of the Chain of the Living. We are all contributors to, and dependent on, this chain.
PAN M 360: What brings you to choose a subject?
Blick Bassy: It’s a process. One thing leads to another. Take the last few years, for example. On my album 1958, I was pursuing a personal quest for my identity, which led me to question the nature of my Cameroonian roots. What is this nation? What does it represent? In a sense, it’s an identity space created and named by others, the colonizers who determined its geographical contours and, by the same token, its socio-politico-cultural nature. From there, I also asked myself how we could appropriate this imagined space and give it renewed life in the contemporary game of nations. But this time, from the perspective of Cameroonians, according to their vision and ideals. Through the figure of this anti-colonial activist assassinated in 1958, all this is materialized in words and music. In the end, I’ve come to ask how we can live in peace, in a shared reconnection, Cameroonians and French, to a mutually solidifying Chain of the Living.
In Madiba, water is a kind of continuation of the questioning suggested in 1958. Water is a powerful metaphor for the Chain of the Living. It is a link without which we cannot live. It’s in all of us, in every living element of the natural order! As in a chain, as with water, we cannot extract ourselves from the chain without harming ourselves and others. Conflicts are like this: a withdrawal of certain groups from the Chain of the Living, from the chain of dependence. And the consequences are disastrous. Chaos.
PAN M 360: Does it work? Do you feel you’re making a difference?
Blick Bassy: I think art breaks silently into hearts and brains. It prepares people for dialogue. You lower everyone’s defences by using a means of communication that diverts attention by offering pleasure and even transcendence. It can create favourable predispositions for meeting others. I remain optimistic, yes. The ideas behind the 1958 album are rejected by many in France. It’s still a little-known story, that of the colonial period and its effects on local populations. Some French people feel offended because they have the impression that they’re being asked to repent at every turn. But with music, I feel we can talk in a calmer way. It stimulates dialogue. It’s always dialogue that’s lacking in conflicts.
PAN M 360: President Emmanuel Macron recently appointed you co-director of the Memory Commission on Cameroon, a body whose mandate is to document the decolonization of Cameroon and the repression carried out by France at the time. How do you feel about the responsibility of this role?
Blick Bassy: It’s a huge responsibility, which I’ve accepted with great humility. We have to travel the length and breadth of Cameroon, meeting our fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters, and giving them the opportunity to speak without fear. These are people we’ve never listened to. It’s a psycho-therapeutic task, but also one of archiving the memory of the history of Cameroon, but also of the shared history with France. This will enable us to establish a truly constructive dialogue, to bring two communities together in a shared Chain of the Living. I feel lucky to be carrying out this mission.
PAN M 360: That said, the current social situation in France is contradictory, isn’t it? How do you feel about the fact that the very state that is enabling you to carry out this memory work is associated with a security apparatus perceived as violent and discriminatory by part of the population, especially of African origin?
Blick Bassy: I can see that the machinery of government can sometimes take positive steps. You have to jump at the chance. But it’s true that France is suffering at the moment. It’s suffering a lot. We won’t bury our heads in the sand. Many people feel rejected by this country. And others reassure themselves by unloading the weight of their responsibilities on scapegoats. There’s chaos in this country. In a normal France, everyone would stand up to denounce an unacceptable act of violence. And there should be no kitty for the shooter (an online fundraiser raised over a million and a half euros for the policeman). It’s an example of leaving the Chain of the Living I was talking about. There is no longer any awareness of the link that unites all humans, despite their differences. And it all stems from the breakdown of the state, which is subject to the law of modern capitalism, which has no interest in people understanding what’s at stake. It wouldn’t survive. We entertain, we divert attention, but we let a lot of people leave the living, the chain of relationships and community. Capitalism is not interested in solving this problem. It sells more by making people not care about these things.
PAN M 360: Let’s get back to music. I’ve noticed an increasingly assertive move towards electronics in your recent albums, especially the latest, Madiba. Why this progression?
Blick Bassy: You’re right. For several years now, I’ve wanted to use the tools that technology offers us to explore new, unprecedented sound spaces. I like to think of myself, humbly, as an avant-garde African artist. I’m looking to take my people outside the general African framework in which we’re expected to operate. The music scene in Africa is not structured. We don’t have spaces to help artists explore and manipulate sounds. I’m in France and I have access to spaces like that. So I want to make the most of them to bring something else to the African brand in music. What’s more, once again, it creates a chain between my native culture, its traditions, language, etc., and the non-African for whom it’s all foreign. Thanks to these sounds, he’ll be more receptive to the dialogue I want to start.
PAN M 360: I hear a sound universe that I associate with Afro-futurism, a cultural movement that embraces literature and the visual arts in particular. Do you feel a connection with this movement?
Blick Bassy: It’s interesting because, in my approach, I try to think about the future, yes, but for me, Afro-futurism is above all about reconnecting with tradition using modern tools! To have a future, we need to rebuild a solid base on which to project ourselves into the future. Right now, our basic structure has a serious problem: it’s been built by others! So, yes, I can relate to this current, but my approach is different.
PAN M 360: Thank you, Blick Bassy, and welcome to Quebec!
Blick Bassy: Thanks, I’m really looking forward to it.
Close to Africa and Madagascar, the deeply mixed archipelago of the Comoros is rich in volcanic and cultural eruptions. Eliasse comes from there and is truly steeped in it, but he also presents himself as a citizen of the world performing with a trio founded in France. With a rock attitude and a globalized aesthetic, Eliasse expresses this tonic blend of different Comorian styles and rhythms and other musical dialects from the Indian Ocean, twarab, mgodro, chigoma… zangoma in short, also the title of his forthcoming album, which he tells us about before taking to the stage at Nuits d’Afrique, this Thursday at Balattou.
PAN M 360: Is this your first time in Montreal?
Eliasse: It’s the first time I’ve come with my own project. I came here in 2005 as a musician, accompanying a Comorian artist called Maalesh.
PAN M 360: As a layman, I can say that the music of the Comoros seems close to that of Madagascar. What do Comorian artists think?
Eliasse: Yes, our music is very similar. Of course, Madagascar has had and still has an influence on the Comoros.
PAN M 360: This region of Madagascar and the Comoros is one of the oldest known territories of inter-racial or intercultural mixing. The ancestry is African, Indian, Asian and Western. It shows in your music!
Eliasse: In any case, we’ve already built our people that way. Very mixed!
PAN M 360: And this obviously produces music that is very different from the music of the African continent, to which the Comoros are quite close.
Eliasse: It’s Creole in our own way because everyone came with their own little addition. Inevitably, it gets creolized as we go along. It’s quite different from what’s being created elsewhere.
PAN M 360: Where are you based exactly?
Eliasse: I’m in France, near Bordeaux. I’ve been in France for eight years, for personal and family reasons, not necessarily professional. I left the Comoros archipelago when I was 25.
PAN M 360: So you’re coming with a group that’s both Comorian and French?
Eliasse: Yes, the musicians are French, absolutely. The idea is to showcase this musically without doing something traditional. The idea is to show that mix too.
PAN M 360: You’re a mixture of genres yourself, and so on. You’re not just defending Comorian music. You’re defending what you’ve become.
Eliasse: Thank you. That’s exactly it. I’m defending what I’ve become and what I’m living now. I think I’ll continue this crossbreeding in a natural way.
PAN M 360: And is this crossbreeding named?
Eliasse: My next album will be called Zangoma, the name I give to my style of music. As you may have noticed, we have a huge rhythmic wealth, dozens of distinct rhythms. So, we pick and choose from them, make our little songs and people ask me, “What’s your style?” Baco, a singer from Mayotte, had this idea long before me of giving a name to all these people who make this slightly bastardized music by mixing several rhythms.
PAN M 360: What about the Comorian language? What other language is it similar to?
Eliasse: It comes from Swahili. I don’t speak Swahili, but I recognize words, expressions, phrases… I’m going to understand a lot of things. That’s where our language comes from, and there’s also Malagasy. In some parts of the Comoros, people speak Kibuchi, a version of Malagasy. All this is mixed into the Comorian language, a sum of dialects. No one speaks exactly the same thing, but everyone understands each other because these dialects are not very far apart.
PAN M 360: Musically, your rhythmic patterns are more elaborate than many other cultures. In their construction, your songs are more complex than the average.
Eliasse: I’ll leave that to the experts. Because for me, it’s a very natural thing. I haven’t studied anything like that. We’ll invite a musicologist to come and talk about it! (laughs)
PAN M 360: In any case, your beats are elaborate, even in your songs.
Eliasse: Because I also think that the Comorian people are complex.
PAN M 360: Haha!
Eliasse: Without getting into all the technicalities, that’s what gave me the confidence to say that maybe I could make music. When I was working with an artist from the Comoros, I thought why should he be able to travel? There was something special about him. That ties in with what you’re saying, I think there’s something special about the Comoros too.
PAN M 360: You’ve grown up with it, it’s natural for you. It’s not forced, it’s not manufactured, it’s not a vision of the mind. It’s part of you. And what does your generation bring to the table? For example, you have more rock instrumentation.
Eliasse: Of course, each generation brings its own era and influences. For example, I brought back the electric guitar. It’s not that it didn’t exist, it existed behind the sound. But I’ve brought it to the fore and I’ve taken on this rock side while keeping all these Comorian rhythms and also songs that are a little traditional.
PAN M 360: Guitars are very important in your work, anyway. There are a lot of guitars. Is that the more up-to-date element that comes from your generation? Do the generations that follow use more keyboards, computers, and hip-hop-style beat-making? Less guitar? More electronic?
Eliasse: Yes, there’s a lot of electro and synthesizers like everywhere else. I wouldn’t say it’s not good, it’s just the way it is. It’s just the way it is, and yes, there are a lot of people who compose that way.
PAN M 360: Where do you see your market?
Eliasse: We’re still in the process of developing this project. We’ve been in existence for five years as a trio, guitar-bass-drums with a few machines and percussion. There are three of us, all singing and playing percussion. Of course, we’re a lot more in France and also the Indian Ocean, since that’s where I come from. We’re also starting to look a bit further afield.
PAN M 360: Since we don’t know anything about the Comorian language, could you tell us a bit about what you sing?
Eliasse: I sing about Comorian society, politics, social problems, human relations, environmental protection, violence and so on. I’m talking about this archipelago that’s very unstable politically but very peaceful, contradictorily. Yes, people witness changes in power, but remain calm. And then I don’t really do love songs… At least I don’t do them in a very classic way… Feelings are a bit hidden there.
PAN M 360: So, intimacy isn’t a priority in your lyrics?
Eliasse: No, it’s not. Mind you, I can write a very, very intimate song, but I write it figuratively, without putting myself on stage. I’m already on stage!
Sépopo Galley is Director of Programming at the Festival international Nuits d’Afrique. She can be proud to have taken on this responsibility, still too rarely attributed to women, and even less to Afro-descendant women. Before migrating to Canada, she lived in France, where she held administrative duties for a theatre company in Normandy, before which she held a relatively similar position in Avignon. Now firmly in the saddle at Nuits d’Afrique for a third year running, Sépopo explains to PAN M 360 how she works within an organization that has been active for almost four full decades.
PAN M 360: How did you become part of the Nuits d’Afrique organization?
Sépopo Galley: After arriving in Montreal three years ago, I started working in production at Nuits d’Afrique, then found myself in programming in 2021.
PAN M 360: Obviously, you’re familiar with the music that fits Nuit d’Afrique’s profiles, so you’ve developed your own knowledge.
Sépopo Galley: Yes, I’ve proven myself, and I’ve also discovered a lot of things, and we’re always discovering new things. It’s a constant process of discovery.
PAN M 360: What’s your angle? How do you see the artistic programming at Nuits d’Afrique?
Sépopo Galley: I see freshness, I see novelty. There’s so much new talent out there, I want to be able to showcase it. But we still need to keep the Nuits d’Afrique base, because we need a mix of generations. That’s what makes the program so rich, but I think we need to bring in a bit of freshness, either with music that still retains its roots, or with a more modern approach.
PAN M 360: You’re certainly aware of the general feel of Nuits d’Afrique and the type of programming put forward over the last 40 years now. How have you adapted to this vision? How do you see yourself implementing your own way of doing things, and your own artistic personality through your choices?
Sépopo Galley: You also have to be humble and try to listen to the advice of the people who have been there since the very beginning 38 years ago, and whose vision has led Nuits d’Afrique to become one of Montreal’s major festivals. So, to take what has been done, consolidate it and take it elsewhere without distorting the purpose.
PAN M 360: And what does “take it elsewhere” mean?
Sépopo Galley: In this program, there are artists from our label who are new. There are also artists I’ve discovered at festivals and specialized conventions. So, we’ve spotted artists who bring something new to the table, who make contemporary music like afrobeat. As for artists from elsewhere, we’re looking for Montreal artists with whom we haven’t had much opportunity to work, and who have a fresh touch to offer. There are also artists from abroad.
PAN M 360: If we put names to this, for example, what do you find refreshing about the Nuits d’Afrique 2023 program?
Sépopo Galley: Blick Bassy and Eliasse, who are playing on Thursday, are good examples. Spontaneously, I would add Yemi Alade, The Bongo Up, Sona Jobarteh, Kaleta & Super Yamba Band. Several international or local artists invited this year who have never come before. Several premieres on the program!
PAN M 360: So this programming is done in collegiality with the management of Nuits d’Afrique, in order to maintain this harmonious relationship between past and present.
Sépopo Galley: Exactly! I’m the one who does the initial work, I orientate a little according to what I’d like to propose, and then we get together in the programming committee and make the decisions together.
PAN M 360: Now, of course, the enigma for international festivals is Nigeria, whose cultural output has been exploding in recent years. Last year, Yemi Alade was the victim of Canadian customs delays and was able to perform in Montreal in November, before returning outdoors in a few days’ time at Nuits d’Afrique. This is not strictly a problem for Nuits d’Afrique, as we observed at the Santa-Teresa festival last May and at the Jazz Festival more recently. How do you explain this?
Sépopo Galley: I can’t explain it, I don’t know where the problem lies. Personally, I’d say that there’s also the matter of preparing the files and the time it takes to process them through Canadian customs. As you said, it’s a recurring problem, but we have no explanation.
PAN M 360: So why have you done so little afrobeat?
Sépopo Galley: We’re trying now. Maybe we didn’t jump on the bandwagon right away, but now it’s music that’s very well represented, much loved, that we have to promote because people ask for it. There’s quite a strong demand, and it’s good music. It’s the kind of music that a lot of people are listening to nowadays, and we’d like to continue in that vein as well, we’d like to continue, and we’ll be working further upstream.
PAN M 360: Is 2023 the real year of post-pandemic recovery?
Sépopo Galley: No, last year was similar. We got ready after COVID. In 2021, we ran an all-local festival, and now we’re back in full force with the opening of our two stages on L’Esplanade Tranquille. We have workshops, we’ve innovated with outdoor cabarets, our market has expanded, there’s lots of activities!
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