In this period of doubt leaving us in the ability to think about everything and its contrary as far as the future of house music is concerned, not to mention a lack of references which has never been so obvious, we’re getting back to a fella who, despite having not that much shown his face here or there, will stay forever as someone who’s left his imprint during a whole period. A man who, instead of answering the mermaids’call and get the usual confort that such a situation is supposed to suggest, has prefered taking some distance and remaining true to who he is. In other words, the proper of an artist who’s got everything of a prince in our memories as in our hearts…Words : MFSB
‘’I see dance music and house as the breath of a whole generation which has never been allowed to live freely, surrounded by people listening to hip hop and rock. This being an extra reason for us - I mean the artists and musicians – to do even more than what we reasonnably can in order to pay it the best possible tribute…’’
Listening to your repertoire looks like a diving into a whole array of different but complementary images at the time. We may think both of P¨rince, the blues, more or less of Moodyman and Chicago…
What I’m listening home…
Music, as long as not dictated by any kind of hype, is supposed to be the result of its conceptor’s environment…
Supposed to be the case. Music has always been a part of my environment one way or another. There have always been instruments home. My aunties and uncles used to come regularly and sing pretty harmonies like Motown. I was a kiddy at the time and came naturally to listen to them. I’ve been definitely marked by that love that they had for music before trying myself. I would take a guitar. I was maybe 8 at the time and I felt like an immediate relation with the instrument. I didn’t get to it the way many kids would have. I use dit with a lot of respect, trying to make it sound the way it was on the radio or on a record. Getting from there, my parents have done everything they could to encourage me and my interest has grown as time as years were goin’. I would get my hands on everything I found. Guitars, piano, drums…
Would you tend to locate yourself at the exact center, between black and white musics à te situer entre musiques blanche et noire ?
You’re right. Firstly because of the nature of this very first instrument I got my hands on – guitar – which was predominant on airwaves at the time. Led Zeppelin, Peter Frampton… Rock was built around guitars,even though I didn’t see it that way at the time. I twas nuttin’ but rock and I didn’t give a shit to know that I was listening to a black radio or anything else… I could stay for hours playing on what I was listening to, or should I say, I was tryin’. Arrangements, solos which I was trying to reproduce. It’s probably the reason of those rocky accents as far as my work is concerned.
Have you always lived in Jersey ?
Yes, apart from a short period – I was maybe 4 or 5 at the time – that we’ve spent in South Carolina.
Talking about the classic ‘The Wanderer’, full of accents which seem to be hailing from the Bayous, would you say that it’s a Southern song ?
Definitely. A modern version dédicated to all those old blues musicians who go and perform from a city to another Those that we use to call the Hobos like Robert Johnson for instance. It’s close to what I’ve personnaly lived by the time I(ve launched my label (Black Male). I was going from a record shop, a distributor, a club to another in order to have my music known. In NYC or in Jersey, but it could have been anywhere else. This is how I’ve started travelling so much and how I wrote this song.
A song which could well be assimilated to rock (the black rock coalition) or blues, which has also been made available on a compilation dedicated to Prescription released on Slip’N Slide in 1995…
Once again, I’m not obsessed as to know if it’s black or white. My first thoughts go to the DJ’s. I have firmly in mind the existence of those many different clubs and styles, should it be techno, house, or mellow lounge and I try to produce various mices and feelings out of a same track, in order to reach a wider audience.
This said, may of those listening to rock may have never heard of house music. So chances are great they’ve never heard of the song knowing it’s been released on a said deep house label and even bigger due to the fragmentation of the production
I’ve been shocked when I was a kid not to be able to listen to both Jimi Hendrix and Run DMC on a same program. Then I came to understand this as business and accepted it as I got older puis. I mean it’s like food. How would you react for instance while being offered to have chicken with when ordering bologna spaghetti at some Italian restaurant ? I think it’ »s good to be able to instantly find what you’re looking for whatever it is.
What’s your primar perspective when composing a track ? Machine(s) or instrument ?
In the past ? I would say 70% machines and guitar. The remaining 30 being share between melodies and what comes from the brain. Today, I’m up to build a track, knowing excatly which tool I’m gonna use, although it has become more difficult. It’s as if I was receiving a cosmic message the emotions of which I would have to transcript while recording. I would love to have the machines able to get directly to my brain and transcript what I feel.
The nature of the themas you develop as weel as the variety of your compositions ( quite rare within the house scene and, to a wider rextend, the dance music scene), note to mention some of your voice sounding would tend to have us making the comparizon with… Prince !
He has enormously influenced me when I was in my teens. He was so talented and surprising. I often accompanied him while listening to his records and that’s the same talking about Rick James. These two singers are the ones I would get the most influences from.
Apart from that, you’ve also been seen taking more clubby oriented directions like this LP (Instinctual) that you’ve released with DJ Predator on Scottish label Glasgow Undergound…
True. I twas pumping house/garage oriented with a drop of vocals. We wanted to provide the DJ’s with a good album that they could play in the clubs.
Or… in the mix Live In The Mix comp released on Distance, making Ron Trent and yourself labelmates at the time…
No comment. I just came to know Olivier (Velay) at Distance ; not Ron Trent !
I was just thinking (once again) of ‘The Wanderer’ which had been released on Prescription…
Prescription (Chez Damier and Ron Trent‘s label at the time) and myself had started a relation full of good intentions. Then it’s got harder. I don’t think this label was operated the best possible way
Conflict of talents ?
Well, I’m more geared towards lyrics. I reach the crowd not only because of my music, but also because of my lyirics and, on top of it, I do not think that those peeps (Ron & Chez) have been done for making business.
You was talking about pumping house/garage talking about your Glasgow Underground album. Have you, like many artists from Jersey, being fed with gospel ?
Naah, coz’ I’ve studied on a cosmopolitan environment. They were loadsa foreigners. Germans, Nips, Mexicans. Students whose parents were living next to my house, having me as a result confronted with many different cultures…
Have you been touched by this New Jersey Sound sort of wave at the beginning of the 90’s, embodied by peeps such as Kerri Chandler, Adeva or Tony Humphries as demonstrated by the memorable ‘In The Mix’ sounding like a tribute to the latest ?
I just would say yes, spiritually talking even though my min dis with’em. I have never forgotten this period because it has definitely contributed to change my life.
Would you say that unity’s missing within this niche ?
Of course. Knowing that so many people are reduced to produce on the bedrooms, this show how finances are missing and how the competition is hard. Some people are tempted to be less cautious with the years as far as artistry is concerned in order to what they get offered signed and I have to say that the opportunities are from far less numerous than in other genres.Life is a struggle for many of us and it’s even harder for those going from an opportunity to anotherlike most of us are doing. It’s hard to talk and be in harmony with the others on such conditions, and even more when not in harmony with your own self…
Playing, composing, producing, running a company and have your own records distributed. Not necessarily easy ?
I haven’t got any other choice, due to the fact that no one was interested in releasing my music when I started. Course, I would have liked to sign with a major but no one understood my music ober there and I guess they never will. I felt like a real frustration. But there was no way for me to accept compromission, knowing what I wanted. I never got to the point where I would wonder how to deal with the aspects of life. I didn’t have other choice than doing the things on my own, especially seing the reactions of the DJ’s…
You was talking about the importance of the lyrics in your work. What inspires you ?
Everything and sometimes nothing. But each time with the will to be proud when the crowd would get to listen to my work.I don’t have any prob to talk about this or that as long as the final reult is the exact translation of what I feel. This said, I’ll never talk about something I don’t believe in, simply in the name of a hype or whatever .
Would you tend to show that you’re against any form of discrimination… should it social, political ou cultural ?
Yes, but I also have to be careful about what I’m expressiong in regards to this power to communicate which has become mine along the years…
You seem like very careful in regards to the choice of the terms you use. Not to mention these areas of silences which you get yourself surrounded with au choix des termes que tu emploies, sans parler de ces zones de silence dont tu t’entoures… Expression of the abstract ?
Yes. I love what I’m doing but I also realize that it’s a gift. So that I can’t say that I have everything in control as many things are coming from the inspiration and God knowsz where inspiration iteself comes from…
Humility as a motto…
I’m happy to see that I’ve been able to surviv, as opposed to those Zanzibar nighrs with Tony (Humphries) au Zanziba and that New Jersey spirit which we’ve been talking about earlier on. I thought everything had definitely come to an end by the middle of the nineties, in Jersey as in New York. This period to me has been terrible. They dropped almost everything at the radio. Clubs have been shot down in NYC to be replaced by Disney shops. The underground spirit would become overground and the majors have started to put their nose into it and everything has changed… drastically.
Excerpts of an interview published in February 1999
INTERVIEW
