I sometimes happen to wonder if it's ever worth keep on fighting the way we do - invest our time, energy and money - on a sector whereas things look like working on a short if not an instant term view. Surrounded by tons of blah blah blahs to remain unconcretised, attitudes here and there and all the stuff like (DJ) egocentrism, (industry) condescension or eventually (people) jauntliness as opposed to the tough work we deliver on a 24/7 basis. Andyaknowot ? I betcha every single one of us has had those ideas in mind one day or another inside our community for the same reasons. Then what do we do as individuals ? Almost nothing in most of the cases, I should say, apart from rejecting the fault to the boy next door, being focussed around our navels instead of contributing to the future of the whole while giving a part of our own. Is this that the whole thing has to disappear before realizing how much it has on offer ? The response belongs to each of us…

I sometimes wake up with the idea of leaving this for some space where there would be more self commitment and subsequently interactivity, having enuff of feeling like a sort of crusader fronting what to me appears like a global apathy. Then, all of a sudden, an e-mail sent to my attention, a phone call, a face to face conv or the reception of some new tune would give me the energy to go further. Nothing here but some reminder of what life is on its general aspects as Louie Vega said to me recently. Although we're firmly here, don't expect this has always been easy. We've had to work hard and when I say hard, I mean it, before reaching our current status. It takes years and years to build yourself a name, this meaning that you have to give a lot of yourself. I also remember another conversation which I've had with Joe Claussell when he came to Paris last month. I told him how I sometimes felt like in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by internal doubts as to continue or not, fronting what to me appeared sometimes as indifference, having me in the inceasing obligation to justify myself. Some feeling he would deeply understand telling me that this was the price we have to pay whenever we decide to be ourselves in this world of uniformisation. Never easy to affirm oneself while being outside a global system, the goal of which is to make ourselves its instruments by any means necessary. Never easy to maintain yourself outside the flow, but there's nothing that you have to complain about, as you are responsible of such a decision, the way I am with my label that I'm fully supporting at my own expanses instead of having a consistant release schedule due to the current situation we're facing nowadays. Then he would say to me : The sole value of respect is the one you first and foremost get while being yourself, staying true to what you believe in. This is how you've been known for. No matter what the other think or how they react, act like you know. Never allow them to affect you and your faith at any occasion as what you're currently facing is nothing but your own choice and this should be taken as a gift, as compared to the numerous people who ain't got such an opportunity in this world.

Some of you might then wonder the reasons of such a print. Well, simply because I've felt there was a need to reproduce these reflections and share them with those of us who might have doubts nowadays. Let us never let anyone making us forgetting who we are. Act like we know, this is our way to shine… Let us never allow anyone sort of taking the space on our shoes while leaving him/her the power to act/speak/feel/think for each of us as individuals. Act like we know, this is our way to be… MFSB