INTERVIEW
Interview by : Benoit Collin
on Tuesday, January 06th 2004 - 12 580 views
Trained in the school of the underground, "Original" Uman has more than 10 years of experience on Belgium's rap/dancehall scene. A rapper and then a DJ, he steered his boat from hip-hop to ragga, taking in mixtapes, a few 45s and sound systems along the way. In 2003, several singles and the release of his mixtape finally got him heard by a wide French-speaking audience. For Reggaefrance, he looks back over his career and lucidly analyses the Franco-French dancehall business.
Reggaefrance / Hi Uman, to begin with, can you tell us a little about your background? You've been on the scene for a long time, how did you start?
Uman / Actually I come from the Brussels hip hop scene originally, through a group called "De puta Madre" and a structure called "9 millimètres"; then, with my friend Crazy, I had a rap group called "Liquid", and around that time, about ten years ago, we set up a sound system with a bunch of friends called Bass Culture, which is ten years old this year, by the way. Already in Puta Madre and in Liquid I always used the dancehall vibes. In fact I discovered ragga through a shop in Brussels called l'Arlequin, which was a reggae shop. I've always loved deejays and had that little dancehall touch. With sound systems, what happens is that you get massives, a scene. The deejay touch developed.
I have a friend who manages me, he came to see me and had opportunities for me to take things up a notch, we ended up at BMG and put out a five-track EP called "original Uman", which had "l'habit ne fait pas le moine", "tiens toi droit" and "il y a pas de blâme" on it. Those were my first five tracks and, in fact, we had asked BMG to press some 45s, and I took those 45s to Blue Moon, who got them going; I passed some on to Sergio from Heartical, who did the promo here and there on sounds..
How long ago was that?
It was about two and a half years ago, I'd say. That's how it all started. People reacted well; "l'habit ne fait pas le moine" wasn't always properly understood, though, which caused a bit of controversy over a dread versus bobo thing. But it was misunderstood, my point was only to say that clothes don't make the man. That things need substance!
And from there it took off, BMG France distributed the maxi, I got a bit of exposure, I met the RAGGA guys, the Mek It Happen guys (editor's note: the French label), I met the Sounds & Vibes guys, I voiced mixtapes and series and, on top of that, in the wake of the project in Belgium I got linked up with the Runn Records guys in Holland, who are the producers of the "Pressure" riddim that has just come out; they also produced the Time2one, that is to say a tune of mine that did really well called "il y aura pas de bagarre ce soir".
So there you go, you could say I've been very lucky, I arrived on the Paris scene little by little, by dint of meeting people. With the sound, I also built up a lot of contacts with the artists; there's a lot of the human side in all this. Lots of meetings. A guy like Azrock is my friend, that's from going down there and bringing him over. Sergio is my friend, Kazaa is a friend. Lots of human relationships, crews, the contact with B.O.S.S and Skyrock, with whom I recorded some things.
All of that meant I had a lot of luck and lots of things followed on from one another, and then, well, Paris is Paris, and like Benoît Poelvoorde or Jacques Brel, as a little Belgian I was lucky enough to be able to move up there, and it's for sure that it boosts you! Besides, when you look at it, there aren't that many new deejays compared to the scene I was watching from the outside when I was in Belgium. There are lots of people who are there but who were already there, and it's true that since I arrived a few youngsters have come through, but I wouldn't say they're uncounted all the same.
What are your references in US rap and French rap?
Well, I'm from the "Authentik" generation (editor's note: NTM) and "La planète MARS" (editor's note: IAM). When Planète Mars came out, I listened to that album with my brother in my parents' living room, we listened to the whole album reading the lyrics because there was the booklet. For Authentik I've got at least 15 flashbacks of crazy mates driving super fast in a car with that cassette, screaming in the car, five heads going wild. "he sings., laughs.".
And it's true that I come from a country where there was no business, you see, we were doing rap at the same time but we weren't making money, and here they were making money, you see, so we had an observation post that let us see quickly when the culture went to the dogs, so I distanced myself fairly quickly from French rap, especially as my musical base in hip hop also included "Eric B. and Rakim", EPMD, the whole "Tribe Called Quest" school, "Jungle Brothers", "De La Soul" and also people like the Beastie Boys. I also listened to other stuff, rock. Music is super broad, it's freedom, music is love, you see? I'm not for ghettos!
Among the Jamaican deejays, which ones inspire you most?
The deejays who blew me away when I started were Mega Banton and Shabba Ranks! Then Bounty, Beenie, the early ones!!! Dancehall is something that evolves a lot; for me Bounty Killer is Bounty Killer! You shouldn't even speak ill of Bounty Killer, he's number one, Bounty Killa, and in terms of identity he's the people's defender, he's a soldier. For me reggae remains a militant music; after that Shabba is Shabba, he's a King, there's something powerful there.. Then there's Ninja, Yellowman, and today I love Sizzla. And Capleton has an unusual path that I find interesting, I really love Sizzla's vibe and beyond that I love the Predators, the Assassins, I like the Vybz Kartels.. I really like Ward 21, I'm sometimes more sceptical about TOK, even though I like TOK, but I prefer the rough edge of Ward 21 to the sometimes syrupy side of TOK!
After that, what I like is juggling deejays one after another. I'm not a selecta, I don't buy 45s, I listen to juggling and I like the phrases that follow each other, I like variety. "Da real things" or "Rise to the occasion" by Sizzla are albums you can listen to without any problem, but as for Elephant Man's album, I just listen to it like that, I prefer to listen to all the tunes juggled over all the riddims with all the other deejays behind, or all the best tunes.
As far as your lyrics go, does moving over to dancehall let you change your message, do you express yourself in the same way as when you were rapping?
Something that's important to me: I'm not Jamaican, I don't have dreadlocks, I'm not a rasta, my culture is what it is, and so my lyrics relate to who I am and not to a vision that I'd like to give of myself. The only thing is that the way a rap text is structured can be much more abstract than the way you structure a dancehall text, which you simplify more; at times that has let me really hammer home the messages, sometimes it weighs on me and I feel like going back to a more unstructured style of writing, as in hip hop, where things are more felt and sometimes less didactic. When I write, I try not to play the preacher, you see? At the same time, to have a critical eye without saying you must or you mustn't. Now, writing is both easy and difficult, whether in rap or in reggae. I'd also like to write songs sometimes, and put even fewer words into my lines.
You've been through quite a few stages of the underground (radio, sound, mixtape, features). Yet too few record companies have taken an interest in you. Do you think the business is blocked?
I've already had an experience with a major (editor's note: BMG). Now it's a Belgian major. In Belgium, when the record company that handles Sean Paul deals with his case, they talk about an R'n'B revelation. You're a long way from selling these guys dancehall, you see? Here in France it's already less the case, there are A&R people specialised in all the big record companies. Now, peer-to-peer, the Star Academy-isation of music, the economic crisis, the world war (laughs) and two or three other catastrophic vectors and factors mean that the record economy is in absolute free fall. It's not an argument the record company people trot out because they're embarrassed not to make our records, it's a reality. Today, they no longer develop artists either. If Jacques Brel turned up at a record company today, with what we know, they'd tell him: "ah yes but look sir, you'd need to put out 5 or 6 albums before people realise how powerful you are, so that's not going to be possible; at a push we could do 3 singles from the first album with 3 months of exposure, and if after 3 months your records haven't sold, we pull them off the shelves, destroy the stock and limit the cost. That's how it is! That's the reality of a record company today, it's an immutable reality.
So we're getting closer to the Jamaican system after all…
That's what we were saying with my manager. Beyond making albums, today you have to make singles, you have to knock out bomb after bomb of singles. Actually that's not bad, what we do, because mind you, the francophone dancehall market is very atypical, even hip hop doesn't have that luck. We dancehall artists, whether it's me, Mad Killah, Azrock, Mory, well "us" the francophone artists, we're lucky that when a producer creates a riddim, he looks in his notebook, calls us up and says "right guys, I've got a riddim, come and voice something". You know how many hip hop producers are doing really well and don't have a single artist's number to call, and it doesn't happen, and they're not going to put 10 artists on the same riddim, etc.. So we're lucky to be trained in singles.
In a way, today, the reality is such that hoping a record company will develop you over an album when you're nobody is taking a big risk, because they'll invest a maximum of cash, then you won't be profitable and you'll be the one left with debts on your back. So me, mind you, I'm 33, so one album would still be an achievement I dream of; the mixtape, for example, is something, precisely, when I left BMG, it was with tears in my eyes, saying to myself "damn, I'll never make my record or what!"? It's a life, you see, it's all your love, it's also the hope that others place in you and that you don't want to disappoint, it's your mates waiting for you to whom you said this or that. And then it's also yourself you don't want to disappoint, no it's important, you see!! It's not a question of cash, it's a question of settling down in life, of seeing through what you decided to do. I put out this mixtape telling myself "go on, I don't need them". And in truth we don't need them.
Precisely, on Reggaefrance, many people cite you among the 5 or 10 best francophone artists, and among all the others who are named (Yaniss,
, Mory, Brahim, Admiral T.), you're ultimately the only one who hasn't yet released a CD.
Actually I'm the youngest in terms of youth. Well, not the youngest in age, because I'm older than most of them. I'm 33, but I arrived more recently. I have 26 tunes that people don't know, including about fifteen shortlisted ones with which we're approaching record companies. It's difficult! After that I did tracks with people here and there, I did collaborations with the B.O.S.S (Joey Starr), I record singles regularly. You know what? If they don't give me my album, well I'll do a mixtape #2, that's a certain fact. I can't fall asleep on it, or else I stop, and at my age I don't want to stop, I love what I do. This mixtape gave me the opportunity to go and meet people who are on the same wavelength as me everywhere. It let me make friends, and reassure myself. It's positive.
I think my lyrics are clear, so if people accept them, it's also that they probably accept some of the reflection that goes with them, which reassures me, because there you go. I don't want a fascistic frame of mind, or things like that.. I'm open-minded, I like militancy, and I like us to remember that this music comes from Bob Marley and people who struggle! It's a poor man's music. Even if you're not poor in concrete terms of money, we're all poor in spirit, victims of babylon. When we all switch on our TV we no longer know what to believe. It's an impoverishment of the mind, a cultural impoverishment. We mustn't let ourselves be Star Academised, you see? I only do dancehall for that, and I'm happy that Sean Paul is making dancehall known, but if dancehall becomes Star Academy, I'll do rock!! For me it remains a genuine milieu of resistance, which must convey at least the intelligence of resistance; we won't ask more of it because we can't all agree on every social issue, or all agree on everything together, but if we could at least maintain the intelligence of resistance in our music, that would be something strong.
Regarding the French Sound System Championship, do you think it should rather be a Francophone sound system championship that would include Swiss sounds and Belgian sounds? More of a Jamaican-style clash format, in fact.
Nah, I think it would be good if federations were set up, if there were a championship in Belgium, a championship in Switzerland, but I think the French championship should stay the French championship; a francophone championship or cup would be fun, there could be an event alongside it that would be the francophone cup. But the reality, as we saw in the Reggaefrance posts (editor's note: he's talking about the forum), the reality of Switzerland and the reality of Belgium, well. it's the whole business of clashing with French dubs or not!!! I read 26,000 posts on that, the fact is that you go to Geneva and clash with French dubs and you'll see. Asher is cool to push me and say that you can play Uman in Geneva and it'll go off. Me, I know that in Geneva you won't string together a run of Uman, Azrock and bring the house down!! You need "concrete", it's a city with a certain approach to culture, which is more cosmopolitan like Belgium, because we're small countries, in fact, we're obliged to turn towards others. So we don't limit ourselves to one market.
France works in a Franco-French way, it's the French cultural exception, it's a reality!!! I'm not here to judge it, I benefit from it, I think it's good, I'm happy that we can do dancehall in French, that we have a real market. Now, it's obvious that when you see the French sound system championship, it's a reality apart!! I've got nothing to say against it, neither the fact that it's dominated by the Antilles, nor the fact that big sounds went out in the first round with boxes that give you a headache. And other sounds can always come and test them on that ground, if we're talking about Foundation. But that's true for Subionick, it was true for Blues Party, it was true for Heartical, but other sounds don't even enter the competition, because they know their boxes are deep, but they're going to get their heads eaten. Me, Blackwarell, I saw them play there, I saw them play last year, it's only normal that they win the French Sound System Championships. It's a championship, it's played in France, the Antillean community is big, for fuck's sake it's still one of the places where it can clearly claim, own and fully live its identity. I've got nothing to say against it, you see?
For me the French Championship is what it is. Now, if you have to do Cups, you could say there's a gap between the box of a Guiding Star, a Soul Stéréo, a Heartical, that kind of sound, which are foundation sounds, which work on collectors' items, and other sounds like Blackwarell, who have Yardie in their box but also work enormously on local material; you might say it's out of step, you could discuss for years whether these sounds should meet on the same ground, but it's the French championship. That's how it is, it's normal that it happens there with all the identity realities. And a guy who understood that very well is Good Vibes, who came with buses!!! It's not a clash!!! It's a championship. It's not one against one, box against box. Precisely, in a championship, everything counts, your attitude, your box, the support of the crowd. So there you go. But personally, when I see Blackwarell on stage at the championship, I say to myself "that's a slap in the face for all the other sounds". Now yeah, I think it would be good to have leagues in Belgium, leagues in Switzerland, and international meetings based on championship results, or this or that. We're thinking about it in Belgium!!
Well, thank you for this interview.
It was a great pleasure.
Do you have a last message for our readers?
First I'd like to give a big up to all the people who support, to the massives who are on the internet and following, a big up to my crew Riddimkilla too, because they're my mates. And a big up to my guys from here, whether it's Heartical, Kazaa, Azrock, Faycal, the whole bunch, Leevayah, Backchich crew, Mek it happen, and all the people who help me and whom I try to help, and thanks to Reggaefrance and big up to the max, and to everyone who keeps the site moving, because when all is said and done it's a community and that's what's big... there you go!
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