INTERVIEW : BOST & BIM
Interview by : Sébastien Jobart
on Tuesday, September 20th 2005 - 16 147 views
Very busy, Bost & Bim combine their activities as musicians (saxophone and guitar respectively) and riddim producers.
Alongside the French label Special Delivery, they have released the Clean Vibes, Storm Alarm, Dis Ya Time and, most recently, Joyfull riddims, and contributed to albums by Lyricson and Queen Omega. Touring musicians (both play in the 21st Century Band, and Bim is a member of the Homegrown Band and My Band), they are also very often in the studio on various French-language projects: KSS's album "Caribbean Sessions" (the tracks by Admiral T and Tanya Stephens), Saël, Tairo, Big Famili, Matinda… They even wrote a stillborn album for Toma. Very recently, the mixtape "Yankees A Yard" showcased their talents as producers.
A conversation with two jacks of all trades.
Reggaefrance / How do you produce a track as a duo?
Bost & Bim / Bost: there are several scenarios. When a singer asks us for a tune, we know we're going to be working on a specific track. We both get stuck in. The rest of the time, for the riddims we make without knowing quite where they'll end up, it generally starts from an idea by one of us, more or less developed, with more or less precise ideas about the arrangements.
Bim: Then we produce it together. Between the composition, the initial idea and the finished production, there's a lot of studio work: the arrangements but also the sounds.
Are there ever disagreements between you?
Bost: Yes, it happens. But we always try to agree, to find a compromise, which we generally manage.
Bim: And when we find something we both like, it's a good sign.
Bost: Sometimes the one who took the initiative on the track can steer it back towards his original idea. You also have to move forward, and so make a call. Sometimes it's one, sometimes it's the other.
Do you choose the names of the riddims?
Bost: We give names to our riddims but they can change: the Clean Vibe and the Storm Alarm were chosen by Special Delivery. Clean Vibes started from a track by Radjef, Mettre ça clean. For the Storm Alarm, we'd thought of another name, but when they heard the siren on the intro riff, they said: "It's the Storm Alarm!" The Dis Ya Time is the name of the Itals' song. Before, we'd gone with the Ital Riddim.
What music do you listen to?
Bost: Reggae/dancehall of course, hip hop, soul, jazz, salsa, soukous... We also make tracks other than reggae, even though it's much rarer. On Queen Omega's album, there are two soul-influenced tracks. We've done hip hop too.
Bim: Reggae has always been influenced by American music. So it makes sense to know all that. If you know the sound of a Curtis Mayfield wah-wah guitar, you know the Wailers' sound, and so on. All musicians, reggae or otherwise, listen to different kinds of music.
Is the finest compliment you can pay a French reggae musician that it sounds like Jamaican reggae?
Bost: Yes, of course it's nice to hear. But plenty of people here make reggae that doesn't sound like Jamaican reggae, and that the public loves. We have a different culture so we can do different things. Ultimately, the real aim is for people to like it, whatever the nationality of the audience and whether or not it resembles Jamaican reggae.
Bim: We're just trying to make it sound like the reggae we'd like to hear, given that we mostly listen to the sound from over there, which is "the" reference. We still hope to innovate in our work, not just copy what they do over there, only worse. The aim is to make something at their level, with new ideas.
How do you explain this temptation to imitate?
Bost: I think it's harder to innovate here than over there. For cultural reasons, and market reasons. Here, not many albums come out. It's understandable that the people who make them are a bit more cautious than the Jamaicans. Over there, their output is such that the risks are minimal, and they can try loads of things. For the public, the choice is enormous and it's the public that does the selecting. Here, the selection happens before the record is even released. Both for a label and for an artist. We don't have that problem: they're not "our" albums. In our studio, we do some slightly weirder stuff. But it's rare for it to get picked up (laughs).
Along the same lines, a lot of riddims are cover versions.
Bim: It's part of the tradition. In reggae, Jamaican producers pinched riddims from each other from one week to the next. As a producer, playing something that isn't yours also lets you prove yourself. Putting out a great new version of a well-known riddim.
Bost: It's a challenge. Artistically it's interesting.
Bim: And it can only bring out your own way of playing the thing.
Have you made any dubs?
Bost: For fun, yes. When we had time in the studio. It could be fun to do an album one day of our riddims remixed in dub... Or an album of instrumentals.
Bim: For the instrumentals, we have the material. There are tracks that have been waiting for vocals for so long that we tell ourselves we'll put guitar and saxophone on them (laughs).
You already have four series to your name...
Bim: The riddims already existed. It was Special Delivery who turned them into series. The cover of the Dis Ya Time was an idea from Alpheus, who wanted to voice it. It's a cover of the Itals' track, and before that of the Tenors with Baby Come Home. For the record, the two groups are the same. The Joyfull is a track we made a long time ago, and it's on Queen Omega's album (Joyfull Moment).
You've been working with Special Delivery for a long time; how is your collaboration evolving?
Bim: We're moving forward together. We benefit from their work, and they're happy to work directly with composers, without having to buy riddims from far away. And besides, they're our family. It's a good exchange, we really are moving forward together. And there's no reason for it to stop.
On your own, you released the compilation "Yankees A Yard", with reggae-style remixes of American hits.
Bim: At first, it was to please ourselves. We put vocals on riddims we already had, to play to our mates. Bit by bit, we made more and more. For a while, we told ourselves we'd put out a four-track vinyl. But we had so much trouble choosing that we decided to release all the ones we had. We kept the most striking ones, and pushed the thing further to make mini-series. We still have other tracks that we'll release a bit later, more timeless titles. When you put out a Marvin Gaye, a year here or there doesn't matter.
The reception has been very positive...
Bim: We're pleased; one of the effects of this project was to "convert" quite a few people who listened to reggae and who got passionate about Al Green or Erykah Badu, and conversely, others who were completely resistant to reggae and who, through a song they know, started dancing. The aim was also to show the similarities between these musics. It's the story of Studio One or Treasure Isle, who always covered American standards. We're staying in that continuity, showing that they're the same voices. Jamaican singers draw a lot on the way Americans sing. It was a way of showing that to people, and it got into loads of media that don't usually take an interest in reggae.
What are you working on at the moment?
Bim: There are several singers we've known for a long time who are working on their personal projects at the moment. We're working with them on a few tracks from their respective albums: Lyricson, Brahim, Taïro, and Admiral T soon...
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