INTERVIEW : BETA SIMON
Interview by : Sébastien Jobart
Pictures by : Benoit Collin
on Tuesday, July 10th 2007 - 11 409 views
Many will discover Beta Simon with "Kraity Payan Guez", his new album released recently. Yet it is his fourth effort, but the only one to enjoy European distribution, whereas his first maxis stayed confined to Ivory Coast and West Africa. It is precisely with the idea of giving him more exposure that Tiken Jah Fakoly chose this Ivorian artist (who lives in Brittany) to launch the catalogue of his recent label, Fakoly Production.
Reggaefrance / Tiken Jah Fakoly is producing your album, "Krayti Payan Guez". He was also the one who organised Reggae Exclusif last year, where you performed with Pierpoljak, Tonton David, Dread Maxim...
Beta Simon / It was Tiken who organised that event. Not only does he sing, but he wants to move on to production. He always says there are artists in Africa. Today, he has given himself the means to produce. Organising that concert was a way of telling producers and tour promoters that he planned to move from singing to production. That is why he brought us together. Now he is in talks with the other artists.
The approach is exemplary, but it also amounts to an admission of failure by African producers...
What he did is good. He did not do it to compete with producers. He is convinced of certain talents, and he feels those talents must not die without achieving anything in their lives. I am older than Tiken! He has the means to do it. "If you don't do it, nobody will do it for you." He can take the time to wait for a producer. He himself knows how many times he waited until he was produced! Producers are not always on the ground, they don't have time to discover artists who deserve to be produced. He knows that. Producers think in terms of investment: you have to recoup the costs. I think Tiken is not doing it only for that. He knows reggae must survive. Even if he doesn't make any money, he will take pleasure in the world knowing that he produced Beta Simon. For him that is already a satisfaction. The producer is not waiting for just that: he invests, he has to recoup. Tiken is freed from that.
So you worked together concretely on the album?
Tiken delegates a lot; I worked with his keyboard player, Dave Kynner. He is the one who did the arrangements. Tiken already has his studio. He pays the musicians. If he has ideas to offer, he does so, but without encroaching, without imposing. He provides us with the material and financial means to make the album.
You invented your own language... What is the purpose of this approach?
My purpose is the concern to avoid linguistic genocide. A people cannot evolve without a language. None. Today in Africa, several languages are spoken, and on top of that we have adopted the French language. Language is both the soul and the weapon of a people. A way of speaking equals a way of living. In tradition, Africans have a receptive character. For example, when Americans arrive in a village, everybody waits to see which house they will enter. If you receive them in your home, you will be proud of it. And you will offer them water to drink. All of that fits into a process depending on the way of speaking.
We must remember the Tower of Babel mentioned in the Bible. Before, everyone on Earth spoke the same language. From a certain point, languages were confounded. Why? Because humans tried to build a tower to reach Heaven. By confounding the language of humans, the angels put an end to the building of the tower. Because they had the same language, humans were able to communicate, and therefore to carry out projects. In France, all the other languages were silenced so that only one would be kept.
Is that what Africa is missing?
Yes. You cannot evolve, it isn't possible. There is also a whole policy around it that doesn't encourage other languages. Francophonie, Arabophonie, Lusophonie make efforts to add a number of people to their collective subconscious. I, who am Bété, if I speak French, I contribute to the realisation of the French thought, the French collective subconscious. Same for Arabic. We borrow all those languages, but we don't speak our own. I call that a linguistic genocide. To avoid that, the Spirit revealed to me a language that I called Baïssadé.
Have you developed a complete grammar?
There is what is needed. With letters too.
Who speaks this language?
If you go to the West, in Ivory Coast, those who come from my village or my region speak this language. I give names to objects that we did not create, like the telephone. An African does not know that the prefix "tele" means "far", and that "phone" means "to listen". But in my language, "listen from a distance" exists: so I give a name taking into account the etymological meaning of the objects we did not invent. On the other hand, what is already there stays; I only vary the intonation. Some thought it was just to amuse the gallery, but no.
In your songs, you deal with themes in the tradition of the proverb, the parable. Your lyrics are contemplative, not denunciatory.
I am a committed artist, but for peace and love. I have my strategies. They say a dog's liver grows with its age. You are not going to teach anyone that he is a thief: there is no point putting that in a song. What do I have left? Touching your feelings. It is not by taking a stand on certain themes, such as homosexuality, that you will make people aware. What you want others to be, you must be yourself. If you want to transform the world, you must start with yourself. I am not only in the contemplative, but more in the melody that touches feelings and emotions to bring man to repentance. Man himself must repent of himself. If you take away the knife from someone who wants to kill, he will take a piece of wood. It is the seat of feelings that must be converted. Conversion is not necessarily in denunciation but in feeling. You have to instil pity in the heart and mind of Man so that he renounces by himself the acts he commits.
So you sing with Tiken on Iyo. It's a very serious song...
We did have something to say, Tiken and I. Tiken Jah Fakoly is Dioula and I am Bété, the two ethnic groups that clashed in Ivory Coast. Tiken's mission was to raise awareness among his people, and so was mine. If, by clumsiness, the teeth bite the tongue, that is no reason to go to the police station to complain: we have the saliva there to heal our wounds. When we kill each other, the only beneficiaries are the arms dealers. Africa must not be a land of manipulation.
So you use the image of the banana tree...
We must not be prisoners of anything. Our body, we found it here. We came into the world with nothing. We are a body, and we are obliged to abandon it. According to our belief and our philosophy, the soul knows neither birth nor death but is passed from one body to another. It is the body that is considered the banana tree. When we say plant your banana tree, it means to grow your soul. Because it is with your spirit that you will walk the path of eternity. So you must not be a prisoner of concupiscence. Give yourself a road, plant your banana tree. The body is an instrument that we found there. We were born naked, and we will die naked; this body will return to the earth. There is no reason to kill each other since we have to leave and leave this body behind.
To visit Beta Simon's website: www.beta-simon.com
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