INTERVIEW
Interview & pictures : Filip Flatau
Tairo is the most promising artist on the reggae-dancehall scene in France. In a short time his career has gathered momentum with his appearances in Taxi 2 and in + de Cœur = Soleil, which made him known to the general public and put him in the spotlight. Although some are jealous and say his voice is strangely close to Sizzla's, nothing could be further from the truth. Tairo has his own style and will silence the naysayers.
Reggaefrance / First of all, can you introduce yourself?
Taïro / Tairo means "apprentice" in English, because every day that God makes is a new apprenticeship, and almost every time I sing I feel I'm learning. I liked the word Tairo for the beauty of the word. I've just turned 23, I've been singing for 6 years. I did my first sound in 1996, 1997 at Massena, as many deejays and singjays in Paris began. I've done features with Disiz La Peste, Assassin, SoundKai, Rajah, Boom Sound, Freeman.
Are you planning to release an album soon?
Yes, I really hope to make an album this year (2001), I'm demoing it at home... given that I have a bit of equipment.
Will it be only new tracks or also things we've already heard?
I don't think there will be any reused tracks, or maybe 1 or 2 at most.
Combinations?
Actually I have two projects: first, to make a solo album of 13 or 14 tracks, where I don't even know if I'll put in a single feature. And 6 months later, I'd like to release a 20-track album with nothing but combinations. And there, of course, there will be Jamaican and French artists, whether rap, reggae and maybe other styles too, it will depend on the meetings I have. In Jamaica, I think and hope to record with Doniki, with Prince Jazzbo (whom I've met and who really has good vibes), and with Anthony B. At the moment I'm concentrating on the lyrics, I'm writing a lot of texts so as to invest more in my sounds.
On the musical side, do you compose yourself?
A little, I don't compose much... mostly I know the chords, that's the basis.
So who will take care of the compositions on the album?
It's a bit complicated. Because in a song you have the composition, the text and the musical arrangement. And for me the composition is: the musical arrangement and the melody of the text. For the melody of the text it's always me who does it, if ever I go to Jamaica and people give me some vibes, I'll never spit on them. You have to be ready to enrich yourself. For the music, in the musical arrangements it will be: Bim and Boste, who are not yet very well known...
(Bim: guitarist in + de cœur = soleil, he played guitar on PK's tour... Boste plays sax and also keyboards, they left a short while ago to make a compilation in the Antilles).
Can you tell me about your musical influences, what you like listening to?
As you can see (he goes over to a pile of vinyl and shows me the sleeves one by one), Yammi Bolo, Michael Prophet, Roberta Flack (Killing Me Softly, the original), Manu Dibango, Oko Onuara (Dub Poet), it's a rather original reggae, very militant, Capleton, Garnett Silk, Admiral Tibett, Sizzla, Gregory Isaacs, Dennis Brown. I listen to a lot of rap and soul. For me inspiration is everywhere, it's a breath, if that breath passes through you, you vibrate. Some people want to tell me that my inspiration comes only from Sizzla... I say thank you to them. I just want to say that I'm not a copycat, it wouldn't give me a kick. What I like is being in difficulty and getting something out of it. I like racking my brains to write a song, not to create something new, my aim isn't to pretend to create a new style... At least to try to have a slightly particular style, so that people recognise me.
Can you tell us more about these two experiences, the "Taxi" soundtrack and "Plus de Cœur + Soleil"?
They were two totally different experiences. For Taxi, it was the first time I spent a month in the studio. It taught me to get familiar with the studio, to know myself a bit better and to work with other people. Even though I had a group of deejays when I started: Youthman Ten. It taught me to listen to what others think and to accept it. For + de cœur = soleil, there were a lot of us and we had less time than for Taxi. There were 10 people in the studio, as soon as someone had finished a vocal take, everyone wanted to get into the booth. When I did it, I really did it in a rush, in enthusiasm but too much in a rush. The tracks weren't mature enough. There's one of the two tracks that I quite like and one that I don't like at all, it's partly my fault and partly the fault of a bloody engineer who mixed up the tapes. They had me come back specially from Marseille and when I arrived in the studio Linford Marshall of the Jamaican label Fat Eyes was behind the turntable, he put on a stupid great sound for me and I was so impressed that I gave 160% of myself, which meant I sang almost off-key all through the track. It taught me to have more self-control.
How did your trip to Jamaica go?
I went thanks to PierPolJak and his brother Hugues. I was at Tuff Gong. What more can I say, Jamaica is reggae, and until you've been there I don't know if you can really realise it, unless you've rubbed shoulders with Jamaicans. When you go there, you realise that you're doing something that isn't your culture. What I understood when I went there is that you don't need so much equipment and so many people to supervise you. Also when you have the singers singing in front of you, the text you know, you have no illusions about the way he does it.... when you listen to your record you picture things. When you're in front of him you understand straight away how he does it, you could almost redo it right behind him.
What are your current projects?
I've just done a track with l'Aize Du Neuf for their album (Kimto from Taxi 2 is one of the members of that group). Quite a lot of sounds at the moment. Mixtapes with la Bande des Quatre, on Miséricord 3 in combination with Tarik from Abalone.
Why aren't you credited on some radio stations for your combination with Akhenaton, and why don't we see you in the video?
I'd like to tell you to go and ask La Cosca, because it's a bit down to them. They made me sing words that weren't mine (Freeman's), and I accepted. At the start the track was just Freeman, it was his next single. I did it in Marseille while I was doing Taxi 2, then I left and they never gave me any news, and they turned the track into something else altogether, they put it on ElectroSypher. Then I heard the track on the radio, I hadn't touched one franc, I wasn't informed, they hadn't even called me to say whether they were keeping the tune, so there I got offended. Afterwards I see it's blowing up on the radio and I don't even have a copy. Then afterwards they call me and tell me to come and do the video.... I demanded 20,000 francs to go and do the video, because I hadn't been paid. I had received a cheque for 1,000 francs, because they had put me down as a backing vocalist. You can look at the record, it says Akhenaton, Freeman and Kharim le Roi but it doesn't say Tairo, it's just so as not to give credit and not to give money, and I find that a bit shabby of them, especially as I had worked for them and with them for 1 month. I hold a bit of a grudge against La Cosca, I don't want to get into conflict with them, it doesn't interest me. I know exactly what the truth of this story is and what I can say is that it's them who will bite their fingers off one day. The head of La Cosca called me to say I wouldn't get 20,000 francs, and that if I didn't come they would put an extra in the video at the moment I sing. I told them to get lost. Obviously they didn't put an extra in, because that really would have been too much. I can't even bring a lawsuit given that I cashed the 1,000 francs and so accepted my status as a backing vocalist. At the start it got me a bit fed up and now I tell myself that they're the ones who will pay the price one day. I know that I was straight, clean and that I did the thing out of love for music, since when they asked me to do the song I didn't even talk about money on purpose, because I had already fallen out with them over the Taxi 2 contracts. Today, if people hear this interview on Reggaefrance.com, so much the better. You're the only person to whom I've revealed it from the official point of view; if people read it on the internet, they read it on the internet. My aim isn't to run around the magazines talking about this. It's a message for them at the same time....
|
|
© 1999-2026
RSS
