INTERVIEW : PATRICE
Interview by : Simon Touchard
Pictures by : Benoit Collin & DR
on Wednesday, September 08th 2010 - 9 320 views
Two years after his last opus, "Free-patri-ation", Patrice returns with a new album, a new label and a new French tour in the autumn. At only thirty, the "Afropean" singer has just come through a decade of music from start to finish and does not seem ready to stop so soon. We met him at the Because offices in Paris, the day after the Fête de la Musique.
Reggaefrance / "One" is your 5th album. It's released on Because Music, a label you're working with for the first time. Can you tell us about this new collaboration?
Patrice / Actually I signed with them about two weeks ago. The album was already finished. This is the first time I'm promoting one here, with Because. But so far things are going very well, we should be able to do great things together.
Yesterday, for the Fête de la Musique, I played as part of the Africa Pop festival initiated by the label. It was a line-up of African artists (editor's note: Alpha Blondy, Lokua Kanza, Tumi & The Volume, Smod, Amadou and Mariam, Victor Démé, etc.), at the Château de Vincennes, a magnificent place. I think it was an excellent starting point for our relationship.
How did the concert go?
It was quite short. We tried out a few new songs. The musicians and the engineer don't know them very well yet, I think it will all bed in and we'll do much better in the future. But it was a good show.
I like the idea of presenting African culture in a place like the Château de Vincennes. I like contrasts. If the aristocrats who owned this castle had seen what happened last night, they would be asking "What is the world coming to?!". That's what's beautiful in a way, diverting the use of things. All the more so as the guest musicians were incredible. Lokua Kanza played acoustic, with no amplification at all, in one of the rooms of the castle. A room that, even back then, was meant to host musicians. The sound was extraordinary, it was really very beautiful.
As we just said, this festival was themed around Africa and its artists. Having been born in Germany, do you consider yourself an African artist?
Yes of course, my father is African. I'm half Sierra Leonean, I have lots of influences but my music is African. I'm not saying I'm not European, but I'm saying I'm African, that's clear (laughs). My perception of the world is different from what it would be if I were only one or the other. In the same way that a man doesn't perceive things the same way as a woman. So if you're both… (laughs) you get both angles of view, or else a totally different perspective, which is unique. In my case, I don't think it's an assembly of two points of view. It's really my own thing. My music is about that.
It's in that spirit that I called my album "One". It represents all my influences, my family tree. We have no idea of all the incredible stories that happened to our ancestors and that, combined with one another, meant we were born in this or that context. That's what this title, "One", means: all our influences, all our cultures, everything that came before us, are concentrated in us to make just one.
 Aujourd’hui beaucoup d’artistes n’auraient même pas de carrière sans autotune... 
Tomorrow (23 June, editor's note), in South Africa, Germany will face Ghana, probably the most promising African team in this World Cup. Who will you support?
That's one of the worst questions you could ask me! (laughs) I'm very torn. Because, of course, I'm going to support Ghana but Germany really needs to win this match. Actually, I no longer know, can they both still qualify? I'd like them both to qualify. I really like the German team at the moment. They're young and they're strong. They played their first match very well. Against Australia, true, but they played very well. In the second match, the referee was absolutely mad! He completely broke the team, which couldn't seize its chance. So I really want them to qualify, they deserve it. But I'm deeply for both teams.
Where did you record "One"?
I recorded most of it in my own studio, Supow, in Cologne. I really like vintage equipment, old microphones, old instruments, old machines and so on. I love that sound. I'm a fan of Studio One productions and of the King Tubby sound. I try to reproduce those sounds while modernising them in my own way. A bit like hip hop artists do, sampling with MPC-type machines. But we don't use samples, or rather we use our own samples.
There's still at least one sample on this album. You cover a Nina Simone track, itself taken from the musical "Hair", Ain't got no / I got life. You can hear Nina Simone's voice on it, sampled indeed.
Yes that's true, in fact we do it often but generally we sample ourselves. This track is a bit of an exception. Obviously back then they had incredible musicians, but we try to do our best to measure up, to play… "like one"!
Do you have a particular history with this song? Why did you choose it?
Nina Simone is quite simply my favourite singer, in any category. She had a truly unique voice and an equally unique way of writing her lyrics. On the same level as Bob Dylan, almost literature, with a strong message. The message of Ain't got no / I got life seems very close to mine. Look, on my first album I said "everyday's good because of being alive", it's the same thing. We complain about this and that, but we often forget that what matters above all is being alive. We should be happy about it and not focus solely on material things. I thought it would make a good cover.
You do very few of them, by the way.
I think I'd only done one before. A Wailers track: It hurts to be alone, sung back then by Junior Braithwaite, not by Bob Marley. I don't think I'd ever cover Bob Marley. I have too much respect for his work and I don't think I'm capable of taking it to another level. I sometimes do it on stage, but on record it's something else. Finley Quaye did a good cover of Sun is shining, a fairly rock version. It can work, but not with me.
How does this album differ from the previous ones?
On this one I worked with classical orchestras for the first time. I felt that sense of wonder and discovery again, like a child. I wanted to use these orchestras in a more rhythmic way than when they play classical music. I don't do it because I feel obliged to do something new but because I don't want to get bored. I look at my work and I say to myself "Ah, I've already done that, I've already said that". What's the point of doing it again? What comes next has to interest me and surprise me above all. I like surprising people too, not giving them what they expect.
You don't do many features on your albums. There's only one on this one. Is it something you don't like doing?
Yes, of course. But what I don't like is doing a duet with an artist because it's good for my image, because he's hyped. I generally work with people I'm close to, who are part of my musical family, my friends. On "One", I did a track called "Don't cry" with Laygwan Sharkie. It's a song that had already done well live and on the net. It's the first time it can be found on an album.
Loneliness, travel and love are recurring themes in your lyrics. How autobiographical is it?
It's something between autobiography and poetry. Poetry consists of drawing on reality to take it to another level, to make something more theoretical of it. Some people decode things and make poetry of them, while others keep the codes to make something more narrative. Me, I like to play both sides, to have several levels of reading in my songs. As if there were a horizontal axis along which the story unfolds, and a vertical axis on which you find the different interpretations that can be made of it, the depth of the text in a way. As for the themes, the content, I put in everything that concerns me intimately: love, spirituality, things like that.
And travel is part of that, isn't it? You also recently did a duet with Féfé of Saian Supa Crew, on his album "Jeune à la retraite". The song is called Ride Home…
Yes, indeed. I think it's a constant in the history of humankind. Leaving and then coming back, finally being at home, among your own people, is a bit like a rebirth. Like in the parable of the prodigal son who is welcomed with open arms by his father. His return home is celebrated because in the end his true destiny was where he had been. But he had to move away from it to realise it. We have to have our own experiences to find ourselves and often to realise that being at home is an incredible blessing. It's not something conscious, you don't say to yourself "Oh, great, how good it is to be at home", but you're better able to perceive its benefits. It's like when you're hungry, you prepare a good meal and afterwards you feel better. It's the search for that feeling that I'm talking about, the wish to be as much in harmony with yourself as possible.
Can you tell me about your collaboration with the French artist J.R. (editor's note: street artist, notably close to the Kourtrajmé collective)? How did you meet him?
I met him on a TV show in France about six years ago. I found him an interesting character but I didn't know him at all. We stayed in touch over the internet, we exchanged ideas, we did "brainstorming", "soulstorming" (laughs). One day he told me he was preparing something in Sierra Leone, my father's country. Nobody is usually interested in that little country! I started to really look into his work and we ended up meeting again.
He also designed the album's sleeve.
Yes, he was one of the first to listen to "One" and I often asked his opinion on the packaging. He was never thrilled by what I showed him. In the end I suggested he do it himself. He accepted. It's a kind of exchange that came very naturally. I've never really been interested in the visual side of my records. My thing is music. I've always just chosen a photo from among those I was offered and that's it. J.R, for his part, his thing is the image and nothing but the image. He's like me, except that his mode of expression is different. It's the first time I've seen one of my albums as a complete art object that isn't limited to the music it contains.
Twelve years have passed since your first EP "Lions". We know your very varied influences, from reggae to blues, by way of hip hop, folk, soul and so on. Which artists do you feel close to today?
That's a difficult question. (he thinks for a long time) My girlfriend! (editor's note: the singer Ayo) We're quite close indeed… No, otherwise I can't think of anyone.
Do you think you would have answered the same twelve years ago?
No, I have no idea. I'm not really aware of what I do. If I feel like doing it, I do it, that's all. It's the first time I've wondered what I was doing all that time in the studio. The real answer is that I don't know. Sometimes you have to be able to admit it.
Who do you appreciate among the young generation of Jamaican artists?
I like Mavado. Jah Cure too. Tarrus Riley, of course. I love Sizzla, Buju Banton, Anthony B, Capleton. But they're not really young any more. I'm getting old! I like Queen Ifrica a lot. But today many artists wouldn't even have a career without autotune. Mavado is different, he really has a good timbre.
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