INTERVIEW : BUSY SIGNAL
Interview by : Benoît Georges et Sébastien Jobart
Pictures by : Benoit Collin
le Friday, April 12th 2013 - 11 722 vues
Quand on entre dans la loge de Busy Signal quelques minutes après la fin de son concert au Cabaret Sauvage (Paris), on ne s'attend pas vraiment à obtenir de lui un entretien fleuve. Le deejay est fatigué, et les coulisses bruissent de fans lui réclamant une photo. Difficile de le convaincre de s'asseoir quelques minutes : Busy Signal reste debout, bras croisés. "Aussi court que possible", nous répond-il quand on lui demande combien de temps il peut nous consacrer. On s'en contentera.
Du reste, le deejay s'avère finalement prolixe. En une dizaine de minutes, nous abordons la plupart des sujets qui ont fait l'actualité de Busy Signal : l'album "Reggae Music Again" sorti en 2012, son incarcération aux USA, sa rupture d'avec Shane Brown…
Reggaefrance / Last year was tough for you. How do you feel now?
Busy Signal / Well, right now is just the redemption. All that was last year is now history, all of this is just the past. Here I am, free at last. I'm just giving thanks basically for the whole moment to be here performing live, representing for the fans. Everybody knows that story already. I'm just here, giving thanks. Freedom !
Have you settled all the issues with your passport and visas?
Visa, passports, everything was cleared in Jamaica locally, that's how I obtained the passport and visa to be here. At least I could earn my bread, I can go back to my life. We have to say thank you to the Jamaican government and the US government, big them up. They saw my life, my profile and saw that I was not one of those who was in the problem lane. In 2002, January 12, I made a youthful mistake when I was living in US as a teenager. I was like 16-17 years old. Everything is now cleared: my passport, my name, my visa issues, my thing with the USA… I'm just here giving thanks.
Would you apply to the US visa in two years?
Yeah, definitely! As a matter of fact, I could even apply before two years. Because at the times, while that happened to me, I was a citizen of the US. My mom still living there, my brothers too, they are all citizens of the United States. They still could even petition me to come back there because I was a citizen at the time and I wasn't convicted of any charge.
 Je suis si heureux d’être ici, je suis libre, tout simplement ! 
It's a new start, on the business side also, we learned recently that you broke ways with Shane Brown.
In terms of management sometimes you’ve got to step up and try to control your own thing. Knowing the amount of the things that I know, plus the people around me that we know, it could help me through what I'm doing right now. Turf Music Entertainment is the name of my company. My brother is involved, other people are involved as well. Still do work with Shane Brown and everything, no bad feelings between us, but I'm just managing my own self, just gonna taking up into my own hands. Being that I got my own label and my own company, I'm just running everything through my company. That is a very ambitious thing to do as an artist.
Last year you recorded "Reggae Music Again", since you’re back you've been releasing lots of dancehall tracks, and you'll even be on the Major Lazer album!
Well that's just a bunch of work. I did "Reggae Music Again" last year, so it's only right to do a whole bunch of dancehall this year. We don't want to do a whole bunch of reggae to shade the reggae that I did last year. These songs are gonna be living forever. I wanted to tour with those songs I did on the "Reggae Music Again" album, I don't want to kill them with new reggae songs. It was only wise to do dancehall knowing that we can't really do a whole bunch of new reggae songs and release them, letting people forget about "Reggae Music Again". I wasn't here to tour "Reggae Music Again" last year. So I got to do those tours for the "Reggae Music Again" album, then I'm going to make a lot of dancehall. I will still make reggae but I'll be releasing much more dancehall, we try to balance. When you listen to Busy Signal, you can choose between dancehall or reggae. On a stage, I could do two hours of reggae music, with my own songs. Then I could do ten hours of dancehall with my own songs. It's a blessing that's just a balance between reggae and dancehall in terms of versatility and the way I spit lyrics.
You’ve worked a lot with artists like Romain Virgo, Esco Levi, the whole team around Penthouse studios and Shane Brown. Now, the team consolidated (like Shane Brown and Vikings Production for Romain Virgo) and we thought that you were gonna go in that direction…
Those are my artists. Exco Levi, Romain Virgo, D Major, RC, Shuga, Timeka Marshall… I’m in their stream. They are all my artists. They’re under my wings and everything. And the focus that we focus and all we do what we do, we do that level of stuff. They are all artists that do reggae. Busy Signal does reggae and dancehall. But they are all artists that do reggae and I'm showing them the focus to do more, just like I’m doing more. I’ve never stopped do reggae music since I started. I started to do reggae music after I started doing dancehall music. I started out with dancehall first. But I realized that reggae is the root, and I have to show respect to the roots. That is only fair, right, sensible and wise to show respect to the roots. You can’t leave out your roots and see you’re not gonna have any branches or any stems. So that is what I did. I will still do dancehall, but I will do reggae ever more. The people accept it.
You have good musicians with you: C-sharp, Kirkledove…
Yeah, my band members right there, that was on the stage with me right now, they are the ones who play all the tracks on my “Reggae music again” album. It’s just a whole family, a team : we came up with the ideas, we played, we worked it out, we said where to be the bridge, what is to be this, what is to be that… And I go to the studio at Tuff Gong, Bob Marley’s studio, and I vocal on all these tracks and we get background singers, percussionists, all these things, live instruments… So, it’s just a whole musical vibe, you know.
And the dub album idea was yours?
Me, Shane Brown and Shane’s father, Errol Brown, made that decision, and I’ve just endorsed it. Since I’m just coming out of prison recently, I haven’t even seen one of the dub albums yet, haven’t even seen the vinyl or nothing. I’m so happy cause I know I’m gonna see it there in Europe. It’s definitely a whole blessing in terms of how we do music and how we grab out this : professionalism. Cause you have a lot of dancehall artists, they don’t take the time out to show the respect to reggae music. Reggae music gave birth to dancehall music, to hip-hop, to reggaeton… Reggae does so much good tings. It’s only right for me to show the respect due to reggae music.
Speaking of dancehall artists who don’t show respect to reggae, you have mentioned in recent songs the fact that you don’t mix with devils nor demons, like you throw some corn at Tommy Lee.
Yeah, but no names… More than one people in dancehall do demonic shit, more than one demonic people is in hip-hop, more than one demonic people is in rock and pop… So I’m just saying that for all these pussies. It’s not just one person, it’s a whole bunch of persons that’s in demonic stuff. Mi say God, I believe in God, God helped me out of my situation. I’m a living proof of that. There is nobody in the world who get extradited by the US and come back to their home in six months, ever, in the whole world, since there was Adam and Eve. So I’m just history, mystery and artistry. That’s why Busy Signal never ever sing a song and say names in it, cause it’s not just one person. I never sing songs and call names dissing. I don’t do diss songs, I’m not interested in clashing, I’m bigger than that, bigger than that.
Back in the days, with the Alliance, you were involved in those things !
People try to get at Busy, people call Busy Signal’s name, people go on stage and do all kind of stuffs. All different types of artists call our name so much, call Busy Signal songs claiming that they’re dissing Busy. Where are they now?
Do you still fell like a member of Alliance?
Mi nuh still fell like.. I’m Alliance for life ! Alliance right now is just Bounty Killer, Bling Dawg, Busy Signal and the Alliance extension towards the new generation. So much stuffs over the years. The real stay real. Bounty Killa, Busy Signal is like brothers, even though he’s older than me in age, that’s just a number when it comes to me and Bounty Killer. Bounty Killer knew me before I started making music, Bounty Killer knew me since I was living in the US, he knew me since I was like 16, 17 years old, before “hothead”, before “sound di big ting dem”, before “basically I’m saying”’, before “Busy”, before Busy Signal. Bounty Killer is the general and you don’t disrespect the general. Bounty Killer is my general. Just like Esco Levi, Romain Virgo, Shuga, RC, I’m their deejay. Bounty Killer is my deejay. Buju Banton, Shabba Ranking, all these people have paved the way. It’s just a whole link. Big respect and thanks. Respect, thanks for having me, it’s a whole bunch of shit, you know we got to move, we got to get around. I’m so happy that I’m here, I’m just free!
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