Admiral T

Admiral T I grew up in a family of music lovers. In my neighbourhood, there was always music. From the age of 12, I started listening to reggae with Bob Marley and Peter Tosh. I also listened a lot to the reggae "lovers": people like Glenn Washington, Admiral Tibet. I grew up on the sounds of Kassav's zouk, African music, salsa.

Admiral T The Gwadada tune is simple, it couldn't be simpler than this tune, that is, it's just an observation I was making about the island. En té ka palé exactement di sa qui té ka pasé asou île là koi, chaque jou en té ka écri en frase, en trip, sa en té ka voué, en té ka gadé télé, journaux, voila koi. (I was talking about exactly what was going on on the island every day; I wrote a sentence, a thought, what I saw, I watched TV, the papers, that's it!) It's just observations.

Admiral T No, it happened to me once. It's true that I did an intro for a Jamaican sound system, the Ward 21 sound. He liked my style, so he asked me to do an intro for Christopher, who was going to cut the plate for him. Other than that, I've never made dubplates for Jamaican sounds.

Admiral T Nothing to say, personally I can't say I've ever been badly received here. The Caribbean, West Indian community supports me. I've nothing to say on that front, in fact I'd like to big them up once again. I see that different people come to my show, mainlanders, Chinese, Africans, it's quite mixed now. That can only please me, it's our goal too, to promote Guadeloupean, Caribbean culture as far as possible.

Admiral T Well, cé bon France, bon foss ba yo,paske franchement en pé di zot ké m'en ka wouè ké iciden sa raid a viv , mwèn minm sè en ti tournant mwèn ka vini fè iciden,et franchement affaire bien classé iciden. (Well, France is fine, lots of strength to them, because I can tell you frankly that I see it's hard to live here. Myself, it's a little detour I came here to make, and frankly it's a closed case.)
The system is really tough when you're not in your own country, you come for your studies, you come to work, so it's quite difficult. Even if back home there's no work, it's easier because you have your family at your side.
Bon foss ba yo!

Admiral T Not at all. Kassav has already proved that there's no limit, Sean Paul proves it with Jamaican patois. We listen to salsa, it's in Spanish, yet there's no limit. So I don't think language can hold back music. Music is the vibe. It's "good vibration"; language isn't going to stop the music.

Admiral T We have quite a few projects. Normally after this tour we're due to go to Jamaica to do three dates. And then there are the festivals. That's quite a few projects.

Admiral T Zot ja ka di Reggaefrance.com cé en trè bon bitin. (They already say Reggaefrance.com is a very good thing.) Because reading is a very good thing. Especially as they really write what the artists say, so it's a good site. So keep going to this site for information...