Flashmag Digizine Edition Issue 91 March 2019 | Page 33

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Of course, you have to evolve with your era, by using the instruments that come with it. Well, of course some choose to have other influences , it’s their choices, which I respect, but I evolve with my time, while staying in the foundations of zouk. We do not realize it, but our music is rich, because many mainstream musicians take inspiration from some of its elements, to compose their works, while we tend to reject our music, which is paradoxical.

Music production is losing momentum in the West Indies, and a lot of musicians believes that, what is missing are the structures as in the time of Henri Debs. What is your opinion in the issue ?

Indeed, I lived that period, where there were large recording studios and especially a real artistic follow-up. If it is true that in our days at low cost and at home practically, we can record quality products, What is also true is that albums were selling better back then, and there were no technologies helping piracy like today. So, several studios had to close because of the technological advance. At the time a day in the studio is charged at about 200 euros, for an album you have to think about investing about 10,000 euros so rationally nobody wants to invest so much money if the return of investment is not guaranteed. And necessarily the producers have also disappeared and all that goes with the structures of quality control, even of the image of the artist, because people create small structures of self-management as they can. In my opinion, what should be done is that producers should think and find new ways to conquer the market, and especially it’s time for governments to get involved. For example, by creating platforms that give better visibility to West Indian music. The Caribbean is a pool of talents , It takes a political will to support the art. In countries that take their artists seriously, art contributes greatly to the gross domestic product.

A situation that is likely to be more complicated, with the announced disappearance of the channel Tv France O, after AITV I think it is time for Africans and Caribbean to create medias for themselves, one of the fundamental reasons for our existence since 2011.

Flashmag March 2019 www.flashmag.net

Your first album is released in 1998 , the following year you re-enact with Par ce que c’est toi,(because it’s you) however, the success will have to wait for your 3rd opus Je t’emmène (I take you to) in 2000, which takes you to the top of the Afro Caribbean charts you perform at, Casino, Zenith at Bataclan. At this moment what is your feeling? You felt like, finally I have made it, or it was just an exhortation to work more to stay on top?

In fact, for me it was simply the satisfaction of crossing a new level. I realized that it was not bad. I experienced the thing normally and I think it was a normal outcome given the efforts made upstream. All these big halls, the Bataclan, the Zenith and others were for me, more like an exhortation to continue towards new horizons. It was a satisfaction but not the final point. Because, I always try to go higher.

After a best of in 2006 and a duet with Sandra Manor in 2007 you disappear from the scene, why this long absence?

In fact, in 2008 I lost my mother so I was in shock, I was less present on the music scene. I had to heal from the lost. I did some few appearances in tours abroad. but it was mainly because I was struggling to recover from this loss.

You came back to the stage in 2013. when you come back to the stage with your 6th album Solo, what are your impressions towards the audience? Did you feel that something had changed and that you had to adapt?

I found an audience, which still had me in the depth of its memory, but it was necessary for me to do a substantial work to try to rise to the surface. As I said earlier, we do not have structures that closely follow our careers, under other skies , they maintain the memory of an artist in the public because there is a team doing a communicative work, even using elements of private lives of artists to keep them in the markers. And of course, when they come back on stage it's like they've never took a break.