Album review

Faudel

The Little Prince of Raï Comes Of Age

Paris 

09/02/2001 - 

Hailed as the musical son of Rachid Taha and Cheb Hasni, Faudel has just released his eagerly-awaited second album Samra. Featuring a mature and highly accomplished mix of world and Raï, Faudel's second album proves the Little Prince from Mantes-la-Jolie has finally grown up. We met up with Faudel in a hip bistro on the Champs-Elysées and asked him a few questions about Samra and his recent visit to Algiers.

Faudel, you went out to attend a film festival in Algiers in September last year. What kind of reception did you get out there?
It was amazing! The festival, which lasted a week, was organised by Alexandre Arcady and the Algerian president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika. There were a lot of major stars there including Sami Naceri, Gad El Maleh and Roger Hanin, who won a special award in recognition of his life's work. There was a brilliant atmosphere in Algiers. Everyone was so enthusiastic. People were really pleased to see me, they thought I was going to get up and sing. It was a big thing for me too. That was the first time I'd ever been to Algiers - my family come from Tlemcen in the west of the country.
I was really moved, in fact. I was only there for 24 hours, but it was a truly extraordinary experience! There was one point where we were in this huge open-air movie theatre with over 3,000 people watching the film Taxi. And everyone started going crazy applauding the actors from the film who were there in the audience. It was amazing. I got a round of applause too – even though I don't actually appear in the film! (Laughs).

You may not have appeared in Taxi, but you're starting to establish a bit of a reputation as an actor, aren't you? You've been in two films already: Les Cachetonneurs and, more recently, Le Battement d’Aile du Papillon …
Yes, that's right. I really loved the scenario for Les Cachetonneurs. I thought the idea was really interesting – and then again, it was great for me because I got to play myself. I play the part of a musician struggling to get enough gigs so he can sign on for his dole money! I had a lot of fun making that film, because everyone working on it - from the director to the producer to the actors - we were all mates.

To get back to the film festival in Algiers for one moment, you got as rapturous a reception from Algerian fans as Roger Hanin and Sami Naceri did…
Well, people know me from my music videos and because they've seen me on satellite TV. I think I'm someone they can feel proud of really, you know, someone who's come from the 'third generation' of Algerian immigrants and done all right for himself, an Algerian boy who's made good and established himself on the Raï scene. It's funny, there's someone in Algeria who takes the trouble to put together all my press cuttings and keeps note of what people are saying about me.

And what kind of things are people saying about you at the moment?
Well, the question which keeps coming up all the time is "When's he going to come and do a concert in Algeria?" The thing is, people know that I've done concerts in Lebanon and Tunisia now, so they want me to go out and play for them in Algiers or Tlemcen, where my grandmother comes from. And I'd love to do that – that would be one of my greatest dreams come true! I mean, Khaled went out and did a concert in Algiers in October last year to raise money for diabetic kids. So why shouldn't I?

Your manager, Mohamed Mestar, once said that you were such a workaholic in the early days of your career that you pretty much missed out on being a teenager …
Well, it's true that when I first started out in the music business I kept pestering Mohamed to be my manager. And I think that what won him over in the end was not so much my talent as my sheer perseverance …
I did work incredibly hard when I first started out in this business, though. The media like to talk about the "miracle" of my overnight success, of this "Little Prince of Raï" suddenly catapulting to fame. But the truth is, although I did enjoy a lightning rise to fame, I made it because I was committed to working full-time with my musician friends, people like M, Gérald Toto and Patrice Goraguer. In Mantes-la-Jolie, the suburb where I grew up, my mates would all go off and have fun playing football in their free time, but I'd be off rehearsing or at singing lessons. That's just the way it was. That's what I knew I had to do to get on. But I don't have any regrets about that now - it was all worth it in the end!

You evoke a lot of your past history on one of the songs on your new album, Je me Souviens …
For me, Je me souviens is a song about the love of a certain town, the love I feel for my mother and the love I have for God. It's a way of looking back over the past four years, looking at how my family struggled to get by. My father worked all out to keep a roof over the family's head and my mother would often take on odd jobs to help out. So we kids had a pretty tough childhood in a way. We weren't unhappy, it's not that, it's just that things were a bit difficult every now and then … Je me Souviens is a way of looking back over that period and remembering certain things. I'm really talking to my mother in the song, telling her I haven't forgotten the hard times we went through together, when money and friends were scarce.

Is the song about Mantes-la-Jolie too?
Yes, the song's also about the love you can feel for a place. I knew people were going to ask me that actually. I knew people would come out with all this nonsense like "Oh, well, he's just going on about Mantes-la-Jolie because it makes him look good!" and things like that.
But I haven't actually said anything like that so far ...
No, but I know people will. I'm starting to become very professional when it comes to interviews. I know what questions are coming …. I know someone will say "Oh, he did that song to prove such and such".

Is it because you feel other French stars like footballer Nicolas Anelka, singer Doc Gyneco and stand-up comic Jamel Debbouze go on about having grown up in the French suburbs, but they've actually lost contact with their roots a bit now?
No, I guess I did a song abut Mantes-la-Jolie because, as they say in French, "No-one is a prophet in his own land." There was a time back at the beginning of my career when I'd be appearing on prime time TV shows and then going out on the street in Mantes and saying hi to my mates the next day. It was this weird double life and I don't think they really understood what was going on at all. There was this huge gap between my private and my public life and it was really hard for me to reconcile the two.
Je me Souviens was a way of me putting my point of view on that period across and explaining to my mates in Val Fourré what I was going through at the time. It's also a way of telling them that I still think about them a lot. I haven't forgotten my old friends. In fact, when the song first came out as a single I insisted that it was sent to RDC, Radio Droit de Cité (a local station in the Yvelines) before anyone else, so that people living in Mantes and Val Fourré got to hear it first. That was my way of paying tribute to them...

You've been hailed as a musical successor to Cheb Hasni. In fact, a lot of people see you as a sort of modern-day crooner with the same kind of charm as Hasni …
(Faudel bursts out laughing). You mean I'm some sort of pin-up for teenage girls? Well, they said that about Patrick Bruel when he started out too and I think he's done OK. Bruel's gone on to do really good things and managed his career really well. I mean, you either like what Bruel does or you don't, but you have to admit he's managed to become a 'mature' star and still keep his fans. And I hope I'll be able to do that too in the long term!
It does get on your nerves every now and then, people coming up to you in the street or asking for your autograph every time you stop at a red light. But when you're involved in making people's dreams, you have to deal with that. When I sit down and look at what's happened to me, I feel I'm very much one of the lucky ones. I mean, bringing a second album out at the age of 22 – I've got nothing to moan about, have I?

Faudel Samra (Mercury / Universal)

Frédéric  Garat

Translation : Julie  Street