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Corneille's French r'n'b'
Back From the Edge
Paris
13/08/2003 -
Following in the hallowed footsteps of Céline Dion, Garou, Lynda Lemay and Natasha St Pier, Corneille is the latest success story "made in Quebec." With his debut album and three singles released in the course of the past six months – all of which have received widespread airplay on FM – not to mention a series of sell-out concerts and appearances at all the top music festivals, Corneille appears to be a major new force to be reckoned with. The singer, who moved to Montreal six years ago, has found a way of mixing soul and R'n'B rhythms - styles hitherto regarded as uniquely Anglo-Saxon – with the French language. While his model looks and his winning smile would have made him the perfect teen idol, Corneille is not interested in becoming the latest pop sensation. Indeed, he talks of his new-found fame and his personal traumas with the utmost modesty.
The lyrics to Corneille's latest single, Rêves de star, draw on the singer's own personal experiences to date. "I've been constantly criticised on everything from my choice of lifestyle to my sense of ethics," complains Corneille, "Critics have said 'Oh Corneille's too cold, it's like he's made of stone'… It's a pity these people have missed the real point of my work, they don't realise my approach is much deeper than that. I'm not just singing for myself, I'm singing for all my brothers and sisters engaged in the struggle of everyday life… So I'm aiming very high, very high indeed!"
Given his first-hand experience of the Rwandan genocide, it is perhaps not surprising that Corneille has evolved into such a forceful personality. The singer freely admits that writing the songs on his album Parce qu’on vient de loin (Because We've Come Back From the Edge) was a way of exorcising both collective dramas and his own personal nightmares triggered by a day in April '94 when the army broke into his family home in Kigali. "I lost my whole family that day," says Corneille, "My father, my mother, my brothers and my sisters were all wiped out while I was in the same room as them. I managed to escape the massacre at the last minute, diving down behind the sofa to hide. The soldiers never stopped to check whether their killing spree had spared anyone."
Corneille's past is omnipresent in his lyrics, although not always as a dark oppressive force. After coming so close to death himself, the singer appears to have chosen to celebrate life in his music. But there's an undeniable political edge to his songs at times, too. "My album's dedicated to all those who feel they've been ignored and overlooked," Corneille declares, "I've realised just how much injustice there is in this world. Take the events in Rwanda, for instance. OK so the media reported the genocide in Rwanda – which was, let me remind you, the biggest genocide in the world since the Holocaust - but they made much more of a fuss about September 11. You had all these different governments rushing to pledge help and support to the U.S., but those governments didn't lift a finger in '94 during the Rwandan genocide. What's my new album? Definitely a celebration of my new life, but I never forget that countless people never had the right to that!"
RFI Musique: What do your Rwandan roots mean to you after living through such a tragedy?
Corneille: I spent half of my life in Rwanda and that's where I took my first steps in the music world, too. Rwanda provided my first cultural reference points in life. My whole value system was forged over there. And that's why it's so important to me to hang on to my roots.
How did you get into soul and rhythm’n blues growing up in Rwanda?
Out of simple curiosity really. Hip-hop was starting to take off in the early 90s and I was into listening to that sort of music rather than the traditional sounds of my homeland. After that I guess I started looking round and listening to stuff like Boyz II Men and the great soul classics like Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Prince and Curtis Mayfield.
Is songwriting important to you?
Yes, absolutely. Songwriting is a very personal process for me. I write about life, the human capacity for survival and the things I see happening to friends around me. My songs are like an expression of my state of mind at a given moment and a lot of them are autobiographical. I used my album as an outlet for my feelings really. Making it was total therapy – and that therapy's something that will continue all my life because that's the main role of music in my eyes!
Why did you decide to create your own style of R’n’B in French?
Well, basically, I realised I couldn't just stick a language on a musical style. It's quite the opposite, in fact, I feel I bring the music to the language. I came to realise that French is a very complex language. It's got its own particular identity and I realised I couldn't just adapt the music that's come out of the U.S. I soon caught on to the fact that there was a different way of approaching melodies, that you create differently according to the language you're working in.
Your album's about to go gold any minute. Does your career sometimes seem like a fairytale to you?
I'm really happy about the album sales. But it would have been a real fairytale if I'd got a diamond disc* right away! I'm someone who likes to take things a day at a time, you know. This is my first album and I've still got a long way to go. I've put in a lot of hard work to get where I am today and I realise I'm in a privileged situation right now. One thing's for sure and that is that I've got a lucky star shining over me somewhere.
*for sales of over 500,000
Parce qu’on vient de loin (Wagram)
Corneille will be touring French-speaking countries in Europe as well as Quebec in September.
Pierre René-Worms
Translation : Julie Street
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