The eclectic Ray Lema

Recreation

Paris 

23/02/2007 - 

Recorded in a trio with bass-guitarist Etienne Mbappe and drummer Francis Lassus, Ray Lema’s new album, Paradox, is an eclectic mix of language and genre. It is hardly surprising to find such diversity from a musician who has always been frustrated by pigeonholes.

RFI Musique: Let’s talk about a word that you seem fond of, "paradox", since it is the title you gave your album.
Ray Lema: We live in a society full of paradoxes right now, in the sense that the all right analyses have been made, but we act in complete contradiction with what these analyses are teaching and showing us. Take cigarettes, for example. Once I saw a programme on the chemicals inside a cigarette. It is quite a shock when you realise all the unnatural products there are mixed together to make one. The people who invented them are rich and live comfortable lives, we know who they are, yet cigarettes continue to sell well even though everyone worries about the consequences of consuming tobacco. This type of paradox weighs me down. I say to myself, how can society be so advanced and so childish at the same time?

Is there also a paradox in being a musician today?
It is important to separate the stardom from the musicians. As a musician, you want to make music that produces a little, indescribable joy, but to be a star, you have to get yourself dressed up to be a consumer product and join a process that us musicians cannot always control. So yes, there is some kind of paradox there.

For a musician like you, who sees the sense in maintaining French-speaking communities, isn’t it a paradox to sing in English as you do on some of the tracks on your album?
No, because I am married to an American and we speak English at home. So, although I am a Francophone, I can be an Anglophone too. It isn’t a paradox; it’s a reality for quite a few world citizens today.

This album includes a track you wrote in homage to Ali Farka Touré and a cover version of C’est une Garonne, which you wrote for Claude Nougaro. Are these acts of friendship or remembrance?
Both. Each was a personal friend of mine and had something to teach me. With Claude, I learned my command of the French language. Although I live in France, I don’t usually sing in French. Now I’m risking it in French and it is something I aim to do on tiptoe, slowly, and with a good dose of humility.

Claude opened up my eyes to this language. While we were working on his album (Ed.: Chansongs, released in 2004), where this song comes from, at home one day, I told him how much I admired his way of writing. He replied: “You know, it’s just a question of practising, and having a feel for it. Like you, I like your feel you have for notes, but I’ve got a feel for words.” And then he starting talking to me about my recording studio in such a way that suddenly, I realised I had completely rediscovered the place I go to every day. It’s extraordinary, the way you can use words, and I would like, really slowly, to get right inside French. As for Ali, we saw each other at festivals, but we had never really hit it off, until one day, we found ourselves at the same show in Brazil. Jorge Ben Jor had invited us both to his concert (Angélique Kidjo was there too). Ali said to me, “When I look at you, sometimes you are really white and sometimes you are really African.” This was news! “We’ll talk about it,” he said. And so he invited me to his house, in Niafunké in Mali. He talked to me a lot about African culture there, and taught me a lot. These two guys were friends of mine, but at the same time, I owe them a gesture of remembrance because they brought some fantastic things to me.

In the thanks included in the CD booklet, why do you put the Dalaï Lama at the top of your list of thanks?
The word “paradox” came to me from one of the Dalaï Lama’s speeches. When he speaks about present-day western society he doesn’t do it with animosity, he just smiles very kindly. He simply points out a whole lot of realities that are completely out of kilter, and says some extraordinarily true things about us. I am not a Buddhist, but I find the way this man has of looking at things and at people without judging them very touching.

Ray Lema Paradox (Laborie Records/Naïve) 2007
In concert on 10 March in Paris (New Morning), 23 March in Montpellier (Jam) and 15 May in Rouen (Théâtre Duchamp Villon)

Patrick  Labesse

Translation : Anne-Marie  Harper