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Baloji
A Rapper Between Two Worlds
06/02/2008 -
Superb! There’s no other word to describe Baloji’s first album, Hôtel Impala, a supremely personal, supremely musical debut. The young rapper from Liège recently performed his first concert in Paris (at Le Zèbre, in Belleville, on 28 November 2007), with a talented live group, wowing all present with his energy and charisma.
RFI Musique: Where do you come from, Baloji?
Baloji: I’m from Liège, a working-class town in Belgium. I moved there when I was four. I was actually born in the Congo, but I grew up and went to school in Belgium. I’m 30 now and I’d say I started getting interested in music when I was around 13 or 14. I started out writing poetry, but my poems eventually evolved into songs and I ended up joining the group Starflam. That was back in the days when they were still called Les Malfrats Linguistiques. The last tour I did with Starflam went really badly - so badly, in fact, that I quit Starflam and stopped music altogether for a while!
And what got you back on track again?
I went through a pretty rough time after leaving Starflam and I sort of lost the plot for a bit. Then, one day, this woman rang up and said she had a letter for me. She sent me the letter and it turned out to be a letter from my mother, a woman I didn’t know at all. My father was living this married life with the woman I knew as my adoptive mother, the pair of them living in Belgium near Ostend. But my father travelled a lot on business and he’d had a fling with my mother while he was in the Congo. When he found out she’d had a son he brought me over to Belgium when I was four years old without saying anything to me about the whole story. I suddenly found myself living in a new home in a new country with seven brothers and sisters. Meanwhile, back in the Congo my real mother was getting worried because she’d never had a reply to any of the letters she’d written to me. I finally got one of her letters when this woman sent it to me in October 2005. I called the number in the letter and I actually spoke to my Mum on the phone. She told me she’d seen this guy performing on TV one night on "MCM Afrique" and she was sure it was me!
From that point on, I felt like I had something to sing about in my songs. I wanted to recount the different slices of my life and explain everything that had happened to me from the moment I left the Congo till I got where I am today. I want to go back to the Congo now. I came across this old track by Marvin Gaye called I’m Going Home, a song that was never properly released because of a quarrel between him and Berry Gordy. The lyrics to that song really struck a chord with me. They’re linked into my story. When I heard the line "I’m going home to see my mother" I knew I had the outline for the whole album. I’m really slow when it comes to writing material, though. I really envy those guys who can sit down and write a song in a couple of hours - and then record it in thirty minutes flat. I really have to keep my nose to the grindstone. I try and put in more hours every day.
Musically speaking, your songs are a million miles away from traditional street rap…
I was helped out by a Belgian arranger called Peter Lesage. It was thanks to him that I found the right musicians and sorted my ideas out. What I really love is Tina Turner-style soul with a real live feeling. When I was with Starflam, we had to take whatever gigs we could get to earn our living and we often ended up playing to rock audiences. Believe me, in those situations we had to work really hard to give something extra. Those guys hate rap because there are no ‘real musicians’ involved. What I really want to do now is get out and perform live on stage with a group. I’ve got these songs where I talk about stuff that happened to me five years ago when I was an illegal immigrant living without ID papers and I got this expulsion order. I was locked up in a detention centre at the age of 22 and my girlfriend of the time saved my life. She was the one who paid the money and signed the papers to get me out of there.
What do you think of the image rap has these days?
I’m a big fan of Booba. I love what he does, but I can’t identify with street rap or the message he puts across. Booba basically goes round lying to everyone. He’s a brilliant liar and he writes the most extraordinary lyrics. Musically speaking, he’s really up there. No-one even gets close to what he does. He’s the best. But that’s the state rap’s in today. The prophet’s a liar, but that doesn’t matter, he’s still the leader. I really have a lot of respect for Booba's work. But that’s the problem, everyone else is following him but they can’t even come close to what he does.
Everyone’s trying to put across this image, this "we’re all dumb asses, totally uneducated morons" when the truth is those guys are just the opposite of that. That’s what I have a problem with. I used to be a really big fan of NTM and Akhenaton but then they started dumbing everything down to their audience’s level. Everyone’s dumbing it down all the time so that the kids understand what they’re on about and buy their music. Apparently, Abd al Malik and Grand Corps Malade are doing really well right now and I think it’s good to have some kind of alternative. As for me, on my album I’m just trying to be myself. People can just take it or leave it because that’s who I am and I’m not about to change it!
Do you think of yourself as Belgian or Congolese now?
Well, I prefer the term "Afropean." But I’ve got a Belgian ID card now. I’ve got Belgian nationality. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m a ‘mutant.’ That’s a bit too strong. At the end of the day I guess I'd say I’m a guy who lives between two worlds.
Paris dates: Café de la Danse (15 February) and La Cigale (5 April).
Olivier Cachin
Translation : Julie Street
