Sly Johnson’s metamorphosis

First solo album

Paris 

22/09/2010 - 

Sly Johnson, ex-beatboxer with Saïan Supa Crew, has come out with a soul-infused first album, 74. Against an infectious groove and melody background, he lays himself bare to paint a musical self-portrait coloured with a touching sincerity.

" Saïan Supa Crew? Don’t know them... Really? They no longer exist?" Sly Johnson, alias The Mic Buddha, laughs at the boomerang question. In fact, the best-known rap collective in France split in 2007 and since then, each of the members has gone their own way: Leeroy, Sir Samuel, recently Féfé, with his album Jeune à la retraite, and now Sly, Crew’s beatboxer, has started out with a soul album, 74.

There’s no denying that his status as a human prodigy verbal acrobat did his head in. Right from Saïan’s third album he started dreaming of doing his own thing: “I’ve always been in love with hip-hop. I’ll be faithful to it all my life. But I knew that my musical path was no longer going to be with rap.”

The cases of vinyl records are being opened up in Vibe Station, a local shop in the Bastille neighbourhood of Paris. The record dealer, Jean-Philippe Mano, otherwise known as DJ JP, is taking him back to the roots of hip-hop: soul and funk. Sly digs through, fishes out and mixes samples from the seventies, to unearth the sounds that fascinate him. He likes their rhythmic material, their groove and their colours, which “blow him out”.

Sly has found his own language and a way to express himself, encouraged by his friend Ayo. The Nigerian singer never saw Sly as a rapper, but as a singer, even when he didn’t know it himself. When Saïan finished, the beatboxer didn’t stop making music. He did a tour with Camille, worked on the album Tchamantché with Rokia Traoré and with the hip-hop group Detroit Concept. But one combination stood out above all the others, and that was with trumpeter Erik Truffaz on the Paris Project: “I loved his really simple, melodious approach to music. There were no huge concepts, just complicity and humanity,” he relates, obviously impressed by his authenticity.

Music therapy

The whole experience was what sparked off the mutation from rap to soul. A metamorphosis that accelerated in 2007 when his mother died. He had only met her twice, for the space of two catastrophic afternoons. Just as he was trying to close down his anger and pick up with her again, he learned of her death. It was a great shock – he shaved off his dreadlocks; his voice changed; his singing took on a different hue.

He looked in the mirror and told himself: “You are Sylvère Johnson, there’s no point hiding yourself.” In his album, 74, the year he was born, he overcomes his shyness to show what he’s made of. He goes back to the start, with its lack of love, joy and affection and tries to be as frank as he can, scattering the pieces of a puzzle. The album tells the story. But more than the words, his singing talks, revealing his core, his pain and his soul. The way that the album works, everything comes from the rhythmic pulsation, the breathing and the beatbox. And from the gut.

Cream of musicians

Right from the start, this brewing self-portrait was encouraged by an international star, Dee Dee Bridgewater. At the Victoires du jazz three years ago, the diva exclaimed: “That guy sounds like the boys from Memphis!” She offered to produce his record and then handed the responsibility over to Universal, who were quickly seduced.

Sly the Frenchman then convoked a Who’s Who of international musicians to lend life to his adventure: Cindy Blackman on drums (Lenny Kravitz), TM Stevens on bass (Miles Davis, James Brown, Tina Turner) and a bunch of other big names in black American music. Sheer nerve pushed him to call on Larry Gold, legendary sound arranger of The Philadelphia Experiment (Erikah Badu, The Roots, Justin Timberlake).

With this prestigious team, Sly Johnson had a duty to do things well. Apart from his personal compositions, he also tackled covers of two monumental numbers: Everybody’s Got to Learn Sometimes by The Korgis, a song that made him cry as a child, sung here directly to his mother; and Otis Redding’s Fa-fa-fa-fa (Sad Song), which exists in thousands of versions and is extremely complicated to sing. Quite some challenge. And to bridge the gap with his former life, he invited the Slum Village rappers to join him on the first track.

Sly Johnson’s first album is extremely well done. It is an ultra-likeable portrayal of this rapper turned soul singer attempting to heal his wounds with music. Within the crackling vinyl records, faultless arrangements and a very catchy groove, lie his wanderings, rebirth and redemption. Wonderful stuff.

Sly Johnson 74 (Universal Jazz) 2010

French tour starts on 25 September with a concert in Paris at the Maroquinerie on 14 October

Anne-Laure  Lemancel

Translation : Anne-Marie  Harper