It took him seven years to release a new album, but the wait was worth it: released last April, From the Horizon specifies the multicultural musical vision of singer-songwriter Boogát, who now feels free to express himself through “the beat “, without having to conform to the codes of this umbrella of musical genres that we still call “world music”. The international festival Nuits d’Afrique offers him Balattou on a silver platter, where he will perform in concert on Saturday evening.
Boogát has just returned from Samuelsberg, in the far north of Norway, where he performed with his friend and collaborator DJ Shub, the first recipient of the Juno Award for Contemporary Indigenous Artist of the Year in 2022, at the invitation of the Riddu Riđđu International Indigenous Festival. “The night at this time of year is lit up like it’s six in the morning,” says Boogát. “This is not the Viking land, but the land of the Sami,” the people who have inhabited this region bordering the Norwegian and Barents seas for millennia.
“It’s a place where everyone is calm,” even though his electronically rhythmic songs (like Shub’s, by the way) invite dancing and letting off steam. “The people are calm, the sea is calm, there’s a lot of silence. And it’s special, because we’re here to party, but it’s not at night. People really got into our concerts; you know, that kind of performance that starts in front of a small audience, but gradually attracts people? At the end, it was a mess — I have to show you some videos we took, it was incredible!”
The experience inspires the musician, who is currently working on two book projects while returning to the stage with new songs from From the Horizon. Between First Nations, as distant as they may be (Boogát’s mother is of Mexican origin, his father is from a Paraguayan indigenous nation), the current flows, in much the same way that rap, reggaeton, cumbia, salsa and electronic music speak to and understand each other on his new album. This stay in the Far North brought him back “to the very essence of what it means to be indigenous. It’s really being on the original land of your ancestors.”
To use the musical metaphor, hip-hop would be Boogát’s original land, but “when I started my solo career in 2013, I focused a lot on performance live with musicians because I felt stuck in this “world music” scene. However, to tour within the circuit world beatI had to present a “traditional” argument for my music, with instruments specific to the genres in which I was evolving. I felt that I had to follow the codes of the world music scene.
The meteoric rise of reggaeton over the past five years has freed it from the aesthetic constraints imposed on it by the circuit world beat. “When I started, I was hungry to be recognized, so I got into the circuit; today, I no longer make music for the same reasons, I no longer want to find myself on stages that I once dreamed of, but where I don’t belong.”
“What I have always loved are the beats “, he continues. “To give concerts with as many pre-recorded sequences as possible – yes, with musicians who play with me on stage, but without it disguising the electronic dimension of my music. This is the direction in which I am heading, and want, don’t want, to tour so much lately with DJ Shub made me understand that a DJ formula, or one based on sequences accompanied by a singer or a rapper and dancers, gives a performance as electrifying as with an orchestra live complete. “
At Balattou, we will see Boogát with his machines, accompanied by a trombonist and a keyboard player, “and quite a few guests, it will be great: Diogo Ramos will come to do a tour, the singer Maï, Waahli — and Mateus Vidal, the singer of [l’orchestre carnavalesque brésilien] Banda Olodum, who now lives in Montreal, will also come and sing with us. It will be really special!”
The album From the Horizon by Boogát was released on the Ray-On label. Boogát will be in concert at the Balattou this Saturday, July 20th from 9 p.m.