Every day, a personality invites herself into the world of Élodie Suigo. Today, the author, composer and performer, Barcella. He released his fifth album, “Mariposa”, and began a tour on May 4, 2023 at the Café de la danse in Paris.
Barcella is considered on paper and on the net as being an author, composer and performer from Reims. He is all that, but with a little bit more soul, since his pen since his beginnings, has shown a poetic side, proven and praised by fans, the profession, and even artists. Poetry, yes, but at the service of emotions and this is what touched with its title My sweet in 2012, taken from his second album, Gibberish.
This perlimpinpin powder seems to have had a magical and lunar reach, if we are to believe his latest album, which will be released this Friday, April 28, 2023, Mariposa.
franceinfo: Mariposa whose first single is titled your star is a fifth album that smells good looking at memories and the desire to move forward better, more serenely in any case.
Barcelona: I believe that’s the idea. I always try in my songs to distill a little hope, even if it happens that the cruelty of the world catches up with us. And I think that all the more in these contexts, I try to have songs that give balm to people’s hearts.
Did it take you a long time to find yourself?
I am still looking for myself. I believe it is the principle of life to try to find yourself. I don’t know if we’ll get there in the end. I continue, I’m wrong, I try not to cling to certainties. I happen to have some and then two years later, I say to myself: “Hey, it’s funny, the way we look at the world today is no longer the same. And what’s quite funny, if you listen to my different albums, it’s that little by little, the voice is refined and encounters a form of accuracy or justice I don’t know how I can say it, but something more real.
It’s true that at the beginning, you started with the slam. You have also won the French championship of “Slam Poetry”. This voice is sung at times, it is also slammed, told, posed. What place does it occupy today?
The voice is central because in the idea that I have of the song, it is above all to tell stories to people and to move through words.
Me, I’m in love with Souchon and all these singers who come to whisper in my ear, in tenderness. A bit like Bourvil, sweet words, tender words that give me hope. So I try in any case, without imitating anyone, to follow this path with the voice that I have, which is not a great voice. It was my complex for a long time and today, what is surprising is that it ends up becoming my singularity.
Writing has allowed you to find the right words, to observe the world, to finally transcribe your vision of the world to us. Is this also a question you wanted to convey?
We always question ourselves through the songs. They don’t just give answers. It’s the whole artistic quest. I think Jacques Brel had a lot of questions in his songs, but well, here it is, I think that over time, I’m 41, we come up with something where we say to ourselves: “Here, on this chapter of my life, I think I understood things and on all those who arrive, I think I have songs to write“.
Ten years of career with almost all the prizes. you won the French championship Slam Poetry in 2007. Two years later, the Jacques Brel prize in Vesoul, then the Barbara prize by the Ministry of Culture, before being rewarded by the Charles-Cros Academy. Does it affect you?
What pleases me the most is that I think it fills my mother with joy. If you want, Barcella has Italian origins, it comes from Bergamo. My grandmother spoke French very badly, my mother became a literature teacher and me today, I live on words. So I find that the whole symbolism of transmission, since we were talking about it, is beautiful and virtuous. And now, if it makes my mother happy, it’s my first pride.
What do you keep from your parents?
I was lucky to have parents who are deeply good people, who want to do good. I will always see them as very beautiful stars. I have this chance and I say it for all those who had such complex childhoods, it touches me a lot because I obviously meet some when I work in schools, sometimes in prison on writing . We have people who have terrible backgrounds.
I know how lucky I am to have had loving parents and I think that’s also what makes me want to have a job that gives others a bit of sunshine.
You have a very strong flow. So, we don’t feel it in this album, but very few artists can cover some of your songs. I think about Big Badaboum. Was this flow also a way for you to play with words, to find them, to work on them, to knit them, to unravel them?
Of course, I love this idea. I think Boby Lapointe was the first rapper after all, well before his time. This percussive side, this way of working the tongue like chewing gum, like dough. We have the feeling of being a baker working his dough. Me, it fascinates me, it actually moves me.
Like your song says rainy days, it is time to be happy. So have you decided to accept to take the path that will lead you to happiness? Are you going to agree to keep your promises?
So I hope so and you say it very well, I believe that it is decided to be happy. I believe it is a choice. We tell ourselves : “That’s the world, that’s it. It is made up of this or that cruelty, it is made up of its injustices and yet, in the midst of all that, we can continue to marvel, to be moved by beautiful things.“.
Barcella is on tour, we find him on May 4, 2023 at the Café de la danse in Paris, on the 17th in Sélestat, on the 26th in Oytier-Saint-Oblas, on June 9th in Haillan and on November 22nd in Reims etc.