“I explore the world by speaking about humanity through my music”

Every day, a personality invites itself into the world of Élodie Suigo. Tuesday February 27, 2024: The Senegalese singer and rapper, Faada Freddy. He released his second solo album: “Golden Cages”.

Faada Freddy is a Senegalese singer and rapper. He took his first steps in the hip-hop world with the group Daara J, which he had hidden from his father for fear that he would disown him forever. He ended up being unmasked. In 2015, the French public discovered it with Gospel Journey, an extraordinary album, a hymn to life recorded with vocals and only body percussion. He is releasing a new album Golden Cageshis second solo album, with 12 unreleased tracks.

franceinfo: You are releasing your second solo album after seven years of silence, what happened?

Faada Freddy: It happened that during these seven years, I took time for myself because it is common, as we know, that many artists are victims of overwork because they tour a lot. And it was a bit to avoid all that. I needed time for myself. I also needed to feel my feet hitting the ground. So I went back to Senegal and went to see the farmers and learned a little bit about the basics of agriculture. And then Covid arrived and I took the opportunity to lock myself away and write this new album Golden Cages.

Golden Cages, it is because you also position yourself on our incapacity to reflect on ourselves, with morality and especially ideas which are, ultimately, imposed and which become the norm. Is it a bit of a cry from the heart?

Yes, indeed, because being locked up between four walls pushed me to think. And then I said to myself that what needs to be described and especially decried in this album is that we are more than QR codes. We are beings of spirit and soul, we want to connect with each other. So, it is a call for freedom, for individual freedom.

“We have to get out of our comfort because venturing into what is not comfort is also granting ourselves the pleasure of exploring ourselves, of knowing who we really are.”

Faada Freddy

at franceinfo

Your father was quite hard on you. He had a rather particular vision of art, he considered it to be a vocation, but not a profession. You hid from him for a very long time that you were making music on the side.

Yes. It was out of modesty. My father was a very gentle man, but he protected us so that we did not fall into alcohol, decline or drugs. Because during the Jimi Hendrix period, those years when it was Peace, Love and Harmony, there were a lot of drugs. I had to pass the baccalaureate, to go to the second year of accounting to say: “Dad, finally, look, I’m starting to push and I even have a few fan clubs asking me for autographs when I walk down the street. I think it’s time for you to give me the blessing”. And that’s what he did. Since then, I have explored the world by speaking about humanity through my music.

As a child, you already knew that you were made for music, were you even singing at five years old?

Indeed, at five years old, I made my first television to declare love by singing to my grandmother. And when the spotlight was put on me, I was intimidated and I started singing Brother Jacques and I cried. And when I came home, she said to me: “But where is my love song?” I answered : “Grandma, I forgot” and she said to me: “But I still loved my darling“. I started music quite early, at the age of four, because I grew up with my mother’s voice singing in the kitchen, Indian music, in particular, and that’s what inspired me. opened the way to explore Indian music, French music, soul music.

“I became a cultural mongrel and that’s what I explore every day through my music.”

Faada Freddy

at franceinfo

Is it difficult to become the head of the family when parents disappear?

It is not easy. And also carrying the pain and the weight of those who come to see me is also something. Today, I access music therapy and I see people who come to talk to me about their problems and tell me that the doctors have seen that there is some improvement thanks to music. I know music has a healing vibration. I already work with autistic children, people with cancer or other illnesses, but I plan not to stop and continue to spread the good vibration so that hearts and minds heal. Just looking at what is happening with the farmers… Today, if the farmers themselves have their lives threatened, what will become of us? They give us food.

“The whole earth is in crisis and this is where the artist plays his role as mediator.”

Faada Freddy

at franceinfo

When you were little, you had no money, you created your own instruments with cans. Is that where it starts?

The greatest wealth we have is ourselves. I didn’t have a tablet and growing up in a place where you’re not consumed by tablets gives free rein to creativity. And today, I manage to make albums just with my body. Using the chest like the bass drum, the voice like the bass, we can do everything, we don’t need instruments for my albums.

There is harmony, wonder and there is always this notion of freedom. Are you not first of all this free artist?

It’s like hummingbirds, it has to start with one, but I know that together, we will be more. Together, we will go further and together, we will be freer.

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