It’s a song that resembles us. Kassav’, global Creoleness

Kassav’, a group created in Paris by mixing Guadeloupean and Martinican musicians, will conquer the world with the genre it invented, zouk, which synthesizes the extraordinary crossroads of music from the Antilles. And it makes the entire planet hear the French-speaking Creole language.

In partnership with the exhibition It’s a song that resembles us – Worldwide hits of French-speaking popular music At the Cité internationale de la langue française in Villers-Cotterêts, these chronicles look in detail at each of the stories presented there.

Kassav’ is a group of experimenters and their music is a cultural laboratory. It all began in 1979 in Paris, in the Ile-de-France region – “the third island”, since the mass emigration of Guadeloupeans and Martinicans meant that it was populated by hundreds of thousands of West Indians. It was in a rehearsal studio, near the Strasbourg-Saint-Denis metro station, that two bassist brothers and a guitarist met, with the project of inventing a new musical genre.

To do this, they want to synthesize their culture, located at the crossroads of several musical continents: the Caribbean and its Creole music, Europe linked to the French passport, and America with many seductive revolutions. A mixture of salsa, funk, West Indian biguine, reggae, big band jazz and ever-renewed French variety.

With also sounds of drums from Guadeloupe, compas from Haiti, heroic guitars from rock, with traces of Brazilian samba or African rumba, this musical culture is kaleidoscopic. This is why zouk, this genre that Kassav’ invented, will conquer the world, and especially the nations of the South.

In this episode of This song reminds me of usyou hear excerpts from:

Jacob Desvarieux and Georges Décimus, Zouk-la is a medicine for us, 1984

Jacob Desvarieux and Georges Décimus, Yelele, 1984

Jacob Desvarieux and Georges Décimus, Tim tim bwa sek, 1984

Jacob Desvarieux and Georges Décimus, Kavalie or lady, 1984

Jacob Desvarieux and Georges Décimus, Mwen di-w awa, 1984

Fania All Star, Leave you, 1971

Exile One, Lypso cadence, 1976

Temptations, Papa Was a Rolling Stone, 1972

Al Lirvat and Robert Mavounzy, The Ri z’Abymes, 1968

Bob Marley, Is This Love, 1978

Claude Francois, Alexandria, Alexandra, 1978

Guy Conquest, Baimbridge Hot, 1969

Taboo Combo, Gone washed, 1970

Santana, Europa (Earth’s Cry Heaven’s Smile), 1976

Kassav’, Hello Bwa, 1986

You can also extend this column with the book This song reminds me of us published by Heritage Publishing.

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