It’s a song that resembles us. The Green Negresses, the whole world via London

Les Négresses vertes were revealed to the French media and professionals by the enthusiasm of the British music press for a musical revolution born in the popular and colorful Paris of the 1980s – the prelude to a sudden international craze.

In partnership with the exhibition It’s a song that resembles us – Worldwide hits of French-language 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.

To talk about the Green Negresses, we must remember the weight of the British music press. New Music Hall Express, THE Melody Maker and the Music Week Mirror say every week what matters in the Anglo-Saxon and therefore global popular music industry. This is why there was great surprise in the record companies and in the specialist editorial offices in Paris, which feed on these newspapers, when in the spring of 1989, they suddenly started talking about a French group, Les Négresses vertes.

Not only do the English talk about a great album, all in French, and exciting concerts in London rock clubs, but also the sociology of the North, Paris and Montreuil. But the name of the Négresses vertes is so extravagant that some French professionals remember that they have indeed vaguely heard of them.

The Green Negresses already had this name before they really became a group. It is an insult that was thrown at a firemen’s ball in Helno, and to some friends who had dyed green hair. Helno is the stage name of Noël Rota, a punk after the punks, who never really sang, nor wrote a song, but he did backing vocals with Lucrate Milk and Bérurier noir.

Around him, former members of the Zingaro circus, the punk group Les Maîtres and also and especially Stéphane Mellino and his wife Isa, from the group Les Ouvriers, bringing at the same time a solid skill as a gypsy guitarist. Together, they rehearse from time to time, without really taking themselves for a group, until Helno arrives with a text inspired by an interjection that a neighbor often launches, which will give the first song of the Négresses vertes, Zobi the fly.

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

The Green Negresses, Summer is here, 1989

The Green Negresses, The Dance of the Green Negresses, 1989

Lucrate Milk, I Love You Fuck Off, 1985

Black Berrier, The Tomato-Ketchup Emperor, 1987

The Green Negresses, Zobi the fly, 1989

The Green Negresses, It’s not a big deal, 1989

The Green Negresses, He, 1989

The Green Negresses, Zobi the fly (William Orbit remix), 1989

The Green Negresses, Under the bodega sun, 1991

The Green Negresses, Happy family, 1991

The Green Negresses, Zobi the fly, 1989

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

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