Four years after “Elephant man”, JoeyStarr returns to the theater, in Lille, with the same director. A literary and poetic epic, from the beginnings of colonialism and slavery to the present day.
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Reading time: 2 min
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“We the beggars, we the few, we the nothings, we the dogs, we the skinny ones, we the niggers!” These are the words of the poet Léon-Gontran Damas that JoeyStarr is reciting in the theater, until Saturday February 17 in Lille. The actor and rapper returns to the stage for the show Black Labela dark poetic epic with the same director as four years ago for Elephant ManDavid Bobée.
With his voice that tears apart rap as much as the chosen texts, JoeyStarr serves around twenty authors, from the 13th century to today, from Afro-descendant writings to today’s Black Live Matters. The best known are Aimé Césaire, James Baldwin, Macolm X but we also note discoveries like Léon-Gontran Damas or Tracy K. Smith. An exercise in which he feels perfectly at home. “There, we are on something that I had not completely succeeded in conveying with rap”he believes.
“Both my parents are from Martinique. All this history, all this culture, I have a real break on this so it wears me to death.”
“I think I am part of the social fabric of what we delivered this evening,” says JoeyStarr. Alongside him on stage, the musician and jazz singer Sélène Saint-Aimé, the singer and dancer Nicolas Moumbounou and the deaf artist Jules Turlet, a “chansigneur” who translates the entire show into sign language. “Celebrating these poets and poetesses today is already the affirmation and celebration of a history of literature, of politics, of resistance to both resist and at the same time try to break this history racial violence”, believes David Bobée.
“Yes negritude is a luxury, it was so expensive. Profession? Dissident dandy”, sings JoeyStarr again. Eras, continents change, but it is the same story, that of a skin color which unleashes hatred, this negritude, little-known literary wealth. Ending with the litany of victims of police violence, Black Label raises a public that we guess is convinced in advance, a militant gesture which we can think will not change the face of the world, but which the duo accepts.
“JoeyStarr on stage brings people who don’t usually go to the theater.”
Director David Bobéeat franceinfo
“We tell them a story, their story, and we also give each other strength among ourselves. It’s important to have intellectual tools, critical tools, political tools to know how to resist this violence we experience,” underlines David Bobée.
JoeyStarr’s children were present in the room at one of the performances given at the Théâtre du Nord in Lille. “I find it interesting to give them a slightly ‘upgraded’ reminder of where they come from, of why all this happened. It’s very important. Maybe we’ll register them correctly in the future with this kind of actions”, he hopes. After Lille, Black Label will perform in Rennes on April 6, then on June 2 at the Nuits de Fourvière in Lyon.
Thierry Fiorile attended a performance of “Black Label” in Lille – Report