Every day, a personality invites herself into the world of Élodie Suigo. Today, the author, composer and rapper Gims. His latest album released in December 2022 is called “LDVM”.
Gims is an author, singer-songwriter, producer, rapper and member of the hip-hop group Sexion d’Assaut. His albums have always sold hugely and his career has never wavered with a few album sales records and numerous awards. In total, he has already sold six million albums and has more than five billion streams and more than 26 million cumulative subscribers on all of his social networks. His latest album, released in December 2022, is titled LDVM either Mozart’s last wishes. He’s on a summer tour.
franceinfo: Mozart’s last wishesdoes that mean that Mozart was an inspiration to you?
Gims: Yes. Totally. It’s an inspiration, even though I don’t play any instrument, but it’s way beyond that. By his will, his career, his works, he has inspired several generations. And the proof is that today, a native of Kinshasa, who arrived in France as a child, knows Mozart. Yes, he inspired me a lot. At five years old, he had already composed some very complex things, he was composing for many people who asked him from all over Europe. He was amazing.
There are 18 tracks that make up this album with new collaborations. After Sting and Vianney, we find Carla Bruni, for example. It’s a duo that is very gentle. Was it a wish to show another side of your personality?
This unexpected duet with Carla Bruni was a wish. I really like Carla Bruni’s voice. It’s true that she has a voice… You don’t expect to see her throwing wood, yelling like I do, but precisely, there is this slightly hypnotizing, bewitching side to her voice which is super interesting. That’s why I wanted to highlight it with a ballad, a triplet, something quite fancy, Disney.
It is quite different from what you have proposed so far. You say you want to believe it. What does that mean ?
It means that sometimes it’s too big. And when it’s too big, it’s hard to believe. It is difficult to project oneself, to dream. Whereas dreaming costs nothing.
What did you dream of, as a child, as a teenager, in this life that did not suggest a necessarily very positive future? Your parents were foreigners, in an irregular situation, you knew the host families, you knew the squats and yet it seems that you never stopped dreaming.
Honestly, a lot of things have happened to me and continue to happen to me today. I dreamed of a career, I dreamed of a group in which I could flourish. I dreamed of a solo career and I am grateful for all that life has given me.
What do you keep this childhood then?
I have lots of memories as a kid. I learn lessons from it, things that I didn’t understand before and that I understand now. It’s always that, huh, children, we understand too late!
At the same time, you have never swung to the wrong side of the force. It could have been much “easier”, in the context in which you were, that is to say, you could have been a dealer, stealing cars. And you, you never touched that.
No, I never touched that. I was really absorbed by my passion which was music, which was art. My passion took up so much of my time that I didn’t get up for the same reasons as some of my friends.
You say, moreover, that you miss the halls of the school, but that you have decided to move on, to forget everything you have left behind. Does that mean that every once in a while it hurts to think about what you left behind?
It’s nostalgia. Nostalgia, ultimately, is something that we create over time, so it’s illusory. They are memories, smells, noises reminiscent of school, reminiscent of those moments of inattention, innocence, etc.
In any case, one thing is certain: your albums are selling like hot cakes. You are still popular with a lot of streams. How do you keep your feet on the ground?
I think we suffer, we live with it, we try to do the best each time. I don’t think there is any training. Celebrity, everyone feels it, lives it according to their character, according to their state of mind. It is something quite difficult and quite random. I want to put the thing back to the divine, to the spiritual, to spirituality because sometimes it’s good to be spiritual, to be someone with hindsight, to meditate because it’s still heavy . Fame can be very heavy, it’s something special.
What place does the public occupy? He was always there, he adopted you very quickly, both on the side of Sexion d’Assaut, and with Subliminal your first album.
It was the French public who carried me first and that is something indelible. It’s set in stone.
Today I owe my career to the French public and that has highlighted my origins, the Congo. The Congolese discovered me afterwards. If it were to end now, I could never thank everyone. If I could shake hands with everyone, give everyone a hug, all the followers, all the fans, frankly, I would organize myself.
You talk about horizon, what is yours?
Ah, the horizon is always ambiguous and always blurred, huh! It’s that in hope, we hope to find lots of things there.
How we can wander and end up finding ourselves!
That’s it !
Gims will be in concert, for example, on July 3 in Saint-Malo du Bois, July 14 in Toulouse, July 20 in Bayonne, July 21 in Carcassonne, July 22 in Nîmes, September 7 in Châlons-en- Champagne or November 3 in Orléans, November 23 in Bordeaux, November 24 in Narbonne, etc.