For 40 years, the collective unconscious looks at peripheral and working-class neighborhoods from a biased angle. Districts. Concrete, towers, drugs, violence and blurred futures. The clichés are raining down and the sun is struggling to pierce this misleading fog. And yet.
Their names are Mourad, Lummen Nae, Nassim, Oussama, Ikram, Soheib, Lyn, Nawelle, Ouidad, Lior, Bouchra, Chihab, Loïc, Tayah, Mélanie, Cyjah, Ismaël, Yan’Sine, May, Yunah. And they resume, while singing, on saxophone, piano or Oud, standards from NTM, Alain Souchon, Daniel Balavoine, IAM, Diane Tell, Starmania, Yannick Noah, Michel Berger, Jean-Jacques Goldman, Khaled, France Gall, Rachid Taha…
“My city will sing” is not a compilation of urban music because it is a question here of recalling thatin the suburbs too, variety, musical and human, has its say. It’s about saying that you can be born on the wrong side of the ring road and still want to become someone: a baker, a surgeon, a conductor, a mistress, an engineer and, why not… an artist .
At the start of this project, there is a man. Kerredine. Author, composer, singer since he was 8 years old to overcome his own shyness, his songs are now studied at the prestigious American University of Stanford. He was born in Argenteuil to Tunisian working-class parents, who knew the slums in France and extreme precariousness and who knew how, despite the difficult life, to raise their children with respect and love. In the idea of a possible tomorrow.
For this project, Kerredine has tirelessly crossed the country, north, south, east, west, he went everywhere, spotted young people from Marseille, Lyon, Montpellier, here and elsewhere on the net. He wanted to do something for them, reach out to them, give them a chance! Once the casting was done, he surrounded himself witha team of beatmakers (including those of Gims, Booba, PNL…) and recorded the time of a weekend a song here, another there. The result is striking. This mixture of well-known melodies and urban sounds, these crossings of genres, this ability to go beyond codes to better unite souls gives the songs an unstoppable freshness.
“My city will sing” will not be just a simple album. Kerredine, both big brother and conductor, has already written the sequel, in the form of a musical. The story is just beginning.