“We sing a lot about our dream Marseille”

Every day, a personality invites itself into the world of Élodie Suigo. Friday June 14: Moussu T, aka Tatou, and DJ Kayalik, both founding members of the group Massilia Sound System.

Moussu T, aka Tatou, and DJ Kayalik are two of the founding members of the Occitan raga group, founded in Marseille in 1984, Massilia Sound System. A group praised by many aficionados who have achieved the feat of offering a Provençal version of the Jamaican raga, which is quite a feat.

On the occasion of the group’s 40th anniversary, Massilia Sound System releases an album Birthdays 1984/2024which covers ten of their greatest titles, as well as the reissue of four remastered albums, 3968 CR 13, Oaï E Libertat, Occitanista And Massilia. Added to this is a tour with 26 dates and festivals, starting June 15.

franceinfo: In your music, there is folkloric with Indian sounds, electro, rock, but above all there is commitment. This is truly what defines Massilia Sound System in the first place. Am I wrong in saying this?

Armadillo: It’s natural. Our model, Jamaican music, already contains all of this. It contains a use of patois, the desire to be functional for the community and it contains commitment. So we are in line with our model.

For 40 years, how was the group born? What was the goal?

Armadillo: People of my generation were fed rock’n’roll. We read Rock&Folk, we saw the groups on tour. So there was the music, but also everything that went with it, that is to say the kind of libertarian life that the musicians had, this kind of desire to have this extraordinary life. The Sound System allowed us to do that quickly because we would take the record, put on the B side and tell our stuff.

“As our songs told about things that everyone could see or experience, there was an immediate connection with the audience.”

Tatou, from the group Massilia Sound System

at franceinfo

Often, it is also said of you that you have become the matrix of Marseille rap and reggae. Do you see it in this definition?

DJ Kayalik: Initially, Akhenaton accompanied Tatou in the sound system, it was born from there. It’s a bit of an analogy with everything that happened at that time in the world. In New York, it’s DJ Kool Herc, a Jamaican who arrives in New York with vinyls and who plays the B sides. Rap ​​was born like that. It was a bit of the same thing, and from my perspective, I, who wasn’t an actor at the time, saw it happening. I was at the conservatory, I played the guitar, I sold it and I bought turntables, saying to myself: there, I will be able to make music directly, concretely.

You tell things clearly, what you experience, we are really in reality, but at the same time, there is also a little imagination in the creation. Is this the necessary balance?

DJ Kayalik: Yes, there is a lot of imagination. In fact, we sing a lot about our dream Marseille. It’s not often the reality, but it’s what we dream of. Sometimes we struggle because it’s still difficult. Marseille is very difficult. We say it in a song from the last album Bad Caracter. The song is called Marseille is on the streets and that’s exactly it. It’s because there is nothing and everything that was said anymore. Everything we did to make things go well, everything we invented with the people we gathered around us to move things forward, to make living together even better, that ‘almost doesn’t exist anymore. For us, it’s hard. We love Marseille, but we don’t stop criticizing it every day, we can’t stop.

Does this affect you personally too?

Armadillo: What touches me most is that the founding of Marseille rests on Protis, a Greek sailor, who arrives and falls in love with a native woman, Princess Gyptis. This union founded a city. We are based on a myth of love between someone who comes from far away and someone who is there. We should export this myth because it is interesting. Afterwards, in a world where money and success seem easy, as we can see on television, it is somehow normal that kids, as they say, that young people, fall into this.

You have always defended the Occitan language, a language that sings. It is important ?

Armadillo: What’s interesting is that we don’t look down on cultures. All cultures, even the smallest, have the same importance.

“All languages ​​are smiling.”

Tatou, from the group Massilia Sound System

at franceinfo

When I speak Provençal, I’m in a sort of liberated zone, in something that has less control over the State and that makes me a little freer. But we never did it as a nationalist thing. No, having two cultures already meant being able to understand a third or a fourth more easily. It’s an opening. We realized in Massilia that when we crossed borders and went into the world, this thing allowed us to understand, to better grasp complex things, more than if we had been Franco-French somewhere.

Massilia Sound System can be found, among other dates, on June 15 at the La rue des artistes festival in Saint-Chamond, June 30 at the Garorock festival in Marmande, July 12 at the Poupet festival in Saint-Malo-du-Bois or again on July 26 in Sète.

Watch this interview on video: