A childhood split between the 95 and Cameroon, a musician father whose clips were on TV over there, a upright piano in the living room. The rest played out on type beats found on YouTube, some piano voice videos and a packed Zénith de Paris.
Parisian jams at the Zénith: A rapid rise
The Tales interview
As far back as you can remember, your first memory of music?
When I was little, in the 95. My father makes music, my father is an artist. We lived in Cameroon from when I was 5 to 10 years old, that was when he was most successful: his clips were on TV, it was exported a bit. Soul makossa, a mix of makossa and something a bit soul. As soon as I understood what music was, or at least became aware of it, it must have been around 3 or 4 years old.
Do you remember how it made you feel?
No. But I tell myself it’s like a psychological shock, something must happen. It’s like when someone does something really well when you’re little: you remember it, you don’t know why, it leaves a mark in your head and later, unconsciously, it comes back. It’s like traumas in reverse. If the negative creates something, so does the positive, obviously.
Was music very present in your daily life, at home?
Yes, already with this father who makes music. I perceive it, I live it. And my mother listened to a lot of music at that time. Just having people who are big music fans around me was the first framework I grew up in.
"I’m going to show something I haven’t shown yet"
Before the piano voice videos, there was the type beats period. What were you looking for?
To learn what I didn’t know how to do. I had never produced, never seriously been in front of Ableton, I had just tried lots of things like a geek, quickly, without any other goal. I listen to a lot of rap and I quickly manage to lay down on type beats. It gave something classic, in the rap sense: the productions aren’t worked on with the artist, they’re very basic, often only covering one style, whereas I like mixing different things.
How did the piano come in?
🎥 @el_gavoncho
At the same time, I’ve always liked playing piano. When I put down lyrics, there’s often a moment when I stop the production and just redo some chords on the piano, because I find it much easier to find a melody that way. At one point I said to myself: I’ve sent sounds to platforms, made clips, visuals, now I’m going to show something I haven’t shown yet, which is that I can play piano. And from the first video or almost, the feedback was very good. The video format obviously helps, but what keeps people beyond the buzz is this much more direct, simple, unfiltered, unproduced side, nothing added. What came from that is a fairly varied audience: lots of young people, and at the same time, at my concerts, people with a musical culture of older generations.
Did you hesitate to reveal yourself like that?
A little, but really not for long. I had never released piano voice, I had always released produced stuff. When you tell yourself you want to break into rap, it comes with a number of assumptions and clichés in your head, linked to the image around rap. Or even just the fact of only existing behind something produced, and here, it goes beyond rap, it’s global. When you start, you tell yourself you want to be professional, that it must not sound weaker when it plays in the playlist. Later, you realize it’s good to produce your sounds, but what can touch people sometimes is simplicity and precisely imperfection in not producing.
Wanting to prove you have the production level, is that a necessary step?
It’s educational. You just shouldn’t get stuck there.
And the moment it shifts?
There were several pivots, but the big one was social networks. I had already posted videos on TikTok, but I hadn’t made videos for TikTok: I had just cut up and reposted existing videos, which obviously wasn’t the right method. I must have made four at most, then I deleted them. The real pivot was going for it properly, mixed with doing piano voice. Just being on TikTok might not have been enough.
What does it change, concretely?
I sing sounds that people don’t know and it works. So now, I don’t know what to release: if I release the produced version, will people like it, even though it’s totally different? It’s mainly the first time I’m exposing so many people to what I can do, and getting feedback on it. It goes beyond the neighbor who says, "I saw the video, it’s great." And then pressure sets in, because there’s an expectation, whereas before I released sounds and no one expected them. That moment sped up a lot of things in our heads, my team and me.
"Most influence is unconscious"
Your lineage, your influences: conscious or unconscious?
A bit of both, but I think most of it is unconscious. You can try to do things consciously, and that’s usually when you don’t get results. At the same time, I know very well what’s out there, what you could call today’s mainstream, a definition that changes a lot over time. I don’t want to be identified with certain styles, and paradoxically I draw a lot from them to differentiate myself. "Bécane" is trap in the sense that we use 808 and the structure is quite trap, but the production intention is much more live, much more jazz. I have much jazzier versions, I just never released them. It’s version I don’t know how many we made with Pandrezz, because he’s a jazz musician too.
Is inventing a style still possible?
It’s rare to write your own musical path. We do it unconsciously and realize it in hindsight. When the artist is there, it’s hard to say: oh yeah, they’re rewriting something. Even James Blake, who really has something unique: you can analyze his music, find tricks, links with existing styles, lineages. It’s human nature. Reinventing is in people’s minds.
Your instrumentalist background, is it an advantage compared to an artist without that background?
Yes, I think so. First, I can produce, and not all artists can produce. Not all have to either, to be honest, everyone has their role. I was ready for live because that’s what I love and I only had friends in the live band. Those I tour with are jam buddies I’ve known for a long time, they were my roommates. Going out with your friends, with a musical fusion that already exists because you’re used to playing together, everything is smoother. But this technical side can also be toxic: knowing how to do things makes you want to get involved all the time, and that’s not necessarily the best for an artist who sometimes needs to be pulled elsewhere. There are exceptional artists who don’t have this background and still keep the same artistic depth, without the technical understanding of what an F sharp 5 or a sus4 is.
Full control or delegate?
At first, more full control, because I didn’t know, I was moving blindly, feeling my way in the dark. We grow up with this idea that you need independence at all costs, that you have to understand everything or you’ll get screwed: we come with a lot of red flags, it can clearly be a barrier. Over time, I started delegating, then I understood you still have to keep a certain number of things, because delegating is also delegating your life. No one will work on your project better than you, and that’s normal: anyone else will put in less effort and less attachment than you. The hardest part is knowing who does what, who matters, what it’s worth. That’s the main thing that loses artists at the start, and it’s also the tool of disruptors, I’ll call them that: using this confusion to take advantage of artists, pushing them either toward full control or total letting go.
The living room piano, the jam keytar
Your first keyboard?
An upright piano in Cameroon, which I played all the time. I couldn’t keep it, it stayed there. It was the living room piano, not my father’s studio piano: there was a studio at home, with different instruments, so I got to try other things. But it was the piano that really interested me, it was the simplest for me. A keyboard, you press a key, a sound comes out. A guitar, you have to pluck, strum, hold a position, your fingers hurt. It’s the most intuitive instrument, with a really wide emotional palette.
Do you collect keyboards?
No, but I kept all the ones I’ve had in my life. My favorite for a while was a wireless MIDI keytar. I never managed to find a case, so I put it in a guitar case, it looked ridiculous, but at least it closed. The case eventually tore, obviously, it’s not made for that, and I rode a motorcycle with it, the wind was too strong. I went everywhere to jams in Paris like that, with a small computer running VSTs: I’d arrive, ask where to plug in, pull out a cable and play wirelessly. People said, "What kind of witchcraft is this, the guy plays keyboard wirelessly and there’s no latency." I still have it, I just need to find a battery cover..
If there had to be only one left?
I keep my keytar.
Today, do you compose more acoustic or MIDI?
In my studio, there are always acoustic instruments, because the people around me know how to play, often better than me. We're all producers, so it's not a problem for us to sometimes prefer MIDI, but for me it goes in pairs. A studio without acoustic instruments is not possible, something is missing.
Are you the type to get stuck for two weeks on the sound of a keyboard line?
No, I move on pretty quickly. If it doesn't suit me, there are so many sounds, especially in VST. That's where I find analog interesting: having choice is not always a good thing. It's like plugins. On YouTube, everyone tells you it's the plugin that makes the magic, but in the end, when you want to compress, you have the choice between six compressors, you don't know how to use them all well, it doesn't have much interest. At first I chased the latest stuff, it was hard to get and super expensive. In the end, I removed everything, I almost only use Ableton's tools. The unlimited side, sometimes it's not good for creativity: you spin your wheels on choice and not on moving forward, setting the sound and emotion you wanted to set.
Do you write alone or surrounded?
It's a mix. I'm always with my friends, but I need alone moments to write effectively. That said, it evolves all the time, from one project to another, from one sound to another: sometimes I write more easily when my friends are there, sometimes it's the opposite. I'm very happy about that, because I don't have a method yet, no meta, and I think it's better: I feel like I'm always discovering a little bit.
The Zénith, the father, recognition
The day after the Zénith in Paris, what do you say to yourself?
I was a bit on cloud nine. I kept thinking about what we had just done. What's crazy is that before, we had done lots of shows, sometimes with more people in front, but the Zénith remains special. It's like a step in a career, especially your first Zénith in your city. You don't realize it until the moment the show starts. Then, I felt pressure, I started thinking about my family, everyone who was there, the worst thing, really the second just before going on. Plus, the show starts with my father's voice, and my father was there. I was very moved, I had a hard time starting the show.
Does recognition from the industry and peers matter?
There are several types. There's that from the industry, peers, other artists. And that from family, which is not often talked about. I didn't necessarily have my father's recognition in music at first, even though he's a musician. He wasn't necessarily for it, more out of fear than anything else. In the end, he had to see that it was going well, that I was going to make it. Having his recognition was something.
And from friends?
It's not being, among all the friends you have, the one who fails, the one who can't carry out his project. Among friends, we tell each other about our projects: who does what, where it's going. There were tough moments. I released a clip... it had 500 views, no one had seen it. And you have friends who are natural, who tell you: it's tough, are you sure you want to keep going, because we can do something here. Those recognitions, true friends, are the most striking.
And institutions, the Victoires de la musique?
It's symbolic, but it's always nice to have institutions that recognize the work done, because you don't necessarily have it at the start. It feels like it exploded all at once, but before it exploded, we did everything: all the contests possible in France, all the artist support programs, all the fairs. We signed up. There were many doubts. The industry is very vague. An industry is an industry: there is no love, no favoritism, in reality. It is favorable when it works. After that, it's up to you to understand how it works and not to put hopes that exceed the reality of what an industry is. But it's possible to fit in. Honestly, when I see other industries, in France we're good.
Carte blanche
A four-hand project, with whoever you want, wherever you want in the world.
It would be Cory Henry. Really. He's a monster, I think he's my favorite keyboardist. He played notably with Snarky Puppy, which is one of my favorite bands too. It's incredible. If I could do sixty hands with them, because I don't know how many they are on stage, it would be with great pleasure.
