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Alpha BLONDY - Interview - Saturday 25th August 2012
Lyon

Alpha Blondy on

1. Good afternoon Alpha. We are happy to welcome you on our website rock-interviews.com. Where does your stage name Alpha Blondy come from?





Alpha is biblical, I am alpha and omega. I wanted to put my career under the sign of spiritual, divine protection, therefore I chose Alpha, for the beginning and Blondy is the name my grandmother had given me, for the tender ones!




2. Why did you choose to be a Reggae singer?



Because Reggae is part of my African culture, Jamaïcains are themselves African before being jamaïcains. At school, college and high school, I was in a rock'n'roll band. I discovered Reggae when I was in the United States and I wanted to stick to a music that defended Africa, which gratified the African man. My ego perked up when I listened to this music which did not lower the esteem of Africa and the Africans. I also like the socio-spiritual-policy dimension of this music.

AM : Nobody does Reggae music by chance.

I do not believe in chance. I believe that there is an energy that guides our steps, and sometimes we believe that it's our choice, but the truth is that I could not have followed this way. For me Reggae is as if I had always wanted to create this music. It's part of my state of mind, my character. If it was to make music as a child of the ghetto to whimper all the time, it did not interest me, I needed something that gives self-confidence and which can also make people dream, give them hope, it is what allured me in this approach.



3. Who were your musical influences?



There were many! Starting with the big brother Johnny Hallyday, Claude François, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Etta James, Aretha Franklin. I was lucky to be musically born of a kind of musical and cultural rainbow, my African, French-speaking and Anglo-Saxon culture, all these influences were in me and you can hear and feel it in my work and in my music.

AM : And the Blues which is also the roots.

Yes. I am a child born of all this cultural mixture, I am a cultural mosaic and I assume my cultural diversity.




4. You sing in French, English and also in Dioula.



Yes.

AM : Isn't it Senoufo or Bété?

Not, it is Dioula, Dioula is Bambara. Bambara is spoken in Guadeloupe, it is like English spoken in England and English spoken in the United States. Bambara is spoken in Mali and Dioula in Ivory Coast.

AM : Do you have a preference for the language in which you sing?

It depends upon which language inspires me. There are songs which come in English and there is nothing to do, I cannot change them into French, even if I wanted to, I cannot. Other songs come in French and sometimes people tell me to try to make the English version, but I cannot, because God sent this French inspiration to me and it will be sung in French with my French-speaking sensitivity.



5. You have released 18 albums since 1982.



Yes.

AM : During those 30 years, did you do all you wanted to do musically speaking?

Yes and I guess that I haven't finished doing what I want to do, because the range of possibilities is so wide. I discover all the instruments I like to hear, I have more of them to put into my Reggae. Reggae was very tribal at the beginning, very ethnic. I brought into the Reggae the violin, the bagpipe, the accordion, the kora, the darbuka, the flute and the flute of Fouta Djallon, and the more I move forwards the more I like to innovate. My next album, God willing, will be a new Reggae, because I don't want my Reggae to remain stagnant on the musical level, Reggae is meant to keep developing, to touch the public who come to our concerts. I will not reveal the secrecy of the next album but it is called Mystic Power and it has what I would like to bring as an African, a Reggae African, to bring something more to Reggae all over the world.



6. You have released two albums lately. An album called Vision with 13 songs. We are going to speak about the topics developed in this CD.



Indeed. Vision is for me a musical therapy. Alpha Blondy looks after himself, confides himself. All the psychiatrists and the psychologists will tell you, do not keep things for yourself, speak about them, and that's what the album is about! Alpha Blondy says things and at the same time he wants to say to the politicians that they have forgotten the most important thing, the human being! I have sometimes the feeling that they put the money before the human being.

AM : And the power.

Exactly. They have to revise their policy. Men must regain their place. Men are to be at the center of all policies. If they want to avoid the revolution as in the Arab countries, it may happen also in black Africa, in Europe, because the policians have omitted to situate the human being in the center of the policy. They must stop complaining and saying we can't do this because there is no money. On the other hand, they can make a war.

Apha & AM : Yes, there is money to go to war!

I think it is necessary that they reconsider the human being and put the human being back to the center of the concern.

AM : And also stop everything that is rotten.

To stop everything that is rotten, I'm not sure about this, because to do politics is managing the rot, but then they also generate a good package of rotten things...But their mission is to manage the rot of the world. If the human beings who have assumed to cause all the rot are not at ease, the production of rot will be reduced. The more people will feel insecure, if politicians ruin people's lives, people will ruin their lives too.

AM : People will rebel.

Exactly, it is true. Human being, this divine, must regain its place.



7. There is a song in this album, on a topic which is nevertheless very serious, the AIDS, a disease which can affect everyone, but you wrote it in such a way that it is funny!



It is rather dramatic, so there is not much need to add something else (laughing). Sometimes people have said to me that I address serious and heavy topics, so I thought : "I am going to say something very serious but in a light way". To make love they have to protect themselves from this disease, AIDS. If the waka-waka is secured the vuvuzela can sound. It was my way of saying to the young people, making love is great but sometimes it is necessary to be protected.



8. The song number 4, Pinto.



This is my friend.

AM : Yes.

I grew up with Pinto and he passed away. So I dedicated this song to him in which I say each one has his day. The day you are born and the day when you die. The days you laugh and the days you cry. Men wish for longevity, health and happiness. We all desperately yearn for that. The future is tomorrow, it is the minute to come, the month to come or the year to come, or the century to come. How do you manage it?



9. You have released another album called Alpha Blondy Live 1992 and 2000.



Yes we have made a compilation of live music made by Alpha Blondy. The first one (showing the CD) was live at the Zenith, it is scorching! It's worth a listen. The second one was live at Bercy, the colours of the Ivorian crisis, because it was at the time the Ivory Coast was in the middle of a crisis, and since we do not stop to fall...I hope it will stop one day. This album is not to be missed!

AM : 3 CD

Yes, you purchase one album, you have 3 CD, Do you realize? And the album Vision is worthwhile. It is good to the ears, and I was saying to someone that this album is so great that it should be sold in the pharmacy!

AM : There is also a video as a bonus.



10. Which is your best memory as a musician?



All the shows are the best memory. To give pleasure to people has no price. When you see that people, despite the crisis in the world, come to see you and that they forget all their worries and dance, sometimes after the show, when I am in my dressing room, I cry for all this happiness, all these young people, and not so young moving to the rhythms of the music, it's very simple, it does not take much to make people happy. For me it's always about being on stage for the first time, I always think here is the audience, the people who make you, with their love. Therefore it is as if each time I had to prove them that they are not wrong to grant me their love, that they are not wrong to respect my work, so I am all the time on stage to prove they are right to be there, so I give them the best.

AM : All united for the music, because music is universal.

Exactly and when you have the chance to travel all over the world, to play for different audiences, the facts remain the same, the world circles around love, love they give to us and love we are giving back to them...

AM : It is priceless.

Yes it is!



11. Do you have a message for your fans?



Please come and let's have fun together. We are going to spend this time that God grants us together in joy, happiness and love. It is heaven on earth. I would like to tell them that I love them very much. Thank you for their love, thank you for their respect and may God returns it all to them a hundredfold. I send them all my love.






12. If you had three wishes for the future, what would they be?



End of war on Earth, first wish. Second wish, end of war on Earth, and the third one, end of war on Earth.

AM : Thank you very much Alpha. We wish you a very good concert for tonight and that your songs keep going all over the world and thank you for your fight as an artist for peace.

Thank you to you.

Alpha Blondy on