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Clotaire
K
article 0064 added 15.03.03 words
Shook-Yaa
"My purpose is not money, I don't care about that. I just want my message to be spread… to be my own CNN." Clotaire K
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The night the rains came I was sat in 93 Feet East with Clotaire K, listening to him articulate with grace the powers of the message in music and knowing your roots in order to create and shape your future. Wonderfully fluent in three different languages - French, Arabic and English - he was able to express to me the importance of the musical textures and cultural idiosyncrasies that drive his music to an ethereal plain of harmonious existence, spanning language continent and consciousness. "Language," he says, smiling "is the first step of music."
Clotaire's debut album "Lebanese" is a hybrid of influences from hiphop to drum and bass to classical Lebanese Oud and Eastern strings that he says sums up best the dual culture he grew up with. He grew up in France as the son of Egyptian and Lebanese descent "Middle-Eastern blood". An easy marriage, he says, that gave him the wealth of having two cultures in one person, comparing his life to those of British Afro-Caribbean's and British Asians. It gave him what he calls "a global stereo vision" that allows him to see the world from a wide perspective with the knowledge of a rich history of two different cultures. After spending time in LA and Harlem at the age of 17, he started listening to the hiphop his American friends were listening to. The first albums to really affect him were NWA's "Efil4zaggin" and Public Enemy's "Apocalypse 91… The Enemy Strikes Black." Listening to his friends spit around him, Clotaire opened his mouth and out flowed rhymes and rhythms. This discovery of a new love and also the traditional sounds of playing his Oud, an stringed Arabic ancestor of the Spanish guitar , pushed him towards actually making music.
"It is not difficult to marry hiphop and Lebanese influences. Inside me, it's already sounding like that." Clotaire stresses that he didn't create this sound to be exotic or to be fashionably Asian sounding. He did it because in his head, pooling together all his influences and playing them out, the dual culture had created its own soundtrack. The finished album sounds like a Diaspora of great scope, spanning different continents. One moment Clotaire places you in the deserts of the Middle East, the next you're escaping violence in Beirut before walking through France's HLMs and Britain's streets with your headphones on. The mood on the album is that of an uprising, one man standing up for his people. Clotaire calls it "a testimony to the Lebanese youth all over the world. There are 3 million of them in Lebanon itself and 10 million worldwide. This is my way of letting them know I am here for them and I'm saying things loudly in which we recognise ourselves, know what they go through there and to tell them let's unite and reclaim our homeland, Lebanon, for ourselves." Producing the album, he also said that it was important to him that he find a chemistry for an album that is exactly what he would want to listen to if he went searching for it in a record shop. And he is happy with the finished product, it is the album he would want to hear. "As its first customer, I like it. Each second passing, I love." An inspiring assurance of an artists happy with their work, happy that it remained uncompromised throughout the creative process and emerged sounding just as he intended.
Subject matters on the album talk about unity and about the struggle of those living with dual cultures to claim acceptance from their peers as well as "Le Criminel" which is a grimy hiphop-driven song speaking out about the leverage of technologies on our daily life which enslave us. "Lubnan" is a cry to the world to 'not put your hands on our children." The message is clear, exemplified by a vocal sample on one of the songs. "Peace is the only avenue, which is compatible with our culture."
When listened to as a whole, "Lebanese" is an expansive project, taking in many collaborations with LNB (live co-vocalist), Deeder Zaman, Natasha Atlas as well as other gorgeous traditional vocal Arabic chanting and singing. The styles on the album are always changing and always moving. This makes it very difficult to classify Clotaire K or even to assign him a genre. I ask if this is a problem, if he finds his music more than just hiphop? "Yeah, they don't know which shelf to put me on. in France, I'm under French Variety in some shops. But it's not my problem, it's a record sellers' problem." We discuss how his music has various layers and textures that take it beyond any simple definition of what it is. "Words are there to put fences on reality. Music is like perfume. You can't classify perfume, it's indescribable. Either perfumes smell good or bad, it's the same for music, whichever extracts have been used to make it."
One of the many layers and textures to Clotaire's music is the live aspect, which he stresses is very important. Instead of the tired formula of two turntables and a microphone, he strives to bring something new to the arena. He plays with a full band, including a co-vocalist (LNB, featured on album highlight "Laisse-Les"), a drummer, a bassist, a turntablist and himself swapping frequently between microphone and his Oud. "I've had a live set-up for seven years since we started touring because that's how I heard it in my head." This makes the music more pumping, more live and his shows are legendary places to be, resulting in touring with Asian Dub Foundation and an appearance at last year's Womad festival.
Clotaire's message to music purists is to just have an open mind and embrace the unique sounds and frequencies he fills. "Music is just sound and it's like, if someone DJ's with CDs, it's what comes into your ears not how he handles his fingers. It's good to see good DJs scratching but if someone does something just as atmospheric with just CDs, fine. In Lebanon, no one DJs with vinyl. They do it with CDs cos its more handy. This is our culture. The Bronx started with turntables and a microphone, which is respectable, which is great folklore. Cos they couldn't afford the instruments. Its great. But you want to move on and move forward, this is always good."
And then the torrential rains come, and as Clotaire and I scramble back towards Liverpool Street station to go home, I'm left with a sense of companionship, knowing that in other countries, other conscious artists strive to push forward the same messages and the same boundaries. Other cultures mirror our own and other musicians "care about their people starving." They want to let them know they're there for them.
"Lebanese" is a conscious album and a rootsy one. The beats are backed up with fiery percussion and the Oud rhythms cut through the entire album. Eloquence and passion are gifts bestowed on all of us. Clotaire K is one of few artists around willing to harness its potential and embrace it in his music.
"Lebanese" is out now on Sub Culture (only) records and distributed through Sterns in the UK.
Clotaire can be found on the web at
www.clotairek.com.
Love and respect Shook-Yaa
 
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