Bouillabaisse Blues

Whereas Massilia Sound System, or son système as I am told to pronounce it, relies heavily on raggamuffin rhythms and dancehall beats to create its sound and the music is in essence a Mediterranean take on reggae culture, Moussu T e lei Jovents have focused more on the singer-songwriter aspects of music-making. “In Massilia the form is reggae and the sound system. But Moussu T e lei Jovents wanted to dig into the musical environment of the ‘Operetta Marseillaise’ from the 1930s, which I want to bring back to life. It’s a spice I added to Massilia Sound System but with Moussu T e lei Jovents we have made it the main course.”

Tatou’s decision to set up his own band was in part prompted by a chance encounter with a book. Written by Jamaican writer and activist Claude McKay in 1940, Banjo tells the story of a Jamaican musician of the same name who fled white racism in the US to make a fresh start in Marseille. In the belly of the black market, Banjo befriends a host of fellow buskers from all over the globe who have settled in the port and share the same aspirations: to make a buck and avoid being deported.

The story takes places in the quartier La Fosse, one of the oldest and most infamous quarters of the city, and the very same neighbourhood where Massilia Sound System was born. McKay wrote his book when the age of the “new Negro” – who for the first time in history had come forth having escaped the tyranny of social intimidation and implied inferiority – was at its peak. He defends an image of Marseille that is cosmopolitan and multicultural – music to the ears of modern day Banjos like Tatou, who is fiercely territorial and vehemently opposed to any attempts at sanitisation or regeneration by the French authorities. For Tatou, Banjo is a political sword in his fight to overthrow the cultural monopoly of Paris: “This book allows us to show people that this desire for cosmopolitanism was already there in Marseille in the 1920s… For people like us, who have always accepted this mix, this book is incredibly emblematic.”

Blu reiterates: “The problem is that people in Paris have always said that nothing happens around here. And then we discovered this Jamaican writer with an international dimension, somebody really important in the black movement of those days, the renaissance of the Harlem movement, and this guy chose to write about Marseille of all places! And we, who since the start had been told how insignificant Marseille was, we could finally prove that this is bollocks!” Tatou: “You know Banjo and his companions… it’s almost as if it’s us back in the 1920s. To go and dig into history is not to glorify the past but to go and get tools and try understanding difficult situations or predicaments such as ours.”