Bouillabaisse Blues

Photo: Ian Anderson fRoots writer Hélène Rammant with Blu, Tatou and Fred

Tatou (lead singer), Blu (guitarist) and their percussionist have all settled in La Ciotat (‘city’ in Occitan), a 100-year-old industrial port about 20 km from Marseille, now pretty dormant and quite touristy, but 20 years ago a tight-knit sailors’ community that lived off the activities of the port (with the oldest cinema in Europe I was told). “It’s a place with two faces,” says Blu. “A paradisiacal side (beach, sea, freedom etc.) but also an ugly industrial side with factories, cranes, unemployment, drugs… It’s here where things are telescoping, where things are getting mixed up, where they go wrong. That’s logical.”

The tension between the past and the present is something Moussu T e lei Jovents resolve by imaginary detours through Occitan folk and 1930s’ operetta, which they rejuvenate with their very own stories, Tatou through song, Blu with his guitar or banjo. The combination is a nostalgic and salty soundtrack, punctuating their ordinary working day. “Originally the band was created by just the two of us, Blu and myself,” explains Tatou, “so Moussu T e lei Jovents isn’t a collective structure like Massilia Sound System. We try offering a more intimate experience, something to play after a meal, at home with the kids.”

Whereas for most of us Occitania evokes a mysterious, almost imaginary past, for Tatou and other fellow musical activists from the south of France, the Occitan language and culture is as clear as day. Occitan is the language in which their medieval troubadours wrote their love songs and which later became the local dialect of the working classes right up until the middle of the 20th century. It’s a funny sounding language, a bastard cocktail of Italian, French, Portuguese and Latin sounding words, and one of those languages whose survival hangs by a thread. Yet, far from sticking to folk dances and old men’s tales, Occitan musical culture has reinvented itself by integrating new musical components into its core.

This musical renaissance began in the mid-eighties and was mainly founded by reggae fanatics Massilia Sound System, who started off in the streets of Marseille but soon realised they couldn’t sustain a career as toasters and MCs in a country where live musicianship is cherished above all. They quickly evolved into a proper band and ended up creating a truly original sound, a Provençal hybrid of reggae, rub-a-dub and raggamuffin with lyrics in French and Occitan, that was coined ‘trobamuffin’. Their craving for reggae wasn’t unusual, the whole of the south was gripped by it and according to Tatou, this was mainly because musicians in the south didn’t identify with the noble and pure chanson française which was the product of highbrow poets and composers.