Clotaire K

Clotaire K is a man who's found himself. Born and raised in France to Lebanese parents, his Middle Eastern heritage and his love of hip-hop have combined for his debut, one of the best albums of 2003, Lebanese. He's embraced his people fully, showing himself not only to have great flow and strong beats, but also to be an excellent oud player. But you have to wonder just what Lebanese means to someone like him, who didn't grow up in the country.

"Lebanese means a lotta things to me," he answered. "First it's the name of my album and it encircles a lot of things as it's an adjective. Good and bad ones, Lebanese food, Lebanese cedars, Lebanese red, Lebanese music, Lebanese mountains, Lebanese hospitality, Lebanese war...But it's also to remind the numerous people like me throughout the world who got some Lebanese blood in their veins that even if they're American, Australian, French, Canadian, Swedish, Brazilian, Senegalese or whatever... they're also Lebanese on top of that, and there's a part of them somewhere in Lebanon that belongs to them. After that, it's their choice to decide to forget this part of them or not. I mean you know there are lots of people like me, Khalil Gibran was one of us, Salma Hayek, or Shakira are of lebanese origins; same for Armand Van Helden. Concerning myself, I've grown up without even thinking about all this, and my parents didn't let me go to Lebanon when I was a kid during the hard years of the war. But when I went back there, I noticed something obvious that I wasn't believing in before: we're not only what we've built since we're born, there's also a part of us inherited from our elders. I all of a sudden landed on a ground that's mine and where all the people look like me and behave like me in general.

"Hip hop is the way to describe reality and state the truth without especially trying to ornament it with melodies."

"It's good to know that there's a beautiful country on earth where you can feel at home for real, even if you haven't grown up there. It then took me a couple of days to start to talk again the language fluently !!! My aunts were amazed cuz they had no clue of how I could have remembered this language from my childhood. And now I'm like a fish in its aquarium when I hang out in Beirut or Lebanon. Concerning the culture, it's very rich. Beirut has always been a magnificent city at the crossroads of civilizations, between Asia, Africa, Europe and the Mediterranean sea. The city's built on six layers of different cultures (Romans, Greeks, Mameluks, Ottomans, Byzantines, Phoenicians..). And even if that sounds like history, it does make a difference already in the minds of kids. Four year-old kids who speak Lebanese, French and English for the majority of them, plus they speak literary Arabic, which is as difficult to handle as Latin. There's also a very strong hospitality in Lebanon, which explains why it is a traditionally tolerant country where you can find 19 different religions living together. There's been a lot of fake images carried by the media about Lebanon, but it is paradise on earth, and if you don't believe me, just go there and watch with your own eyes, you'll be surprised."

Clotaire's first musical infatuation was hip-hop. It was so strong that he spent a year in the U.S., on both East and West coasts, absorbing the flavas, and making it fully a part of himself. The love of hip-hop came naturally, he said, since "apart from the beat which is the best one for my body to move, the thing that first interested me in hip hop is the way to describe reality and state the truth without especially trying to ornament it with melodies. All respect is due to the US hip-hop, as it's a US culture and tradition. I think there are still lots of good things in the current US hip hop, but it's a fact that this music has grown so big now to the point that it's an industry (which no one could foresee it would at the beginning) and this industry, as it's laid down on money, is very careful about what it's written in the lyrics so that if nowadays you're a Public Enemy or NWA, I think it'll be very difficult for you to reach the top. America doesn't seem to allow any more counter-power and that is always bad news for democracy."

But hip-hop is a global language these days, made in every country in the world - and Arabic hip-hop has been very much on the rise.

"Concerning this Arab hip-hop rising, I think it's always good that people can feel the emotion running through our scales, voices and instruments. Not only Arabs but also Indians. But again, there are two sides of the thing, some people sample with consciousness these kinds of sounds, and some others use it as just a way of adding an exotic flavor to their beats. This music, the traditional Middle Eastern music is very old and wealthy, it deserves in my opinion as much respect as classical music, maybe more. And I think that whatever's good to give it back its nobility is good to take. I've been dealing with such sounds for seven years now and even if I know that it's not pure at all to mix it with rough beats. If it can create some jealousy in the East to get people to look back to themselves and notice that they're not giving its chances anymore to this great traditional music to renew itself. If my little un-pure contribution could open again the studios to these great artists who now been forgotten and hushed, for me that'll be one victory."

Curiously, although Clotaire has been performing live for six years with his band, they weren't a part of his album - only two of them appear. It wasn't that he made a conscious choice to have it like that, he admitted, but "from the beginning of this adventure, there was me in front of my sampler, and a group in order to share my music with friends and audience. These have always been two separate things. I just invited on this record my DJ and my homeboy also rapping and human beatboxing. The other part of my live group consists in a bass player and a drummer. Because I need this on stage, never mind if it's not, or wasn't very classical in hip-hop habits. I need to have a live section cuz it pushes us towards the audience on stage. But in studio, I prefer to mostly use my programming cuz that's how the tracks should sound like and it allows me to have different beats and bass colors on each track (which is harder with acoustic drums and bass). Plus I wanted to have a high quality sound on my album, even though we've recorded in a basement with very few efficient devices. And to get a good sound, especially out of drums' recordings, it requires some very good equipment and even room that we didn't have."

"Hip-hop is a global language these days, made in every country in the world."

In many ways it's a parallel with his reasons for becoming an oudist after playing guitar. It was the natural way for him. He "didn't switch from guitar to oud. I have experienced many sides of the guitar styles, but after a while it started boring me and I was more into my sampler, so I just stopped playing without even paying attention. The oud came to me a couple of years later I guess, as my cousin who's a music teacher offered me one, so I took it, and started practicing to see how it's like; and I loved it right away. It's very different from a guitar, it's just like the oriental music, it's another spirit. No harmonies, just one note at the time. That may seem limiting, but it's the contrary."

Apparent on the record is his love of the female voice, particularly female Arabic singers - quite different from the male-dominated field of hip-hop. What was it that attracted him to the female voice?

"Sensuality?" he wondered. "Well, the greatest voices carrying this oriental music I'm referring to in my beats are mostly female ones…Fairuz, Um Kulthum, Warda, Sabbah, Asmahan, Nagat.....But I also like male voices like Farid El Atrash, Wadi Al Safi, Abdel Halim Hafez. These are all great artists, huge ones. But if something could reply to your question, it's certainly the first verse of my track called "Maqam" (even if translating Arabic into English always makes it lose the poetry):

Eza fi benné adam maoujoud bi hal dachné aatmet el sama
If there's a human being here in this smoke darkening the sky
Khalli yoqta maé, saub el jabbal
Let him cross with me towards the mountains
Mnet tallaa aal bahar, aal bekaa
We would watch upon the sea and look at the Bekaa (big plain of East Lebanon)
Hatta mnett zakkar ennou khelqenné hown l'hekmat To remember that it's born here: Wisdom
Taht ahla sajjar,
Under the most beautiful tree
Ou n'addé waqtna, n'fakker aa heïala
And we'd spend our time thinking about whatever. Add ma mendall taht ahla sama
As long as we'd stay under the most beautiful heaven Min Iskanderia la Beyrouth l'aatiqa
From Alexandria to the old Beirut
La Beyrouth l'barriqa
The sincere Beirut
Aala l'mutawasset ma fi gheïr leugha oihida
In the Mediterranean sea there's just ONE language Saut el phanana charkia,
The voice of the Eastern female artist,
Ahla ghenoa,
The most beautiful songs (it's a term used in a famous Um Kulthum song)

In these politically charged times, being Arabic can make one stand out in the Western world. But Arabic and political, as Clotaire can be almost seems a necessity (and he has help from like-minded spirits, like members of Asian Dub Foundation.

"It's obvious that I could write a book about what I feel concerning what's going on," he said. "I think that history repeats itself, but what's new now is that hypocrisy has become so hard to hide that most of the people living on this planet now see the lies; which is something new. I feel that the behavior of the US government is unfair and selfish, but Bush has opened a Pandora's box by attacking Iraq and such an unthinking deed will unfortunately but certainly lead to unexpected chain reactions in the future."

His own future, however, is far more certain.

"Well we're on tour again with my group in Europe and Australia. I got a lot of collaborations that I want to take care of with mainly British artists of Indian or Arabic origins. I'm gonna personally take care of releasing my album in Lebanon, as it's the accomplishment of one thing to me. I'm also getting into the process of a second album."

Clotaire K

"Hip hop is the way to describe reality and state the truth without especially trying to ornament it with melodies."

"Hip-hop is a global language these days, made in every country in the world."

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