C'est un peu comme prendre un film à
mi-parcours. Hello Nasty sort en 1998. La tête bouge, les tympans
frétillent, le cerveau bouillonne. Rythmiques qui changent en plein milieu d'un
morceau. Électro-rap psychédélique qui percute de la bossa-nova et du jazz. Une
boule d'énergie indescriptible mais aussi mélancolique. Il y a les voix
criardes de AdRock (Adam Horovitz) et Mike D (Michael Diamond), et enfin le
timbre cassé de MCA alias Adam Yauch. Putain, mais c'est qui ces Beastie Boys
!? Des blancs, juifs, militants de la cause tibétaine, briseurs de frontières
musicales dans le monde sclérosé du hip-hop américain. Plus tard on découvre,
ébahit, une œuvre musicale complexe s'étalant sur plus de trois décennies : de
l'EP Polly Wog Stew à l'album Hot Sauce Committee Part Two.
Tous les trois/quatre ans le trio casse les codes pour remettre les pendules à
l'heure. Celle d'Adam Yauch - et surement des Beastie - s'est arrêtée le 4 mai
2012, nous laissant orphelins.
The Nantais Jean-Félix Fayolle, age
28, left his International Trade books for a camera. Open minded, curious and
always on the move, this young photographer travels through Latin America to
take pictures of ghetto gangs. A risky life that nurtures his projects: an 8
year old association (Koikilariv' - literally “What ever happens”) and
a original photo workshop involving youngsters from a countryside village as
well as a popular distric in the Nantes area (Couffkoff).
Record shop owners - soon to be an
endangered species? According to the Syndicat français de l'édition
phonographique (SNEP) music industry sales in France dropped 5% in 2011.
Meanwhile downloads are quickly increasing up 15% - much like the revenues
linked to streaming up 45%. Vinyls and CDs are an obvious victim of this
world-wide digital shift but independent record shops are choosing to fight for
a certain musical ideal. Record Store Day took place on the 21th of
April this year.
Created in Chicago in 1984,
since the early 2000s, poetry slams have entered a new era in France.
Especially in Nantes, a city which boasts a team victory at the Grand Slam
National 2011, at least 30 recognised talents and several dedicated places
(the L'Art scène, the Live bar, the Violon dingue
cafés, the TNT theatre). A bubbling nantaise scene with its own up-and-coming
young artist: Alice Ligier. For her, writing, speaking and creative encounters
are the three pillars of this sensitive and progressive art.
Three weeks and 50 events centred around
hip-hop in Nantes - from rap concerts to graffiti classes, debates to
break-dance battles. Like every February the city buzzes 'peace, unity, love
and having fun'. This year 20 000 hip-hop lovers flocked to Loire Atlantique
between the 9th and the 25th of the month for the 2012 edition of Hip
Opsession. Clement Lessort, Head of PR and partnerships at Pick Up
Production, organizer of the festival, looks back over this year’s
event.
A gloomy porch, leading to an old, paved
backyard. The uninspiring entrance of the Pol'N artistic workshop
stands here, in the heart of Nantes and a stone's throw away from local
teaching hospital Hôtel Dieu. A large crowd is gathered inside this unlikely
building for Hip Opsessions' opening night. Pick Up Productions, the festival
organizer, is based here. But as this year’s three-week long festival kicks
off, doubts remain -the four decade-old hip-hop movement, is it dead?
The Folle journée of Nantes
is an artistic adventure that has become one of the most popular classical
music festivals worldwide. In 2012, between 1st and 5th of February, a
152.000-strong crowd gathered in the Cité des congrès and the Lieu
unique. But is it losing touch with its original values? Interview with
Michèle Guillossou, Director of La Folle journée on the spirit, the
economic model and the future of this well-established event.
The Breton Caryl Férey is somewhere between
a traveller, a writer and a journalist. The genre of his work is largely
thriller [‘polar’ in French], and he frequently depicts remote tribes who come
face to face with the modern political and economic world. His latest book
“Zulu” is set in South Africa, and has already been awarded eight prizes
(including ‘Le Grand Prix de Littérature Policiere’) Rendez-vous in
Nantes with a writer on a perpetual search for humanity.
and One Dj