Detroit is a soulful and R’n’B city, home to Motown, a marvelous label founded in 1959 by Berry Gordy. Detroit is also a rock city, the cradle of American punk in the early 1970s with the first explosions of the Stooges and MC5. Detoit, on the other hand, is less known as a rap city, even if its most illustrious representative is called Enimen, born in Missouri before his mother carried him from one city to another to finally land in Michigan. But the man we consider to be one of the pioneers of the Detroit hip-hop scene is called James Dewitt Yancey, alias J Dilla.
In the early 1990s, the deejay founded Slum Village with rappers T3 and Baatin. Holding a melodic rap, close to a formation like A Tribe Called Quest, the group has over time become cult. Friday evening, to inaugurate the Next Step stage at 40e Cully Jazz Festival, he stopped on the shores of Lake Geneva on the occasion of a mini-European tour.
Seven great musicians on stage
It was first DJ Real who, installed behind his turntables on the left of the stage, warmed up the audience by immersing them in the sounds of the late 1990s, paying tribute in particular to his predecessor J Dilla, who died of illness in 2006. , at only 32 years old. After about twenty minutes, here are T3 and Young RJ, the first being the last survivor of the original formation since the disappearance of Baatin, who also died of an illness, in 2009 at the age of 35. Behind them, the Fantastic Orchestra (named after Slum Village’s debut album, Fantastic (Vol. 1)recorded in 1996-1997 but officially released in 2006), namely seven formidable young musicians – guitar, bass, drums, keyboards and three brass who send heavy, it is besides the saxophonist who leads the whole.
To launch its 40 with dignitye anniversary, the Cully Jazz had this slightly crazy idea: to offer Slum Village a unique concert in the company of a live band specially assembled for the occasion. The musicians met for the first time the day before the concert, and had only a few hours to rehearse with T3, Young RJ and DJ Real, who were performing in Budapest on Thursday evening. From this unprecedented meeting, which in spirit recalls the live music of a group like The Roots, came the strength of a “cool” concert during which Slum Village left a lot of space to the Fantastic Orchestra, leaving sometimes the scene to leave him alone in charge.
Music without borders
Red bob, sunglasses and multicolored hoodie, T3 has a stentorian flow. Also dark glasses and sports tracksuit for Young RJ, whose voice with softer tones brings beautiful contrasts. And behind, therefore, these seven musicians happy to enter the history of Cully Jazz with such a project, for a concert also broadcast live on Couleur3.
We recognize titles like Fall in Love et Raise It Upbut also a brief nod to the Rapper’s Delight by Sugarhill Gang, considered the first rap song in history. In an hour and a half together, T3 and Young RJ will only have occupied the stage half the time. But no matter: the alchemy between rappers from Detroit and musicians mostly from the region was something joyful, as proof that music has no geographical or cultural borders, that it is made for circulate and be shared, that reappropriation is its driving force.
40e Cully Jazz Festivaluntil April 22.
find our articles dedicated to the festival.