In this year 2023, the Franco-Congolese rapper Passi celebrates, with Afro, his 30-year career. At 51, he is also preparing to realize his dream: to achieve his 1is feature film, a comedy about undermining, between France and the Congo.
For PAM, the co-founder of the AMER Ministry and the Sector A label, talks about the creation, in 1997, of the Bisso Na Bisso combo. Its eight members, all Congolese and all headliners of the French hip-hop movement, delivered the album in 1998 Roots : the first long format to celebrate the marriage of French rap and Afro music (rumba, soukous, zouk or salsa). Peacemaker on “L’Union” and “Apres la guerre”, full of humor and self-mockery on “Bisso Na Bisso”, wielding caricature to evoke corruption on “Dans la peau d’un chef”, the group celebrates the Congo and Africa there (“Africa by night”, “Liberté”) with a dream cast: Guadeloupeans Tanya St Val and Jacob Desvarieux, to the Ivorian Monique Seka, via the Congolese Koffi Olomide or Senegalese Ismael Lo.
A look back at a classic of French rap, a precursor disc that will allow Mokobé to deliver a few years later My Africa (2007), then to MHD to proudly wear his afrotrap.
Back in 97, the year you founded Bisso Na Bisso. You are 25 years old, you have already released two albums with the AMER Ministry, set up the Sector A label and you have just released your 1is solo albums, The Temptations. An opus, partly produced by Akhenaton who, for the first time in French rap, went gold in three weeks. What state of mind were you in? You felt like the king of the world, didn’t you?
Passi: I’m lucky that it didn’t happen all of a sudden! I started rapping in 85-87 when we set up the AMER association (Action Musique Rap) with Stomy Bugsy, we were 15 years old. In addition to the two albums with the AMER Ministry, released respectively in 92 and 94, we worked behind Doc Gynéco which is also a hit, Stomy Bugsy which is rising, we participated in the soundtrack of the film Hatredto the one of Ma 6-T va crack-er. In 97, I have ten years of work, I am ready.
And then, we are really in a process of construction. We look at what is happening in the United States, the labels that are being set up, the artists that are self-producing. With Ministère AMER, we know that no one is going to open doors for us: the record companies are afraid of us, the people of Sarcelles have quite harsh reputations. So we get organized. Sector A is a publishing company that we are creating. We also had a producer at the time, Mariano Beuve, who had equipment and a studio and who helped us move forward. And then we have composers. Back then, it wasn’t as easy as it is now to find a songwriter who rapped. That’s why I worked with Akhenaton: he had as many, if not more, years of rap behind him than me. With IAM, they had recorded their 1st mixtape, Concept, in 89 and then they went to the States. At that time, French artists who had as much experience as us in hip hop, there were not many! (Laughs). With Akhenaton, we also talked a lot about this necessary return to the culture of our parents. He was the first to do so in his solo album, meteco and mate (1995).
Rather than riding the huge success of your 1is solo album, you decide to form a group, Bisso Na Bisso, and thus to organize a large family reunion to celebrate the nuptials of popular African music and French rap. You didn’t think of playing it solo at the time?
With my friends, we wanted to create a French rap that is more like us. A rap that tells our French stories but is also tinged with our Congolese or African origins. For the 2th album of the Ministry of AMER, 95200I did a cover of the title Mario of Franco but the rights holders did not give me the authorizations. The beginnings of the Bisso were therefore already there. The success of my 1is album opens a lot of doors for me, I do concerts all over France, I play on many radios, so I arrive stronger to impose a new color and a new style.
In 1997, Congo Brazza experienced both ethnic and political conflict (which pitted President Pascal Lissouba and his militia, the Zulus, against Denis Sassou Nguesso and his militia, the Cobras NDRL). I created the group to send a message to Congo and Africa in general. A message of unity. “Bisso Na Bisso” means “all together” (literally, “between us” and by extension “all together”, Editor’s note). Doing it solo would have made no sense.
So I call other rappers from different corners of the Congo, whose style and level I like: Ben-J from the Neg’Marrons, Lino and Calbo from Arsenik (all three of whom are part of my Sector A family), the singer and rapper Mpassi, member of the group MelGroove, who is my cousin and then the 2 Bal and Mystic that I met on Ma 6-T va crack-er. They are from 77 (Seine et Marne) and not from 95 (Val d’Oise) like my clan, so I tell myself that they will bring another touch. And then I had already heard them have some Congolese references in their rap.
Was your ambition at that time also to shake up the French rap scene?
PASSI: I would say world rap! Because I knew that the only way to “hit” Americans was not to copy them using the same samples of old soul titles, but to tap into our Afro culture, our heritage. I was born in Congo, my roots are there even if I live in France. They, in the United States, are far from Africa, they are looking for themselves, they are looking for their Negritude. As Blacks from France we had this advantage over them, we knew where we came from and we were close to our roots.
You were born in Brazzaville and you arrived in France with your family at the age of 7. What link did you maintain with your country and with the continent in general?
I am the 6th from a family of 7 children, so we couldn’t return home every year, rather every three or four years. Every summer, two or three children left and it turned. And conversely, cousins, aunts, uncles came to us, in Sarcelles. There was no break, we were connected with the country. Especially since I have always spoken my mother tongue, Kitouba.
And then, if my parents listened to French song and variety (Brassens, Brel Piaf, Claude François) and my older sisters of African-American artists (En Vogue or Whitney Winston), they all also listened to African classics like Myriam Makeba or what was a hit at the time, like the Congolese Mbilia Bel.
Rootsthe 1is disc of Bisso na Bisso, released in 1998 on the label that you have just created Issap productions. It opens with an excerpt from « Even If You Are » (1970). A song written by Henri Lopes for Franklin Boukaka, militant singer and critic of the authorities who was assassinated in Brazzaville in 1972. Was it at home that you were passed on this piece of Congolese history?
No, it dates from AMER We were very militant when we set up the association. You know, when you’re 14/15 years old, when you look at the jerk hanging on the tree or you don’t see a jerk on TV, you say to yourself: “but what will become of me? And then: “I’m not dumber than the others.” This Fanon formula, “knowledge is a weapon”, which has been widely used in French rap since, it was our logo. We organized meetings with other associations to help immigrant families learn to read or to discuss certain moments in our history. We documented a lot. On Martin Luther King, Marcus Garvey, Steve Biko, Amilcar Cabral. We read Franz Fanon, we sampled Manu Dibango. We had to look for models because we couldn’t find them in history books.
Amer Ministry – Knowledge
With Kassav, Jacob Desvarieux had already created a bridge between Africa and the West Indies. Were you aware of the symbolic power of your gesture? That of creating a bridge between France and the Afro worlds, by inviting it on the album in the same way as a glorious Pan-African delegation?
We realized this after the first two titles, “L’Union” and “Bisso Na Bisso”. From the strictly Congolese message of unity, the album moved to a pan-African message. Because our Cameroonian, Senegalese or Ivorian friends were experiencing the same thing in their country. The idea was to reach all Africas and it was therefore very important to have with us all these artists who made us dance (and I am also thinking of Jocelyne Labylle, Manu Dibango, Papa Wemba or even Khaled who are on the 2th album du Bisso, Africa, released 10 years later). They immediately understood our approach and allowed us to carry the message further and to different generations.
The only thing missing from the Bisso table is English-speaking Africa, with which you are forging links today on the EP Afro through collaborations with the Ghanaians Sarkodie and Akwaboah, or the Nigerian Praiz Multi.
With the Bisso, we were already eyeing that side. We wanted to work with the Naija (2Face, P-Square) but we didn’t succeed. So, yes, today, I continue to expand my universe and make the link between France, French-speaking Africa and English-speaking Africa. I started with Ghana and Nigeria and hope to continue with South Africa.
In South Africa precisely, in September 1999, during the African Kora Music Awards, sponsored by Nelson Mandela and Michael Jackson, Bisso Na Bisso was awarded the prize for “Best African Group” and “Best Clip” for the eponymous single. How does it feel to meet and be recognized by these idols?
It’s one of the best times of my life! Michael Jackson was our first idol at all, his worldwide success uninhibited us. Before changing skin color, he was the symbol of black pride. I don’t have the photo with Mickael, unlike other members of the group, but I have the photo with Nelson Mandela! What pride! A consecration which is all the more pleasing, as at the beginning, nobody believed in this story of putting rap on African music. And in fact we have everything “ni…. ! (laughs)
In the track “Bisso Na Bisso”, you project yourself into a future where the Bisso has become a legendary group. And to perpetuate the legend, everyone recounts their memories and talks about the other members of the group, sometimes by chambering them a little and adding to their little quirks. But what everyone has in common is the culture of the country, hence the mentions of “okra” or “ndombolo”. What is the story of the clip?
We shot the clip in Ivory Coast. We went to see the old people in the village, we made them feel good. And because I didn’t want this yellow image, specific to the clip made on the continent at the time, we brought in an American director, Marcus Turner, a three-meter-tall black guy, super strong. This shoot was also an opportunity to meet Alpha Blondy. He was a fan of our project. I remember he invited us all to eat, there were about twenty of us!!
The end of 2023 will mark the 25th anniversary of the 1re Bisso na Bisso single and, in early 2024, the 25th anniversary of the album Roots. Is it celebrating, or is it?
PASSI: We are going to mark the occasion with the vinyl re-edition of Roots, that’s for sure. And then, I’m trying to see with the group if they are hot for a concert. To be continued…
Passi’s latest EP, Afrois available.
