Singer from the hip hop generation, synthesis artist at the crossroads of influences which have shaped Senegalese music, Carlou D continues to gain height and cultivate his singularity on the local scene through his eighth album entitled Higher.
3 mins
01/12/2024
For a long time, Carlou D kept the song aside Makossa composed around 2003, at the very beginning of his solo career. Without being able to find a definitive form that gives him satisfaction. The piece was inspired as much by the Cameroonian musical genre to which it refers as the one that embodies it, the “ charismatic » Manu Dibango whose path he never crossed, but who “ counts for all African artists “.
Because the springs of creation like to escape the rational, the unfinished work resurfaced in him at the moment when the Covid shook up the world, and took away the author of Soul Makossa. “ It’s as if this piece was waiting for this great man to pass away to pay homage to him. », recognizes the Senegalese forty-year-old. At the time, in 2020, he had just left Dakar “ on a whim » to move to Petite-Côte, south of the capital, in order to “ change of scenery “.
While the pandemic brought the planet to a standstill, he took advantage of a bassist friend’s nearby studio to record around fifteen tracks, adapting to the context. That’s good: he has “ always wanted » of an album based on the guitar-voice formula. “ It also goes with maturity. I see music differently, I hear it differently, differently. At the stage I’m at, the calmer it is, the better it helps me to travel, to discover things », explains the ex-acolyte of Didier Awadi within PBS Radikal.
However, it is in another artistic form thatHigher finally saw the light of day, while retaining its original philosophy, stripped down if not minimalist. In the meantime, the songs passed into the hands of Hakim Abdulsamad, producer and beatmaker Californian then living in Gambia – and former member of The Boys, a quartet of teenagers supported by Motown at the turn of the 80s and 90s. The American, who has already worked with Akon and New Kids on The Block, also performed in Senegal on the album Africa Rekk by Youssou N’Dour in 2016, or even on the single Kouy Feugeuti released in 2020 by Dakar rapper Mamy Victory (who became one half of Defmaa Maadef).
“ I gave him carte blanche », confides Carlou D, who underlines the exceptional nature of this absolute trust by recalling how much he usually wants to be involved in this part of the work. With his partner, who loves conversely putting forward his ideas without being looked over the shoulder, he felt a total understanding of his world which not only reassured him, but made him decide to try another direction. “ At some point in an artist’s career, it’s important to change the vibe,” said the Senegalese. In this case “ bring the songs into an urban universe with beats programmed, loops”.
The result is a surprise, which makes him say that Hakim Abdulsamad “ in addition to being a good producer, has something magical »: the clearly Afro-Cuban register with which the American dressed Gueum Di Guiss. “ It’s not said, but it’s my favorite song! », slips the singer who had already given Latin colors to his duet with Idrissa Diopformerly of the Sahel and figure of Senegalese music, on his album Ndèye Dior in 2008. My father was a big music lover who listened to salsa all day long. I must have caught this virus in my childhood! », he smiles. The legacy also lies in this open-mindedness which translated in 2023 into collaborations in very different genres: on the one hand with the Tuareg sensation Kader Tarhanine for the single Taghagalat ; on the other with the French jazz pianist Fabrice Devienne for creation on stage and in the studio. Carlou D has a sense of dialogue.
Carlou D Higher (Look’art Studio) 2023
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