Sonny Troupé is a brilliant percussionist and drummer from Guadeloupe whose works and numerous performances illustrate the expressive power of Caribbean culture and, more particularly, of gwoka. His trumpeter counterpart Hermon Mehari also defends his origins, rooted in Eritrean soil. Sometimes partners on stage, their jazz language brings them together irresistibly through the African matrix. They will both be guests of the Sons d’Hiver festival which is held until February 18, 2023 in the Paris region and take the time, this Sunday, to tell us about their destiny.
Music, it is said, is a universal language that transcends geographical boundaries. Sonny Troupé and Hermon Mehari have very distant roots and yet they manage to find common ground. They proved it by performing in the orchestra of double bass player Sélène Saint-Aimé. Although they sometimes shine together, they have also developed, over the years, personal projects that identify and distinguish them. How then to explain this lasting artistic camaraderie? We have to believe that the ancestral African bond nourishes their musical exchanges and their mutual understanding. The sensitivity of a musician is not palpable, it is a feeling that these two virtuosos have learned to express through their works.
Hermon Mehari has chosen reverence by revitalizing, in a free and daring jazz, the traditions inherited from his ancestors. Asmara is an ode to a heritage that he has gradually tamed and which he now asserts with force. Eritrea, of which he keeps the fleeting memory of a 5-year-old child, is in him. It must now appropriate this diffuse memory and give it a significant place in the development of its future projects. By inviting the singer Faytinga on his latest album, Hermon Mehari demonstrates his attachment to a country whose political and social upheavals he can only observe. It also gives voice to an artist forced into exile, thus displaying undeniable humanist convictions.
Sonny Troupé certainly shares the positions taken by his jazzman counterpart. Its destiny is different but the challenge is the same: to defend a specific cultural identity. For this, this impeccable rhythmician multiplies the performances and makes the Ka drum sparkle in a thousand ways. His musical proposals always reflect his ardent desire to expose the Caribbean riches. Within the collective “Big in Jazz” as in its recent creations, New Lokans and Fonn KeSonny Troupé has only one goal: to present the sound genealogy of the West Indies to as many people as possible.
Hermon Mehari and Sonny Troupé have a common intention: to follow in the footsteps of the great elders and salute their memory by perpetuating their message in the 21st century. It seemed logical to find them on the poster of the “Sons d’Hiver” festival which, through its programming, encourages the transmission of knowledge.
⇒ The website of the “Winter Sounds” festival.