Tony Allen Makes Me High1st Ep of Ysée and Estrellas, new project by dj-producer Guts, made in Dakar.
Our 1time guest is called YSEE, to civilian Audrey Gbaguidi. She is a French singer and actress of Beninese origin, born in the South of France in Draguignan. Her mentor is Tony Allen, legendary drummer (co-creator of afrobeat with Fela) with whom she will tour for 5 years.
Following this tour, she was invited to the Olympia to open for singers George Benson, Seal and Mary J. Blige. In 2012, she joined Damon Albarn’s Africa Expres adventure.
Ysee moved to England in 2015, where she participated in her first project alongside UNKLE (James Lavelle former Mo-wax label). She collaborates on two titles, Farewell and Cowboys or Indians in 2016 from the album The Road part 1.
In 2017, she met singer Noel Gallagher (Oasis) with whom she collaborated on 2 tracks from his latest album Who Built The Moon : Be Careful What You Wish For and Fort Knox. Noel then offers him to join him on a world tour which will begin in February 2018 to sing these 2 titles.
She also shares the stage with Paul Weller on several occasions.
She collaborates with Noel Gallagher on two other singles This Is The Place and Black Star Dancing.
In June 2022, she will do a new tour in England, invited by Noel Gallagher which will end with the first part of Paul McCartney at the Glastonbury festival. The same year, she released her first EP Tony Allen Makes Me High Feat. Tony Allen.
Titles played
– Tony Allen Makes Me High
– The Right Stufff (cover Noel Gallagher)
– Zelie (Bella Bellow cover)
► Ep Tony Allen Makes Me High (Ysee 2022).
Then we receive Guts.
A poet of the last century wrote: ” The world is everywhere “. A 21st century musician confirms that he is everywhere, but in some places more than others.
Guts brought the world together The shop, beautiful studio opened a few years ago near Marina Bay in Dakar, Senegal. Not only Africa resonates there, but also the turbulent Cuban music and the collusion of European musicians. Three worlds, three musical cultures, “three delegations”, as the beatmaker and producer put it, who brought them together out of a desire to share, explore, meet.
Ever since he produced Alliance Ethnik’s happy, humanist funk in the 90s, Guts has never stopped weaving these links that untie borders and exclusions, from project to project and from album to album.
Because the triangular trade threw millions of enslaved Africans towards the New World. In the island of Cuba, in particular, their descendants developed a radiant musical culture that was neither black nor white – or both. Melody, rhythms, radiantly Creole harmonies which, long after the abolition of slavery in the Americas, fascinated Africa, infatuated with mambo, chachacha or Cuban rumba.
Guts couldn’t bring together music from three continents in Cuba (remember the confinement and all that?) but, with tireless stubbornness and the combination of favorable circumstances, he was able to bring the three delegations to Dakar for a feast mixing genres, languages and affiliations in a prodigal and profuse album – “ generosity is one of my faults », admits Guts.
Among the Cubans, the pianist Cucurucho Valdés, nephew of Chucho and encyclopedia of Latin forms and four voices: Brenda Navarrete, singer and percussionist, Akemis Carrera, Aretha Franklin of santería cubana, El Tipo Este, essential rapper from Havana and José Padilla, grandpa from Santiago de Cuba. And beatmaker/producer/multi-instrumentalist Kumar Sublevao-Beat, a Cuban from Europe, was a go-between…
On the African side, it was necessary to have a sensitivity to this Cuban music which made the lively and the elegant dance for decades. So guitarist René Sowatche from the Orchestra Baobab, bassist Christian Obam, a Benino-Cameroonian-Congolese brass section and two voices with Assane Mboup and Alpha Dieng.
And the Europeans, long-term accomplices of Gutsare very colorful – Mr Gib, David Walters, Florian Pellissier, Cyril Atef, Pat Kalla, Djeudjoah & Lieutenant Nicholson, Al Quetz, El Gato Negro, Arnold Moueza…
Twenty-five artists in total for fifteen days of fire in a weightless studio between several languages, several continents and several memories. An adventure of connections and excitement that defies the restrictions of the health crisis as much as the tragic history of peoples.
Titles played
– Estrellas
-Adduna Jarul Naawo (Alpha Dieng voice),
– Yebo Edi Pachanga (voice Jose Padilla),
– Dakar de Noche.