SUGA MUSIC
19:30
20:00
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A craftsman with soles of vers
Following on from the captivating ‘Unpeude sucrr’ (2021), the album À l’atelier des âmes debout is a unique reflection of the approach taken by rapper, singer, composer and author Edgar Sekloka over the last fifteen years, through his concerts, publications and workshops in France and abroad: an art form in the making, questioning, listening to the turbulence of the times. Through his many writing workshops, this Paris-born artist with roots in Benin and Cameroon expresses an essential preoccupation: transmission.
Edgar Sekloka is a craftsman, filing his grooves and rhymes with passion on the workbench of patience. To borrow a term from the distinguished jazzman Bernard Lubat, he is an “œuvrier”, a worker who makes work. And what a work it is! Two collections of poetry and three novels, an album by MilkCoffee & Sugar (his famous rap tandem with Gaël Faye) and five recordings to his name defy form and boundaries.
For this new album, with its rich musical rainbow (electro, hip hop, jazz, pop, Afro…), the leader has, as always, surrounded himself with artists who, like him, recognise themselves in the words of Aimé Césaire: “Just as man needs oxygen to survive, he needs art and poetry (…). Through art, the reified world becomes the human world again” (speech in Dakar, First World Festival of Black Arts, 1966).
Edgar Sekloka is the watchman who shines his torch on the proxos of algorithms (Google) and the sprinters of the stream (Tuer je). His watchful prosody scans the horizon blurred by the lies of the va-t-en-guerre and the imposed models (C’est comme ça), the sclerotic injunctions (Anonymie)… And the sun on the horizon shines on Farfouri, a cheerful hymn to childhood.
Without Manicheism, Edgar Sekloka dissects the complexity of the world and highlights the sources of hope. His verse propels us into a poetry that pulsates with emancipatory questioning and utopia.
By journalist Fara C.
First Part : Syamka and Gatha