World Music Matters

French singer Gérald Toto's lilting melodies and imaginary language make his music truly universal and deeply comforting. He talks to RFI about his new solo album 'Sway': an invitation to be quiet in the midst of a turbulent universe. And why his girlfriend is a melody.

La Chica Belleville is a music project created by Franco-Venezuelan singer songwriter Sophie Fustec. If magic realism had a soundtrack this could be it: with her hypnotic vocals, Debussy-inspired piano and adept sampling of Latin American percussion she builds "a collage" of colours and moods to achieve a state of trance. Just ahead of the release of her debut album Cambio (Change) she talks to Alison Hird about being saved by music and - trying, however humbly, to do the same for people suffering in Venezuela.

Taraful Bucureştilor are one of the few remaining lăutari bands able to interpret the traditional, accoustic lăutari (Romani troubadour) repertoire as it was played in its hey-day in Romania from the 1960s to 1980s. The five-piece band talk to RFI about inheriting this musical tradition from their fathers and why, despite the trend to electrify and amplify the sound, they believe it will survive.

On his latest album, Kafé Groppi, French composer and guitarist Khalil Chahine was inspired by childhood memories of an old, mythic café in Cairo. He talks to RFI's Alison Hirdabout making 'an album of memories' beautifully evoked through music which, ultimately, speaks for itself.

Blick Bassy’s career took off internationally in 2015 when the tech giant Apple took a shine to his subtle falsetto voice and deft banjo playing and used a clip from his album Akö in an ad. His upcoming fourth album promises to be radically different. He talks to RFI's Alison Hird about the need to "re-tell" the story of Ruben Um Nyobè.

French clarinetist Yom electrifies klezmer, the musical tradition of Ashkenazi Jews from Central and Eastern Europe. On his new album You Will Never Die, recorded with the Wonder Rabbis, electric bass, drums and turbo clarinet have replaced accordion and cimbalom, but the vibe and emotion is the same. "It's dancefloor," he says, "but then klezmer music was also [about] dance".

In a career spanning more than five decades, Franco-Congolese pianist and composer Ray Lema has explored everything from Afrobeat to classical to jazz and collaborated with musicians from Cuba, Congo, Brazil and China. On his new album Transcendance he quits the jazz and world categories to follow "his loves". As he told RFI: “I’m old enough to send the music-sellers packing. I feel I can do what I want.”

In a career spanning more than five decades, Franco-Congolese pianist and composer Ray Lema has explored everything from Afrobeat to classical to jazz and collaborated with musicians from Cuba, Congo, Brazil and China. On his new album Transcendance he quits the jazz and world categories to follow "his loves". As he told RFI: “I’m old enough to send the music-sellers packing. I feel I can do what I want.”

Lema came to Paris in 1982 shortly after falling foul of Zaire's then-president Mobutu. He’s found a loyal following here, made more than a dozen albums and most recently worked with French pianist Laurent DeWilde on the remarkable Riddles.

The new album, Transcendance, was inspired by a need to unlace the straight-jackets imposed by the retail music industry.

“So far I’ve always been moved around by music sellers,” he told RFI. “First I was in world music then they said ‘Ray you’re too sophisticated, you should do jazz’. So I said OK. Now I think maybe it’s time for me to make an album where I just put all my loves on the table.”

Lema’s loves include Brazilian and Gnawa bands and the Nigerian king of Afrobeat Fela Kuti, to whom he pays tribute on the title track Transcendance.

When Fela was in prison in 1984-85 Lema was heading up a band and they sang about the need for the Nigerian activist’s release. At a chance meeting some years later, Fela made time to thank the Congolese musician.

“I owe him a lot I have to say, I met him personally and the way he moved into music and his message and his musical philosophy… everything appeals to me.”

The album cover shows Lema, a youthful 72, bare-chested à la Fela. But it’s pure coincidence.

“I was changing clothes and the photographer took that shot. It was the one he preferred. So I said why not!”

Nonetheless, the semi-nudity seems appropriate on an album where he reveals something essential about himself: a musician who defends social justice and freedom to go where your emotions take you.

Congo Rhapsody

Lema was born in Bas-Congo, in the west of DRC, and returned home only in 2011 after a three-decade absence. But Congolese blood runs through his veins and remains part of his musical heritage. The piece Congo Rhapsody is based on a rhythm from the Banbouma ethnic group into which he was born.

“In this piece I tried to make a contrast between the melody and the rhythm. The rhythm is very fast and the melody is very slow, just four notes, it’s just to make the complexity of the rhythm stand out.”

Like the majority of pieces on the album, Congo Rhapsody is instrumental and Lema admits he’s always struggled to get recognition back home where “only vocalists, not instrumentalists, are valued”.

But this time, the piece has struck a note.

“For the first time I have Congolese calling me for an instrumental [piece of] music. Until today, they don’t know how to listen to just instrumental pieces. I’m receiving a lot of calls telling me ‘oh wow this piece is really Congolese’. I don’t know if it’s a reward or not but it’s so great for me.”

Kivu’s Blues

Lema’s most recent albums have each included a piece paying tribute to the people of Kivu. In 2014 he performed Les oubliés de Kivu (Kivu's forgotten people) on RFI's La Bande Passante (see video). He knows the region well: as music director of the ZaÏre National Ballet in the early 70s he travelled widely in the Equatorial forest in Kivu, in Bas-Congo, Katanga and the regions of Kasaï in search of the best traditional percussionists.

Since then, Kivu has become one of the DRC’s most troubled regions. On the track Kivu’s Blues he laments the huge loss of life during two decades of conflict, not just in north and south Kivu but in DRC overall. He denounces what he sees as the world’s indifference.

“The message I want to get across is that this year there was a journalist killed [Jamal Khashoggi] and the whole world was so moved by that and in Congo, right now, we’re over six million dead and it doesn’t move anybody. That’s what I’m trying to understand. I hope that someday someone’s gonna tell me what it means for the world to have Congolese die.”

Ray Lema in concert 23 November, Petite Hall de la Villette, 211 Avenue Jean Jaurès, 75019 Paris

Transcendance is out on One Drop Records

Ray Lema’s site,  follow him on facebook

Our guest on this week's edition of World Music Matters is Senegalese reggae artist Natty Jean. After years working with the French reggae band Danakil, he's carving out a successful solo career here in France. He talks to RFI about his second album Imagine and the disenchantment with Senegal's politics that inspired it.

Brazilian rapper Edgar hails from the favelas, using recycled materials to make his clothes and MPCs to make music. His debut album Ultrassom (Ultrasound) delivers a dystopian view of Brazil's future, yet brims with poetry. He recently gave his first concert abroad at the Mama Festival in Paris and talked to RFI about how music keeps madness at bay and his fears over the country's swing to the far right.