La Revolución del Fortuna: Manu Chao
Manu Chao’s rebellious lyrics have led fans to call him South America’s Bob Dylan. Gina Heslington catches up with him after a gig to talk politics over a cigarette.
A riot of intoxicated fans crash into each other. Dreadlocks fly as voices rise in sporadic chanting to exotic beats. Marijuana smoke clogs the air, and as a thousand arms lift the crowd crushes in a heave forward to get closer to the stage. This is the electric sensation of Manu Chao live.
In a small room adjoining the after-show party Manu - born Jose-Manuel - Chao raises a Fortuna cigarette to his lips, casually offering me one. I accept, nervous in the presence of this international music legend. Chao is famed for his ability to cross cultural, social and political divides with his left-field compositions. In France, the stunning success of Clandestino has made it one of the best-selling albums of all time and his follow up, Proxima Estacion: Esperanza has already sold over three million copies. In Mexico he plays to audiences 100,000 strong.
Compared with this, his following in the Anglophone world is curiously lacking. When I ask him how he feels about this, Chao gives an enigmatic response. “All the English-speaking culture of the world has been imposed upon us, by television and the radio. I sing in whatever language I want; French, Spanish, Portuguese, English, Galician. I don’t respect language. I invent my own words. My father goes crazy sometimes, but it’s my way.”
Born in 1961 to communist Basque and Galician parents, the strong anti-globalization flavour to his tracks are easily construed as an anti-capitalist, anti-Western methodology but Chao swears this is not the case. “I don’t think about an international message. When you write a song it’s not you that decides, it’s the moment - inspiration - that you write. The influence for the language you are going to use is the surroundings. Right now I’m talking a lot of English so later if I get a stupid idea in the bus maybe it’s going to be in English. I spend a lot of time in South America so that explains why a lot of my songs are in Spanish.”
Chao’s music is as diverse in style as it is in language. A fusion of reggae, punk, ska, French chanson, Ibero-American salsa and Algerian raï, it is as difficult to define as Chao himself. Though raised in Paris, he passionately renounces his country of origin as a defining part of his identity. “What is France? A banner? A border? Politically, this border is only made of killings. I don’t respect this. I’m not nationalist. That way of thinking is very old school. More and more I try to live in the present. Years ago I used to say I was a citizen of the world, now I’m an individual of the present, that’s my moment, that’s my house. Part of my philosophy is that when you’re somewhere, you’re somewhere. Don’t thinkabout tomorrow. Think about the present, it’s your present.”
Compared to a modern day Bob Dylan for his rebellious songs of protest, it is hard not to be moved by Chao’s gusto. His new album La Radiolina captures the dizzy force of his concerts, melded with the passionate cries of his ideals.
“You know, it was the Zapatistas who first told me what was coming?” Chao leans forward, exhaling smoke. As his eyes narrow in recollection fine wrinkles web his face, lending an air of perceptive wisdom. His look is strangely compelling. I struggle to recall images of the Zapatistas. I vaguely remember images of Balaclava-clad revolutionaries fighting for the rights of indigenous Mayans in Chiapas, Mexico, and I return his intense gaze.
“The message from Mexico back in ‘93 was very clear, a general caution about a lot of things that everybody talks about now, such as globalization. The Zapatistas were the first people that warned me. What I respect a lot about the movement is that it is still clean, there are no shadows. It has not been ruined by ego. With each revolution there are the same old problems, they start good, but after a certain amount of time everyone in the same movement starts fighting each other. In Chiapas, in fifteen years, it hasn’t happened. That’s magic.”
With ‘Tristeza Maleza’, the second track of his latest album issuing warnings to George Bush, Chao is an attractive icon for supporters of the anti-Republican leaning that has enveloped global youth politics. Chao however remains resolutely on the fence. “I don’t try to give a message with my music because I’m lost in this world. I have no better idea of what to do than anyone else. For every song of mine, take ten people and ten different meanings will come out. That’s what I like. That’s why I never explain my songs. When you see the world, you’ve got this rage and you have to find a way of putting it out positively. My therapy for that is to write songs to get rid of my negative emotions. After that its up to people to find their own meaning within.”
Despite Chao’s mysterious answers, his refreshingly humanistic approach to music production is revealed in his projects and collaborations. After a chance meeting with Amadou and Miriam, a blind couple from Mali, “good química” - good chemistry - made him agree to produce their album, Dimanche A Bambako, that has since sold over half a million copies. Future plans include an album produced with members of a psychiatric hospital in Buenos Aires which he hopes will be released next year. Eager to know how Chao’s music will progress, I question his current guiding influences. He laughs. “Right now, only my mother; and she always says the same thing: ‘Stop smoking!’”
I figure it isn’t the best time to inform Manu about the recent smoking ban as, like the rebellious soul he is, he reaches for yet another Fortuna.
fluxblao
great article! Politik Kills should be the next single!