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Culture in France

Reggae from the depths of Paris

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The Baco Hiriz Band serve up metro-inspired reggae on Kinky Station, their first album. Comorian musician Baco and his cosmopolitan posse give us what they call "Parisian reggae": 70s Jamaican reggae laced with their own contemporary approach to music. 

Photo: Moncef Moudhoire
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Comorian Baco and his gang would have been one of the musicians that would have made you stop, stare and listen. For years, they played reggae across the Paris metro with their guitars, percussion and harmonica.

(Photo: Moncef Moudhoire)

So it’s no surprise that their first album together as the Baco Hiriz band focuses on the city’s underground transportation system, with each of the 14 tracks of Kinky Station corresponding to the 14 metro lines.

“This album is about my life in town. That’s why we go deep under the belly of Paris, in its metro, because the metro is important in Paris.”

“You find every race, culture,” says Baco, who believes the international appeal of reggae reflects cosmopolitan life in Paris.

On the Parisian metro, you can hear languages from every part of the world, while in the Baco Hiriz band, you have musicians from across the globe.

(Photo: Moncef Moudhoire)

Baco, who came to Paris from his native Mayotte at aged 17, has already released two albums under his own name: Karakalala (1998) & Questions (2000).

He describes them as Afro-blues, influenced by what he’s learnt from the city and what the forests of his native Comoros have taught him.

Members of the Baco Hiriz band have known each other for nearly 25 years. And when they’re not performing together, they’re working with other artists such as Cesaria Evora, Manu Dibango and Bernard Lavillier.

Kinky Station was two years in the making. Why so long?

(Illustrations: Didier Fraisse)

“We needed time to make something which looks like us. Something which is our own and not dictated by production teams,” Baco told Culture in France.

To be in control of his destiny, Baco completely changed his life - he stopped touring and studied for six years - first maths, then music at the Paris National Opera.

Afterwards he took courses in computer-based music production and topped it all with management training.

“It was tough,” he says. “But now I can talk the same language as the sound engineer and tell him exactly what I want, whereas before I couldn’t put the right words on the problem.”

After forming his own label, Hiriz Productions, Baco believes that he is in a better position to negotiate contracts and take all the artistic decisions.

“Now we are free! Free to do what we want, decide on what direction we want to take, and how we want to grow. Because, you know, no one is going to do it for you,” he says.

They decided on the title of the album, because for Baco, the word kinky best describes life on the metro...“so embroiled and complicated”.

Up and coming concerts

  • 3 July: Trabendo, Paris
  • October: Reunion island, Mayotte, Madagascar

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