Interview with Booba

B = Booba
S = Samir Meghelli

S: How would you say recording this album [Pantheon] was different than all the other projects you've worked on before? What did you do differently?

B: First of all, I was alone. I set up my own structure, my own label. I worked in Artop Studios, which is my man's spot.

S: And where is that?

B: In the 93 (Seine-Saint-Denis), at Porte D'Aubervilliers. It was like I was at home. I took my time. I would go back to certain songs and re-work them. That's what was different. And also, I took more time to listen to beats. I really took my time.

S: How, when, and where did you write "Avant de Partir" ["Before Leaving"]? Do you remember where you were when you wrote it?

B: I wrote it just like that. I had just come back from the studio at five or six o'clock in the morning and I wrote it at my house, in my bedroom. I wrote it all in one sitting.

S: You had the beat already? You wrote to the beat?

B: Yeah.

S: Okay. In "Avant de Partir" ["Before Leaving"] you say, "Du Martin Luther King et du Malcom, c'est nous." ["Some of Martin Luther King and some of Malcolm, that's us."

B: Yeah.

S: What did you mean by that?

B: Martin Luther King was more calm, more peaceful, whereas Malcolm was all about, "By any means neccesary." And us, we're for a little of both.

S: A little of both.

B: We're for the calm, but when you need to be violent, you need to be violent. And, in fact, both of them were about the same struggle.

S: Where did you begin learning about the Civil Rights and Black Power movements? Was it in school? Were you reading books? How did you learn about those movements?

B: It's always interested me, I feel it's something that concerns me. And racism, colonialism and all that, is something that, I don't know, it touches me. And also, I studied in the United States for one year, in Detroit.

S: Oh, Detroit.

B: Yeah. And the school, it was... My history class was about Africa, slavery, and all that. But, I already knew some of that history before taking that class.

S: Where? Were your parents teaching you? Was it at school?

B: No, no. It was more through TV, documentaries, all that.

S: And were you at a university in Detroit, or was it a high school?

B: High school. I was 15 years old.

S: And what was the name of the school?

B: Cass Technical High School.

S: And, how did you come to go to school in Detroit? How did that happen?

B: When I was 14, in the month of August or July, on vacation with a family, just like that, for an exchange...

S: Exchange program.

B: Exactly. And, the year after, I returned. I stayed with the same family and studied over there. My mother let me go out there.

S: Had you been to the United States before that time?

B: No, my first time was when I went to Detroit.

S: What was that like? When you arrived in Detroit, what was going through your head? What were you thinking?

B: It was like what I'd seen on TV, like on Starsky and Hutch. [Everyone laughing]

S: What were some of the major experiences that you had in Detroit that helped shape you're thinking about the United States?

B: I didn't really have any surprises. It was exactly like I imagined it. I was listening to the music, to rap. I was living in the Black community. We were playing sports.

S: Where were you hearing rap?

B: Everywhere: on TV, I bought the tapes... With the kids in the family, we were listening to rap. My friends were listening to rap. But, of course, I was listening to rap before then, too.

S: Where did you first begin hearing Hip Hop in France?

B: I was real little, with my big brother.

S: Your big brother?

B: Yeah.

S: Were you hearing it on the radio, or did he have CDs?

B: Yeah, he had CDs, he was listening to reggae.

S: Do you remember what artists?

B: All the pioneers. There was Grandmaster Flash and all that.

S: Oh, you remember Grandmaster Flash?

B: Yeah. There were a whole bunch of artists. There was Young MC, Public Enemy, Ice Cube, all that?

S: Where, in the beginning, were you hearing and seeing Hip Hop, besides from your brother? Were you hearing it on the radio, on TV?

B: On the radio, but there wasn't really that much. There was a TV show, Rapline.

S: What channel?

B: Channel 6. And there was Radio Nova.

S: With Dee Nasty?

B: Yeah. Lionel D. and all that. Aside from that, there wasn't anything major.

S: What were your parents playing at home, before you started hearing Hip Hop?

B: African music, Zouk, Salsa, Cuban music.

S: And when did you decide that you wanted to move beyond just listening to Hip Hop, that you actually wanted to write a rhyme yourself? Do you remember when you wrote your first rhyme?

B: My first lyrics were written by a friend of mine.

S: Oh, he wrote them for you?

B: Yeah. He was the one...

S: Who was this friend?

B: He was a rapper, too. He was in the group called La Cliqua.

S: What was his name?

B: Aarafat. He was the one that pushed me to do rap.

S: What was he saying to you?

B: He said to me, "You should try to rap, etc., etc." And I was like, "But, I don't have the voice. I don't know how to rap." But, he kept pushing me, bugging me. He wrote some lyrics for me and said, "Here you go, this is how you rap." He wrote like two or three things for me, and afterwards, I continued by myself.

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