Hello people.
Since I'll be in England soon, I thought I'd post some information about my book here in English.
En dehors de la zone de confort
By Melissa Chemam
Introduction
What
happened in Bristol with the release of Blue
Lines, Massive Attack’s first album, in 1991, had not been seen in the UK
since the end of the punk movement. A new cultural era was born, grown out of
the Thatcher 1980s, in the West Country. A mix of influences, from Jamaican
music to hip-hop new trends, from street art to new music venues, the 80s have completely changed Bristol’s social and cultural expressions, with
the birth of a number of artists and musicians both revolutionary and fed by a
few decades of social change in the city, with the arrivals of a new surge of
migrants from the Caribbean and Africa and the effect of the austerity measures
and the toughest conservative government the UK had know in the whole century,
under Mrs Margaret Thatcher.
A record like Blue Lines
epitomised all of this and more. It embodied a home-grown sound immerged in
reggae, soul and a sound system culture very typical of Bristol but also
offered new wonderful ventures into new territories, musically and visually,
along with a new way of writing lyrics, between rap and punk styles, a
fantastic input into the art of music video, and atmospheres that, as all
critics agreed to write, revolutionised dance music. Blue Lines and Massive Attack suddenly put Bristol on the UK’s
cultural map, but few could predict at the time how the band would deeply
evolve, taking its time to move forward sonically and artistically. With it
also grew a sense of a reflexive art, always aware of its context around it,
included direct references to their many influences – almost as painters would
do in paying homage to masters of the brush in a new canvas, or modern writers
would start a new book from the ashes of a masterpiece. Blue Lines can be seen as a sort of Ulysses of the music scene, a palimpsest, using sampling techniques
as a way to grow music out of music itself. At the time of the record’s
re-release in 2012, remastered, the French magazine Les Inrockuptibles therefore defined the album as the “first
post-modern masterpiece”.
Book presentation
Out Of The Comfort Zone
From Massive Attack to Banksy -
The story of Bristol, of a group of unique
artists and of their revolutions
By Melissa
Chemam
In tracing
the history of Massive Attack, this book draws the portrait of their city,
Bristol, in an investigation that combines music, art and politics.
From post-punk
and reggae movements – born in the 1970s – to trip-hop and the revolutionary
Banksy, the author retells the destinies of Mark Stewart and the Pop Group,
Smith & Mighty, Portishead, Tricky, the Insects, Inkie and, of course,
Massive Attack – whom she spent months interviewing.
In 1983,
while young Anglo-Italian graffiti artist Robert Del Naja signs of his
pseudonym - 3D - his first work on the city’s walls, the original West Indian
DJs Grant Marshall and Miles Johnson are detonating their collective, The Wild
Bunch. They quickly call 3D to join them. D and Grant then form Massive Attack
in 1988 with the young Andrew Vowles and experience a dazzling success with
their first album, Blue Lines. The
group becomes the embodiment of miscegenation in the UK. From 1998, inspired by
3D, Banksy seizes Bristol’s walls, while Massive Attack change their tone with
their album Mezzanine. And the city
itself seems to fit more and more with their tone, committed, militant and
revolutionary.
Bristol, as
Liverpool, Detroit or Nashville, thus began to shine in the world as the
birthplace of a great creative movement.
The author
went to meet Bristol’s artists for over a year, interviewing its best musicians,
renowned graffiti artists and their close collaborators. From Massive Attack's
studio to Banksy’s Dismaland, via art galleries and concert halls, in Bristol
and elsewhere, she asked them to retell their own story and to return to their
inspirations, motivations and commitments.
-
Journalist
since 2004, Melissa Chemam lived in Paris, Prague, Miami, London, Nairobi and
Bangui. She travelled to over 40 countries. She has collaborated with the BBC,
RFI and France Culture, among other media houses.
- -
En dehors de la zone de confort will be out in French first, on the the 6th of October 2016, in France, Belgium and Switzerland.
Link to the publisher's page:
Link to the book's Facebook page:
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