Journalist at RFI (ex-DW, BBC, CBC, F24...), writer (on art, music, culture...), I work in radio, podcasting, online, on films.
As a writer, I also contributed to the New Arab, Art UK, Byline Times, the i Paper...
Born in Paris, I was based in Prague, Miami, London, Nairobi (covering East Africa), Bangui, and in Bristol, UK. I also reported from Italy, Germany, Haiti, Tunisia, Liberia, Senegal, India, Mexico, Iraq, South Africa...
This blog is to share my work, news and cultural discoveries.
Fatal Assistance is a riveting and insightful documentary by award-winning filmmaker Raoul Peck (Oscar nominee for I Am Not Your Negro) which takes viewers on a two-year journey exploring the challenging, contradictory, and colossal rebuilding efforts in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake.
About the filmmaker:
Born in Haiti, Raoul Peck grew up in Congo, France, Germany and the United States. His complex body of work includes films The Man by the Shore (Competition Cannes 1993); Lumumba (Director’s Fortnight, Cannes 2000, also bought and aired by HBO). He directed and produced Sometimes in April for HBO (Berlinale 2005); Moloch Tropical (Toronto 2009, Berlin 2010); and Murder in Pacot (Toronto 2014, Berlin 2015).
His documentary on American author James Baldwin I Am Not Your Negro was nominated for the Best Documentary Academy Award in 2017. He served as jury member at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, is presently chairman of the National French film school La Femis and is the subject of numerous retrospectives worldwide.
In 2001, the Human Rights Watch Organization awarded him with the Irene Diamond Lifetime Achievement Award.
His latest feature The Young Karl Marx was released in France in September 2017, and will open in the United States in February 2018.
This is our last goodbye I hate to feel the love between us die But it's over Just hear this and then I'll go You gave me more to live for More than you'll ever know
This is our last embrace Must I dream and always see your face? Why can't we overcome this wall? Baby, maybe its just because you didn't know you at all
Kiss me, please kiss me But kiss me out of desire, babe, not consolation Oh, you know it makes me so angry 'Cause I know that in time, I'll only make you cry This is our last goodbye
Did you say, "No, this can't happen to me" Did you rush to the phone to call Was there a voice unkind in the back of your mind Saying maybe you didn't know him at all You didn't know him at all, oh oh, ya didn't know Ooo didn't know
Well, the bells out in the church tower chime Burning clues into this heart of mine Thinking so hard on her soft eyes And the memories, offer signs that it's over Over
This blog has been gaining so many readers recently!! From all over the world and especially in France apparently, but also Japan, Colombia, Poland, Kenya, Russia! America of course.
I neglect it, I know but these are busy time, but I love connecting with people, and it means a lot to me to know that these pages are read. It's about sharing and discussing and passing on what I love.
Thanks for coming!
In order to thank everyone, here is one of the most beautiful song in the world!!
In a couple of versions.
Massive Attack's 4th album, 100th Window was released 15 years ago on Feb. 10, 2003.
It was so ahead of its time. Thus, the music and themes are still so relevant today.
I totally immersed myself in it when it came out, not reading a single review. I literally lived with it the autumn when I was working in Prague, my first long-term experience abroad.
There, between the remains of the Cold War, between East and West, while American president George Bush and his then ally British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the world looked so dangerously changing into a monster again...
Very few artists captured the complexity of these times with so much talent.
3D and Neil Davidge, when I interviewed them, separately, both reckoned the album was completely influenced by the consequences of September 11th...
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Here's the first single, written with and performed by Sinéad O'Connor:
My interview with Matt Catchpole for Essentially Pop:
Here Melissa Chemam tells Matt Catchpole how she went about generating the band’s mystique and why she feels Bristol’s history as a slave port is so important to shaping its music.
Emerging from the Bristol Party scene of the late 1980s, Massive Attackhave been hailed as one of the most original and influential groups the UK has produced.
Now a new book seeks to lift the lid on the band, their home city and the network of artists and collaborators that broke through alongside them.
Massive Attack Out of the Comfort Zone is the product of three years’ work by French journalist Melissa Chemam.
Her book is drawn from a long series of interviews with Massive mainman Robert “3D” DelNaja and other key figures including Tricky, producer Neil Davidge, bassist Sean Cook, and members of the bands Portishead and Alpha.
Overtly political and fiercely uncompromising, Massive Attack is as much a multimedia arts collective as a conventional band.
Fearless in their support of causes like the plight of Palestinian refugees, inter-band rivalries mean members have often fought their biggest battles with each other.
Tricky left early to forge a solo career, while Andy “Mushroom” Vowles rancorously quit in 1999 after growing disenchanted with the dark direction in whichDel Naja was taking the group.
Here Chemam tells Matt Catchpole how she went about generating the band’s mystique and why she feels Bristol’s history as a slave port is so important to shaping its music.
Massive Attack’s classic Trio – Daddy G, Mushroom and 3D
Bristol became a leading port in the slave trade in the 18th century, with thousands of Africans forced to make the difficult and dangerous journey to the Caribbean to face a life of servitude on plantations.
Due to overcrowding and appalling conditions on board the ships, it’s thought that half of those trafficked failed to survive the voyage.
It’s this grim history that forms the backdrop to Chemam’s book and she argues it’s been central to shaping the culture of the city, along with the more recent arrival of the “Windrush” generation of immigrants in the 1950s.
“Bristol’s past, its link with the Americas, the slave trade and the influx of newcomers from the Caribbean, Italy, Ireland and beyond, in the 1950s, was defining,” Chemam asserts.
“We could say artists are connected to their birthplace and origins in many cases, it’s true for The Beatles, as well as Nirvana, or Jean-Michel Basquiat.
“But in the case of Massive Attack, they put Bristol on the cultural map in a way few had done before then. The very dynamic reggae and punk scenes of the 1970s obviously helped them in becoming so unique. And the birth of their first album, Blue Lines, was very much nourished by a dynamic intended to bring these influences into their very new and British hip-hop style.”
What makes Massive Attack so special, Chemam argues, is that they’re able to assimilate diverse influences and combine them to create something entirely fresh and original.
“Not every Bristolian of the 1980s became Massive Attack! It is about finding alchemy between different elements, talent, a self-taught ethos, a vision and a good instinct,” she explains.
Massive Attack’s principal trio, Del Naja, Vowles and Grant “Daddy G” Marshallmet and gained notoriety in the mid to late ’80s through the Bristol partying collective and sound system The Wild Bunch.
Tricky was also a member along with Nellee Hooper, who would go on to be a celebrated producer and re-mixer of artists, such as Madonna, Garbage andBjork.
The success of Blue Lines was like a statement of intent, a clarion call, focussing attention on the burgeoning music and arts scene in the city.
Suddenly a whole wave of musicians from the area were garnering national attention – many with close links to Massive Attack.
Portishead, Tricky, Martina Topley-Bird andGoldfrapp – to name but a few – all came through at about the same time, garnering considerable critical acclaim.
Much of the music was an entrancing, eerie, hypnotic blend of punk, reggae and hip hop and a new phrase was coined, with the city rapidly becoming known as the capital of ‘trip hop’.
“Bristol was big enough to attract great collaborators, producers and vocalists, but also small enough to allow encounters and good opportunities.It was far enough from and close enough to London, connected enough to New York City.” Chemam explains
“Hip-hop and street art all emerged together in a melting-pot in the early 1980s, and were taken to a new level by The Wild Bunch. From there, a dynamic was on the way.”
Following the departure of Vowles, and with Marshall taking a temporary break from studio work during the making of 100th Window, Del Naja became Massive Attack’s de facto leader.
It was pivotal to the success of Chemam’s book that he agreed to cooperate.
“Of course, to me, this project was only worth writing if Robert Del Naja was willing to participate. He’s the heart of the story, both an artist and visionary musician,” Chemam says.
“It was difficult to reach out to him but once he received my message, he said yes right away.”
With Del Naja on board, doors opened and many other key figures in the band’s inner circle began to emerge from the shadows.
“Most of the 30 artists and musicians I interviewed were a bit difficult to reach, but once I did, they were all very cooperative and helpful. Especially Mark Stewart of The Pop Group, Neil Davidge and (street artist) Inkie.”
A former BBC journalist, Chemam says it was Del Naja’s political activism that first made her want to tell the band’s story.
“I have always loved their music of course but what sparked the book project for me was their show in Lebanon in August 2014.
“They highlighted the situation of Palestinian refugees in the country in a very striking manner, going themselves to visit refugee camps with a charity they have been helping for years.
“As a reporter on culture but mainly international news, I was very moved by the authenticity of their involvement. I looked back at their history and realised how deeply relevant they had been in defining the past three decades, culturally.”
Chemam argues that Del Naja’s activism bleeds into the band’s music in both explicit and more ambiguous ways.
Songs like Eurochild, Future Proof, False Flags and Splitting The Atom are direct in their message, while others look at the challenges we face in the current geo-political landscape.
Hymn of The Big Wheel on Blue Lines is about looking at the world and wishing for change,” Chemam explains. “While the collaboration with James Massiah, for the EP Dear Friend, is about our post-colonial world and the tensions we’ll have to overcome whether we want to face them or not.”
Having now released five albums, along with numerous EPs, film scores and other collaborations, and with Marshall firmly back on board, Massive Attack remain as inventive and influential as ever.
Never far from controversy they remain a source of fascination for both music and mainstream media.
Massive Attack’s Daddy G (left) and 3D
A former graffiti stencil artist, Del Naja, has often found himself compared with another of Bristol’s famous sons, the mercurial Banksy.
Banksy has admitted his early work was inspired by Del Naja, but some have speculated that the relationship is actually much closer.
In a 2016 post, blogger Craig Williams suggested that the anonymous Banksy, may not have been a single individual, but a network of artists including Del Naja.
To support his theory, Williams matched the appearance of several Banksy works to Massive Attack live dates.
A year later, drum and bass artist Goldie, appeared to add further fuel to the fire, when he referred to Banksy as “Robert” in an interview with Scroobius Pip’s Distraction Pieces podcast.
Chemam, however, is roundly dismissive of these stories.
“These are old rumours, recently exhumed by people who hardly know Bristol,” she says. “British tabloids, The Daily Mail, The Sun, regularly use them to bring traffic to their websites. Banksy’s anonymity sells and Massive Attack won’t give these media any interviews.”
For the real connections between the band members and Bristol’s street art scene,” Chemam says you have to “dig into the story”.
Where better to start than with Out of the Comfort Zone?
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Massive Attack Out of the Comfort ZonebyMelissa Chemam is out in the Autumn through Tangent Books
Melissa Chemam’s book Massive Attack - Out of the Comfort Zone discusses, analyses and presents the unique development of the band Massive Attack through a story of the band’s members and the group’s gestation in the inner city cultural melting pot that was the Bristol of the 1970s and 1980s. It is charting their rise out of the fairly inclusive communities of urban working and middle class kids, Jamaican, Irish, Italian and Asian immigrants that were particularly productive and mixed in Bristol, partly to do with the city’s closely intermingled communities and partly with its geography that meant all communities rubbed up against each other easily.
Bristol’s youth of different backgrounds with a passion for music could encounter the interesting musical mix of punk, reggae, soul, funk and later hip-hop. Chemam charts this musical hybridity expertly through interviews with key Bristol musicians and scene stalwarts such as Mark Stewart of The Pop Group and The Mafia, Jabulani Ngozi of Black Roots, Graf Artist Inkie, Ray Mighty of Smith and Mighty, Tricky, Neil Davidge, and members of Portishead, Lupine Howl and Alpha.
But central to this book is the unfolding story of Massive Attack, their art, their politics, their reflections on their own identity and the development of their astounding music that has been received and loved all over the world. The group’s creative driver Robert Del Naja is a key component of Chemam’s analysis and his account, through interviews conducted by the author and documentary sources, is the spine of this story. Together they for instance detailed the making of their groundbreaking album, Blue Lines, as well as the impact of their third album, Mezzanine. They also reviewed the coming of the band’s incredible collaborations, defining to their uniqueness, from Horace Andy and Elizabeth Frazer to Young Fathers and Adam Curtis
Robert Del Naja was also instrumental in developing the Bristol Graffiti scene, working early on, under the pseudonym of 3D, with Goldie and the U.S. Tats Crew and later with Inkie and Banksy. The story of Bristol’s graffiti scene is intimately linked to the art and vision of Massive Attack themselves and Chemam weaves the evolution of Bristol street art culture into the account with a researched empathetic knowledge and understanding of the scene.
Melissa Chemam, as a French Journalist and writer, gives an outsider’s account of this incredible band and the city they still live within. Her account and analysis, using Del Naja’s memory of this story, really gets to the roots of what the music and art scene in Bristol has been about and how it was the background for the development of the band until their recent show in Bristol in 2016. Massive Attack were always unlike any other band in their combination of emotive music, art, social commentary as well as very unique shows. They also had such a huge impact worldwide that it is hard to deny their influence in defining a very unique part of British culture through the past three decades.
Justice in Syria Must Go Beyond the Courtroom, ICTJ Says
NEW YORK, February 6, 2018 ― The war in Syria rages on as the most documented in history, with thousands of photos, videos, and testimonies circulating in the public sphere and countless more otherwise accessible. This information holds enormous potential: it could offer paths to justice for victims and their communities through acknowledgement, the fulfillment of their right to truth, and of course through criminal justice proceedings. However, if this wealth of information is to be properly leveraged, those fighting for justice should broaden their focus beyond the courtroom and take concrete actions now.
A new paper released today by the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) challenges the notion that criminal prosecution is the sole use for documentation of violations in Syria. The paper, titled “Justice for Syrian Victims Beyond Trials,” urges the international community, human rights groups and Syrian civil society organizations to use the tools at their disposal to pursue overlooked avenues towards justice. These include the search for the truth, public acknowledgement of violations, and laying the foundation for future truth-seeking and truth-telling processes or reparations process.
The paper grew out of ICTJ’s involvement with the Save Syrian Schools project, an unprecedented collaboration between ICTJ and ten Syrian partner organizations documenting the destruction of schools in the conflict and aiming to expose their impact and long-term harms. The project will host a public hearing-style event in Geneva on March 22 which will gather a global audience of activists, policy makers, international organizations, and more to hear the stories of those affected by the violations and affirm their dignity.
“The Save Syrian Schools project underlines the immediate utility of documentation,” says Fernando Travesí, ICTJ Executive Director and co-author of the paper. “Documentation does not have to be gathered solely for criminal proceedings that may or may not happen in the future. It can be used now to secure acknowledgement for victims and influence public dialogue about the war.”
Frustrated efforts by the international community
The paper examines the myriad commissions and mechanisms the international community has sought to use since the start of the war and how they have shaped the documentation process. These institutions, such as the International Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM) and the International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, seek to document alleged violations, identify perpetrators, and hold them to account – ends that then become overemphasized by information gathering efforts. The paper contends that these goals should not be the limit of activists’ imaginations, urging them to collect and use information with other accountability aims in mind.
"Progress towards criminal prosecution has been slow and may not always represent the most effective path to justice for Syrians," says Nousha Kabawat, co-autor of the report. "We must imagine forms of justice that lie beyond the confines of these mechanisms and do work to support an array of efforts now."
The paper points out that many Syrian organizations are currently pursuing such alternate paths towards justice. These efforts may foreground the importance of acknowledgement of the crimes as a first step to alleviate victims’ suffering and open the door for them to participate in other transitional justice processes, which their experiences and opinions can inform.
How can documentation be used towards justice?
Acknowledgment is also not a step that has to wait for the wheels of criminal justice mechanisms to grind forward, but can happen now and pressure the international community to stand against the attacks.
Beyond acknowledgement, documentation collected now can support justice efforts in a post-conflict Syria. Information should be collected and shared more effectively among Syrian and international groups as a way to start advancing processes that will be crucial for the Syrian future such as the search for the disappeared and answer questions about property and civil status.
“We must not wait for peace to start the search for the disappeared," Travesí says. "We can use documentation now to map and protect burial places, empower families, coordinate national and international work, and provide psychological support to victims and their families.”
The paper reflects ICTJ’s ongoing involvement in the Save Syrian Schools project. The project will also issue a report on its findings on March 22. Stay tuned for more.
Alors que les Etats-Unis sont en plein "Black History Month", l'Université Columbia à Paris organise cette conférence à la fin du mois :
"La Condition noire : Conversation française, conversation américaine"
Lundi, 26 février, 7pm
Columbia Global Centers
Reid Hall, Grande Salle
(4 rue de Chevreuse 75006 Paris)
Nous assistons à une intensification des tensions autour des questions dites raciales aux États-Unis et en France. Bien que des similarités puissent être constatées entre les deux situations, de profondes différences existent entre les séquelles du colonialisme français et la "binarité noir-blanc" aux États-Unis, née d’un passé douloureusement marqué par l'esclavagisme.
Cette table ronde s’inspirera de la question posée par W.E.B. Dubois dans les premières pages de son livre Les âmes du peuple noir : «Quel effet ça fait d'être un problème ? » C'est la question qui unit la diaspora mondiale et à travers laquelle se manifestent les variations locales. Dans un contexte de mondialisation rapide et de révolution technologique, comment distinguer, comprendre et traduire les subtilités des expériences singulières et des nuances culturelles ?
Cette table ronde a lieu à l’occasion de l’exposition « Black Dolls, la collection Deborah Neff » du 23 février au 20 mai à la Maison Rouge – Fondation Antoine de Galbert
Avec :
Patricia J. Williams est professeure de droit à Columbia University. Elle est également journaliste et signe une chronique mensuelle pour The Nation Magazine. En 2000, Williams a reçu le prix MacArthur pour son travail dans les domaines des droits de l'homme et de la sécurité humaine.
Pap Ndiaye est professeur des universités à l'Institut d'études politiques de Paris (histoire nord-américaine). Il est l'auteur de La condition noire. Essaisuruneminoritéfrançaise (Calmann-Lévy, 2008) et Les Noirs américains. En marche pour l'égalité (Gallimard "Découvertes", 2009).
Balla Fofana est diplômé d’un Master en communication politique de l’Université Paris-Est Créteil (UPEC) et du Centre de Formation Professionnelle pour Journalistes (CFPJ). Ancien membre du Bondy Blog, il a également été journaliste au service économie de TF1 de septembre 2014 à août 2016. Il est actuellement en poste chez Libération. Et travaille également depuis 2014 sur des projets de sensibilisation et d’éducation aux médias dans des lycées en région parisienne. Gratuit et ouvert au public
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