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.
Great memories from my short stay in Northern Ireland in November 2016.
On my way back, I tried to meet with someone who was dear to me. But he didn't want to see me. I accept now that he will actually never want to. And I move on.
And this reminds me of this song that I discovered thanks to Northern Irish artists.
Belfast, I hope I'll be able to come again soon!
Meanwhile, we'll always have the music...
Ciaran Lavery - 'New Partner', cover (Live)
Belfast / Northern Ireland - Redcap Productions
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Bonnie Prince Billy - 'New Partner' (Live) - Epicerie Moderne, Feyzin, France (2011/10/18)
There's a black tinted sunset with the prettiest of skies Lay back,lay back, rest your head on my thighs There is some awful action that just breathes from my hand Just breaths from a deed so exquisetly grand
And you are always on my mind And you are always on my mind And you are always on my mind And you are always on my mind
Well, I would not have moved if I knew you were here Its some special action with motives unclear Now you'll haunt me, you'll haunt me Till I've paid for what I've done It's a payment which precludes the having of fun
And you are always on my mind And you are always on my mind And you are always on my mind And you are always on my mind But hello, I've got a new partner riding with me I'v got a new partner, hello
Now the sun's fading faster, we're ready to go There's a skirt in the bedroom that's pleasantly low And the loons on the moor, the fish in the flow And my friends, my friends still will whisper hello We all know what we know, it's a hard swath to mow When you think like a hermit you forget what you know And you are always on my mind And you are always on my mind And you are always on my mind And you are always on my mind I've got a new partner, riding with me I've got a new partner, riding with me I've got a new partner, riding with me I've got a new partner now
Wells Tower (born April 14, 1973) is an American writer of short stories and non-fiction. In 2009 he published his first short story collection, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) to much critical acclaim. His short fiction has also been published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, McSweeney's, Vice, Harper's Magazine, A Public Space, Fence and other periodicals.
More on the Guardian:
Books to give you hope: Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower
In a time of bitter divisions, these inventive depictions of some very different struggles remind us of our common humanity – and the rude health of short fiction
And the song... What a wonderful homage. So much beauty. I love this track.
Ciaran Lavery - 'Wells Tower Song'
'Wells Tower Song' by Ciaran Lavery
And with that the season draws a close
My lips are stained with fair-thee-wells and alcohol
I know you closer than your name
Are we bound by luck?
Or the summer rain? I'll never know
Lassoed around the heart again
Let me go
Let me go
Locked out of the apartment
Taking pictures in the snow
Ooh, everything ravaged
Ooh, everything burned
Ooh, everything is damaged
Oh, everything earned
Someone turn up the radio
They're playing my song
They're playing my song
Remember nights out there in the saddle
It's like the sky collapsed
And it's exposed our every scar
Pulling hard on the reins again
Let me go
Let me go
Locked out of the apartment
You're just a figment in the snow
Ooh, everything ravaged
Ooh, everything burned
Ooh, everything is damaged
Oh, everything earned
Ooh, everything ravaged
Ooh, everything burned
Ooh, everything is damaged
Oh, everything earned
Tell it to me now
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"The award-winning singer-songwriter from Aghagallon in County Antrim, Ireland may be decorated at home by the Northern Ireland Music Prize (for his 2016 album 'Let Bad In') and might have totted up over 80 million streams on Spotify during his five year solo career, but it's the unrivalled knack he has for a poetic heart-stopping lyric that's set to earn him wider recognition as a treasured singer-songwriter."
Melissa Chemam is a French journalist who has been reporting on culture and international news since 2004. She has worked on four continents, for France 24, the BBC World Service, RFI (Radio France Internationale), and with the Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck. Since 2003, she has been based in Prague, Paris, Miami, London, Nairobi and Bangui.
To start off, how did you come to write this book? Is there anything specific to your life that sparked an interest in Bristol and Massive Attack?
Yes, there was a special event. In my work at France Culture radio station, in the summer 2014, I was covering the Middle East a lot, and I heard that the band members of Massive Attack were playing in Lebanon for the Byblos festival. I read that they were visiting Palestinian refugee camps to meet people they had been helping for years. And it was very moving because they were talking very directly about the responsibility of their own country, and how they wanted to raise awareness. It felt to me so genuine; I was touched by their will to help. I thought to myself ‘this is a beautiful story’: they could have just talked about it from England or on stage, but instead they were out there, in the camps, trying to build bridges.
So I kind of became obsessed with their story, and started reading articles about Bristol and how the band came about. At the same time, a friend of mine who is a music journalist, said ‘why don’t you stop going to war zones? Every time you come back you are so depressed…’ And I thought: ‘Yea! I’ll just start working on this Massive Attack project!’ I knew from the start that it would be difficult to get in touch with them, especially since they are not known to be media-friendly, and I had no contacts to go through a big organization. But I managed to get a meeting with 3D (Robert Del Naja), who was the person I most wanted to meet. 3D is for me the core member of the band, and also the most committed to the discourse beyond the music.
What sort of book did you set out to write? Did you see yourself as more of a cultural historian, or as a journalist?
I wanted to write a piece of cultural history, but you have to keep in mind that Massive Attack is still very contemporary. The band members are still quite young (Tricky just turned 50 but has the same energy as at 35). So I had to take the analysis of a historian on events that are still very close to us. That was exciting for me, but of course it's risky for a publisher. And since this was to be my first published book, I knew I wanted to keep a journalistic approach, because by going on-site and talking to people, it would be more appealing for a publisher; it wouldn’t just be me talking the whole time. So I went to Bristol and stayed there for a while, and I met a lot of people connected to Massive Attack I wouldn’t otherwise have known about – it was kind of like piecing together a family tree.
One of your central ideas seems to be that Massive Attack is the product of the unique history and cultural context of the city of Bristol. Can you briefly outline some of the main features?
The history of Bristol is not very talked about compared to other cities that shaped the British Empire, like Liverpool or Manchester. But Bristol was a huge port in the 18th century, and was one of the richest cities because it was the bridge between Great Britain and the Americas. And because of this connection, it also became one of the centers of the slave trade. Slaves from Africa passed through port cities like Bristol, Nantes and Bordeaux before going on to America (this is something that museums tend not to mention very much). Because of this unique context Bristol became one of the first places to call for the abolition of slavery, and this was probably the start of the rebellious, anti-establishment tradition still present today.
During the World Wars there was a huge influx of people from the Caribbean who were called to fight for the British Empire, and they brought new influences with them, and later the Windrush generation even brought Reggae. It’s a bit of the same history as South and West London (Brixton, Ladbroke Grove), except that in London it was diluted by a lot of other trends. But for Bristol, the Caribbean influence was much more concentrated, and you can see that in Massive Attack, for example in their collaboration with Horace Andy. In the 1980s there was a wave of rioting, notably in St Pauls (the Caribbean neighborhood) because the youth were getting harassed by the police. It was a classic case of discrimination: it was easy, and it reassured the public. All this gave Bristol a big underground culture made of DIY, punk energy, mixed with reggae influences and a strong political attitude.
All this is a bit underreported to my views, and I thought it would be fun to look into how Massive Attack made visible all of these influences. The band works as a focal point for all this history, some very negative but some very positive as well, because out of it came this incredible energy and creativity.
You mentioned already that Massive Attack is politically active, for example by raising awareness for Palestinian refugees. Are there any other political issues that they deal with, either through their music or through their activism?
People often didn’t really take their lyrics seriously at the beginning, because they made a joyful kind of rap. But I looked into the lyrics, for example in Blue Lines, and they are often talking about political issues, like the effect we are having on the environment. And this was in 1990, before it became an obsessive topic. They also deal with issues of integration and identity, picking up on Rastafarian themes present in reggae but in a very British way. In a song like Karmacoma, they talk about being British but also from somewhere else in a very joking way. 3D is half Italian and Tricky is half Jamaican, so these are issues relevant to them personally.
They became much more politically active after 2003, because 3D was very vocal in opposing the war in Iraq. At the time, most pop stars had nothing to do with politics so he was very alone in that movement. They really had to put themselves out there, and they did by putting on a show in 2003 completely centered around the Iraq war. They used screens to display information found in the news, a collection of headlines, facts photographs, and quotes aimed at raising awareness about the realities of the war.
Another explicitly political song is False Flags (Released on the ‘Collected’ compilation in 2006), which is about the riots in France in 2005. The lyrics deal with the direction that Europe is going, and how we missed a lot of changes that happened and still deny that they happened. This theme was picked up already, less obviously in a song like Eurochild . The lyrics of their songs, mostly written by 3D, can usually be interpreted in many different ways. It’s interesting because 3D was a big fan of punk music, which tends to have a very simple and direct message, but he writes in a very mysterious and literary way.
3D's Splitting the Atom, 2009
Massive Attack is so much more than their music, and part of it is a very strong visual aesthetic, rooted in street art. Could you tell us about the connection between these two forms of art, and how 3D in particular was an inspiration in the Bristol street art scene?
The early steps of the street art scene in West England are still relatively unknown. 3D was first and foremost a street artist - he was in fact the first to emerge from Bristol at 18. In the early 80s there was graffiti all over the place in Bristol, inspired by New York, because you had a lot of Jamaican kids who had their cousins there, and were aware of the new trends. But 3D used graffiti to make an artistic statement: he painted very large murals in specific venues, and became known under his pseudonym. Street art was very closely linked with the hip hop scene, and 3D started designing the flyers for some rappers. By 1983, he had emerged as one of the main figures of the Bristol street art scene. He was a hero at the time. In 1985, an art gallery in Bristol decided to have an exhibition about street art, centered on 3D (the first of its kind in the UK).
From there, he got into rapping. And it’s a bit of a magical thing, because he was doing flyers for hip hop events, and 3 months later he was the best rapper. It was a very competitive spirit, based on writing witty lyrics, and he became one of the best because he’s just very good with words. Graffiti also started as wording, so for 3D rapping was just a different way of expressing himself. This was the Thatcher era, so everybody was unemployed, and almost all the Massive Attack members actually met on the dole, collecting their checks as unemployed youths. So they were probably very driven, because they didn’t have many prospects, and art was all they had!
The universe that Massive Attack create through their music is often quite dark and unsettling - it doesn’t have a mainstream appeal. What is it about them that you think captures the imagination of a global audience 30 years later?
It was a mix of things, but mainly I think they were always very ahead of their time. Until Mezzanine, Grant Marshall used to say that all of their albums came out too early. They had already transitioned from rap to electronic music in the early 90s, when people were still making sense of trip hop. So that helps explain their longevity. They also had this way of disappearing for a few years, and then coming back with lots of noise, often in collaboration with famous artists from a variety of fields like Madonna, Tracey Thorn or Michel Gondry. I think this created an aura of mystery around them, which influenced someone like Banksy very much. It showed him that shying away from the public gave him much more power than trying to grab attention all the time.
Then there is something about the darkness in their music which for me is something very cathartic. It’s a way of talking about suffering, and turning it into something alive and beautiful, which is rooted in their soul influences. I think it’s a very universal feeling that people seek to experience through art. Why do we love Picasso’s Guernica so much? This trauma from the war turned into a painting gives us a feeling of relief: it’s finally out there and it's not just painful anymore. Massive Attack manage to give meaning to this darkness through their rhythms (like the heartbeats in Teardrop). Because the drums are so present in their music, it gives off an incredible energy, it becomes almost tribal.
Massive Attack will never be like generic pop stars. They don’t have that kind of mainstream appeal. But by managing to reinvent themselves time and time again, they become timeless. It’s the only band I own all the albums from, and I love them all equally.
Can you briefly talk about the process of turning the French book into an English version?
I got a deal with a French publisher easily, because of the appeal of the story, and because we have a wonderful publishing system in France that is probably more subsidized. But I thought it was also important to publish the book in the UK, so I tried to raise interest but this only had the opposite effect! British publishers don’t like to buy foreign rights, because they often fear to lose money, and I did not have an established record as an author. So instead I re-wrote the book in English myself, thankfully not from scratch because I had all my quotes in English, and had already written some English summaries. Eventually, I worked with a small, Bristol-based publisher called Tangent Books, who was delighted at the opportunity to work with Massive Attack. It keeps the project edgy and independent, and everyone is happy about that!
What are your next projects coming up?
I am working with Raoul Peck on his films, and I have a project to write another book about music, exploring its links with Africa. I also wrote a novel a few years ago, dealing with post-colonial issues, and am trying to get it published in France. For my next novel, I’m thinking of publishing it the UK or US.
A key moment in the history I retell with my book, a story of anti-establishment and enlightened artists.
You'll be able to read more in the 10th chapter of my book, Out of the Comfort Zone, which release was delayed unfortunately until September 2018.
In London, British people and foreigners demonstrated against the start of the war in Iraq, in February 2003. Many came from Bristol.
The war broke however. And we can see where it took us...
Listen and hear how it is still relevant for today! How it all led us to where we are now, with enflamed regions in the Middle-East and war-going leaders in the West.
Historical anti-war protest in London: 15 February 2003
Two million protested against war in Iraq in London on February 15, 2003, amid global demonstrations comprising the biggest protest event in world history. As Channel 4 News reported, the war was "historically unpopular" and the "mother of all focus groups" had descended on London to bring that fact home to Tony Blair.
London Peace March 2003 - Tariq Ali, Tony Benn, George Monbiot, Alan Cox, John Pilger
Thousands of anti-war protesters have marched through London in a demonstration against the military air strikes on Afghanistan. The CND-led march from Marble Arch to Trafalgar Square reflected growing concern in some quarters over the US-led bombardment, Police said about 20,000 people had taken part in Saturday's demonstration, which followed the sixth night of US air strikes. BBC say at least 750,000.
Anti-War Protest (2003)
Anti-war rally outside parliament attended by members of ruling party. Among them attending were Damon Albarn (Blur, Gorillaz, etc.) and Robert Del Naja (Massive Attack).
AP.
Damon Albarn on Tony Blair
From the interview talking about 'We Are Many' the documentary made about the 3 million strong march and demonstration in London against the second Gulf War in March 2003.
Credit goes to Channel 4 News who made this broadcast and uploaded to You Tube.
The US-led barrage shows just how little interest the global powers have in ending Syria’s ghastly war
‘Regional and global powers now exploit Syria for their own advantage and apportion out its territory for repeated bombing.’ Photograph: Giuseppe Lami/EPA
The bombing of Syrian government targets by the United States, Britain, and France is a disgraceful and ineffectual act masquerading as a noble gesture. Far from preventing a more vicious war, the bombing instead legitimizes the continuation of the conflict. In fact, what this barrage of weapons really reveals is how little interest the global powers have in ending Syria’s ghastly war.
Similar to the attacks on Syrian government targets that Donald Trump ordered just over a year ago, the airstrikes this time will not seriously damage Bashar al-Assad’s larger military capacity, nor are they intended to. Instead, we’re told that the western bombing campaign has specifically aimed munitions at locations where the storage and testing of chemical weapons occurs.
But wasn’t last year’s attack meant to put an end to Assad’s use of chemical weapons, and aren’t these the weapons that he was supposed to have destroyed under international auspices in 2014? At this rate, should we expect that an aerial bombing mission to finally and completely destroy Assad’s chemical weapons will be launched every April?
The question is ridiculous, of course, but so is the idea that this attack will accomplish anything beyond boosting the war-making egos of its protagonists and enabling Assad, his reprehensible regime, and his allies to complain of being the perpetual victims of western aggression. Beyond the bombast on both sides, Syria’s daily misery will continue.
These strikes mark the first timeTheresa May of Britain and Emmanuel Macron of France have committed their respective militaries into combat, and they have done so, according to May, “to protect innocent people in Syria from the horrific deaths and casualties caused by chemical weapons, but also because we cannot allow the erosion of the international norm that prevents the use of these weapons.”
May’s words might sound more intelligent than those of Donald Trump, who in his statement about the attacks told the American people: “Hopefully, someday we’ll get along with Russia and maybe even Iran, but maybe not.” But what May’s words really reveal is not the ethical reasoning of a head of state but the devastating lack of moral concern by the international community when it comes to the people of Syria.
The fact that three of the world’s most powerful militaries have now been mobilized into action, even for a limited campaign such as this one, to prevent “the erosion of the international norm” of using chemical weapons is far from comforting. Since the war began, Assad’s regime has engaged in the repeated and dreadful use of barrel bombs and mass starvation, the systematic torture of thousands of citizens and the laying siege to multiple cities, the killing of hundreds of thousands of people and the displacement of more than half the population. Yet, all of this horror does not seem to “erode an international norm” and certainly has not motivated these western leaders to any meaningful action to end the war.
On the contrary, regional and global powers now exploit Syria for their own advantage and apportion out its territory for repeated bombing. At this point, the country has been bombed by the Assad regime, the United States, Britain, France, Russia, Iran, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain, and the UAE.
Rather than limiting war, this latest bombing of Syria normalizes the war’s ongoing brutality. Forget the chemical weapons for a moment. The bombing of Syria by the western powers essentially and unconscionably establishes near total warfare on civilians as an acceptable “international norm.” Our politicians will wallow in their most recent action, calling the bombing a great success for our civilization. In fact, it’s much more akin to our demise.
Every response has turned wrong since the beginning of the civil war in Syria. Failure of diplomacy, failure of the UN. It's like Washington, London and Brussels watched from afar almost glad to see me destructions in the Middle East and now they want to look like the final heroes. Just hearing from Tony Blair is infuriating! It's been the same war since 2003. Since 2001 even. The same world war with no name. But in Europe and North America, citizens look the other way... - Just the facts now:
The US has launched military strikes alongside UK and French forces aimed at reducing Syrian regime’s chemical weapons facilities in the wake of last weekend’s gas attack on the Damascus suburb of Douma.
Moments after President Donald Trump finished his address on Friday night, reports emerged of explosions in Damascus at about 2am BST. A Pentagon briefing later confirmed three sites were hit: two in Damascus and one in Homs. The sites were all regarded as linked to the storage, or testing, of chemical weapons. Syrian air defences responded to the strikes but the US said it had suffered no losses in the initial airstrikes.
The scene in Damascus after strikes. Photograph: Hassan Ammar/AP
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has described the strikes as an “act of aggression” and said the attack would worsen the humanitarian crisis in Syria. Anatoly Antonov, the Russian ambassador to the US, said “such actions will not be left without consequences” and that Moscow was being threatened.
Syrian state TV has shown a video of Bashar al-Assad arriving at work on Saturday morning after the coalition strikes. Syria’s air defence systems intercepted 71 out of 103 cruise missiles fired as part of the US-led strikes, according to the Russian military. Russian air defence systems did not respond to the missiles, it added.
Trump said the attack in Douma a week ago represented “a significant escalation in a pattern of chemical weapons use” by the Assad regime, adding: “We are prepared to sustain this response until the Syrian regime stops its use of prohibited chemical agents.”
'A strong deterrent': Trump announces strikes on Syria – video
The British prime minister, Theresa May, said she authorised targeted strikes to “degrade the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons capability and deter their use”. Taking a swipe at Russia, she said: “We cannot allow the use of chemical weapons to become normalised – within Syria, on the streets of the UK, or anywhere else in our world. We would have preferred an alternative path. But on this occasion there is none.”
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – a staunch ally of Bashar al-Assad – has condemned the US-led airstrikes, describing the leaders of France, the UK and the US as “criminals”.
Turkey welcomed the attack, describing the raids as an “appropriate response” to the use of chemical weapons in Douma last Saturday.
The US defence secretary, James Mattis, said the US, UK and France had taken “decisive action” against Syria’s chemical weapon infrastructure and did not rule out further strikes. “Clearly the Assad regime did not get the message” last time, he said, referring to the response to the Ghouta chemical attack in 2017. He said the allies had “gone to great length to avoid civil and foreign casualties”.
The UK’s Ministry of Defence said four Tornado jets flew from Cyprus as part of the strikes on Homs.
French defence ministry sources have said France fired 12 missiles from fighter jets and frigates as part of the coordinated air and sea raids.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime posed an “immediate danger for the Syrian people and our collective security”.
The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has called the airstrikes “legally questionable” and said May should have sought prior parliamentary approval.
The Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg has issued his support for strikes. The organisation’s main political decision-making body, the North Atlantic Council, was due to hold a meeting to discuss the developments on Saturday afternoon.
The European Union and Canada have backed the strikes. The EU commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, said those who rely on chemical warfare must be held to account.
Hezbollah, which fights in support of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, said the US-led strikes “will not realise” America’s goals.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has called for calm, urging “all member states to show restraint in these dangerous circumstances”.
Welcomed by some as ‘Sons of Empire.’ Vilified by those spreading fears of a ‘black invasion.’ 70 years since the Empire Windrush carried hundreds of migrants to London, hear the Caribbean voices behind the 1940s headlines. Why did people come? What did they leave behind? And how did they shape Britain?
Learn about the Jamaican feminist poet Una Marson, who became the first black woman employed by the BBC. Read Trinidadian J J Thomas’s scathing rebuttal of English colonialism. See the manuscripts of Andrea Levy’s novel Small Island and Benjamin Zephaniah's poem What Stephen Lawrence Has Taught Us. And listen to the sounds of the Caribbean, from jazz and calypso to the speeches of Marcus Garvey and personal reflections from some of the first Caribbean nurses to join the NHS.
Enslavement. Colonialism. Rebellion.
Revisit 1948 and explore how the Windrush story is much more than the dawn of British multiculturalism it has come to represent.
Image: Some of the first migrants from Jamaica arrive at Tilbury on board the Empire Windrush 22 June 1948
British Trade in Black Labour: The Windrush Middle Passage
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Keynote lecture by Professor Sir Hilary Beckles
After World War Two Caribbean people re-crossed the Atlantic Ocean, this time not as chattel slaves but in response to the push of colonial oppression and exploitation, and the demand for their labour in the UK. Professor Sir Hilary Beckles examines the circumstances which lead to this ‘second Middle Passage’ in this keynote lecture.
Historian Hilary Beckles is Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies (UWI). Born in Barbados, he received his higher education in the UK and has lectured extensively in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas. Professor Beckles has written widely on Caribbean economic history, cricket history and culture, and higher education. The author of more than 10academic books he also serves on the editorial boards of several academic journals. He is also the founder and Director of the CLR James Centre for Cricket Research, and a former member of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB).
Sponsored by the Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library
Image: The Empire Windrush by Royal Navy official photographer, via Wikimedia Commons
Details:
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Knowledge Centre The British Library 96 Euston Road London NW1 2DB
Full Price: £12.00 Member: £8.00 Senior 60+: £10.00 Student: £8.00 Registered Unemployed: £8.00 Under 18: £8.00 Friend of the British Library: £8.00
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