Mademoiselle Marseille (LP)

Description

To mark the 20th anniversary of the release of their first and iconic album "Mademoiselle Marseille", the label Manivette Records is offering a new vinyl edition. Mademoiselle Marseille, the first, and perhaps therefore the most personal, of Moussu T e lei Jovents' albums. Moussu T e lei Jovents formed around the personality of Moussu T, also known as Tatou. Born in 1959, this Marseillais author, composer, and performer's career is intertwined with that of Massilia Sound System, which he founded, but also more generally with the cultural revival in Marseille brought about by this group in the late 1980s. At the time, Moussu T wanted to create a repertoire at the crossroads of America and Africa, the Orient and the Caribbean, blending into local tradition to form a port folklore, reflecting a multicultural society. A repertoire linked not only to the mingling of peoples and the values of conviviality and tolerance carried by Occitan culture, but also to this world of port and saltwater, to this landscape of cranes and calanques – that of Marseille, of course, but also of La Ciotat, his hometown, where the carefree beaches rub shoulders with the vast shadow of closed shipyards, where the gentleness of the landscape mixes with the nostalgia of the industrial era, when the hard labor of metalworkers generated a strong sense of belonging, much like the miners of the North or Lorraine. It is this set of convergences and tensions, characteristic of Marseille and its surroundings, that we hear in Mademoiselle Marseille.