Watcha Clan

ARTISTS

Watcha Clan

Watcha Clan (by Algo)
  • country:France
  • region:Jewish
  • style(s):
    • Electronic
    • Mediterranean
  • label:Piranha Records
  • type: Band, Composer/Songwriter
  • gender:male, female
  • instrumentation:instrumental, vocal

Coming from all sorts of ethnic, religious and musical backgrounds, this crossover outfit from Marseille is driven particularly by its unifying urge to melt it all into one – as in their posse’s real lives, so in their music. Being children of the 80s and 90s, they do so with lots of loops and breakbeats along with all kinds of musical roots in their mix. One love, one world, one sound!



Watcha Clan are true musical nomads! Their collective assumption is that of the musics of the world are being scattered around the globe continually – like the languages of the world when the tower of Babel was destroyed. As a result, the diaspora is always in the music just as the music is always in the diaspora – one big Radio Babel broadcasting all kinds of melting-pot sounds continually.

Always on the move, Watcha Clan singer Sista K’s family history is intimately entwined with her music. She is Ashkenazi Jew through her mother and Sephardic and Berber through her father, an Algerian independence fighter who was French before he was born – a 1870 decree gave French nationality to the Jewish population of Algeria. Sista K could have been born in the land of Israel, where her parents met, but instead saw the light of day in the shadow of Marseille’s Bonne Mère. “Back then,” she says, “in the northern quarters, no-one cared who was Jewish and who was Muslim. We all lived together.”

Those were the days; and those shall be the days again, including Catholics and atheists, too – that’s the quintessential message of Sista K and her brothers in musical crime: the future lies in faith in man and woman, brother- and sisterhood – that’s it. No walls between people – not in their nations, nor their sexes, their beliefs, their likings or needs.

A groovy soundtrack on top can’t hurt – as Watcha Clan have proven since their inception in 1999. They have always exhibited a visionary spiritual eclecticism in their sound, stretching from Gnawa trance and drum’n’bass to hip-hop, Balkan brass and Sephardi folk, with thriving bass-heavy pulsations and a solid dancefloor beat countered by Sista K’s show-stopping vocals.

Altruistic dealers in cultures and humanities, they juggle rhythms and languages to the beat of the memories they have, the people they meet and the places they see. From the Eastern European melodies that Karine’s mother sang to her when she was little; to the chaabi, the Algerian blues that Nassim, the “khouya” (brother) from Oran, introduced them to; to the hip-hop kick that appeals to Clem, the Clan’s music man and sampler extraordinaire.

It’s the soundtrack of freedom – the freedom of the individual as well as the freedom to commit yourself to your fellow kin!


Management & Booking


Manager & Main booking
Vai La Bott Recordings
Soupa Ju
phone +33(0)6 07 78 98 09
soupaju.watchaclan@free.fr

Line up

  • Matt Labesse (bass)
  • Nassim Kouti (vocals, guitar)
  • Sista K (vocals)
  • Soupa Ju (production & management)
  • Suprem Clem (sampling, programming, keyboards)

Links

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