Marseille (AFP)
"We were looking for lost feelings," says Sylvain Richard, aka 20syl, the leader of Hocus Pocus. Ten years after his last album "16 pieces", the collective rap Nantes has reformed for a season of concerts.
The visibly tired features of this "intense" summer tour, 20Syl, which occurred Saturday night at the Fiesta des Suds in Marseille, describes it as "a parenthesis" for all members of the collective, all taken by personal projects.
The idea of this "birthday" tour was born after a concert in Nantes by Hocus Pocus. During the first dates, 20Syl admits, "it was necessary to eliminate the whole cerebral part to keep the most organic and instinctive side, and really enjoy".
"It was a great reunion, between us and the audience, with truly magical moments on stage," says 20Syl, dressed in navy blue, jeans in a tight sweater, pink and turquoise sneakers on the feet. "The public, he has clearly taken 10 years!", He amuses himself. "They are a bit like us, a lot of them, I guess, have become parents so it changes the perspectives, it changes the pace of life, so necessarily it is a less dynamic public, less angry, but who like to find songs that he liked ".
Hocus Pocus, born in 1995, also discovered with "surprise" a young audience, "as if our songs were transmitted", and was able to conquer neophytes: "In Vendée we played in front of a very young public with Columbine (collective rap Rennes), it was surreal, it was not at all the same codes, "he says," but in the end there was an alchemy ".
- "+ Quit to love you +, it puts a blow" -
The 2019 tour sounds like a homecoming for the group, whose leading duet (20Syl and DJ Greem) has since become a champion of "turntablism" (note: using platinum and vinyls as musical instruments) with C2C (Coup de Crosse).
With Hocus Pocus, the six musicians - along with 20Syl and DJ Greem, Antoine Saint-Jean on drums, Mathieu Lelièvre on keyboard, Hervé Godard on bass and David Le Deunff on guitar - have found the essence of the collective: the lyrics of 20Syl, engaged but tinged with self-deprecation, and a jazzy instrumental, mingled with soul influences.
"There are songs that we interpret with a touch of humor that was not present at the time," smiles 20Syl, like "Hip-Hop", which he sang in 2005: "Hip-Hop! The huge diamonds on the lobes, Bullshit! The cups that have forgotten their dresses (...) I say that with our ridiculous styles, in 10 years we risk to start when we will get up with from hindsight ".
Other texts like "Quitte à t'aimer", which denounce racism and the rise of the extreme right in France, have not taken a wrinkle. "The text talks about the company of 2009 with very precise events and yet I have the impression to speak of today, it puts a blow", misses 20Syl.
Today more beatmaker than author, he does not write any more, and thus does not promise immediately on this tour: "I passed more to the composition and the production It blocks the creative process of Hocus Pocus because it revolves around my writing ... but we do not forbid anything ".
The forty-year-old does not feel "the need to write because the new generation is more cheeky than us, with rather radical party takes". "Something that would really connect me, as a producer, is to go get a Romeo Elvis or Lomepal and have them rapped with guys of my generation," he says.
Hocus Pocus will still perform on stage until December, in Le Havre, Grenoble, Bataclan in Paris and Nantes, to complete the loop.
© 2019 AFP