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Manouche who play like Django. But then I get to know the Gyp-
sies in Perpignan well and they play the rumba Catalana, the mix-
ing of flamenco and rumba, and really this spoke to me.”
“When I first started out playing music I had no dream of
being a professional. I just loved to play as it allowed me to
express the feelings in my heart. Then people would say ‘We liked
that, play it again’, so something I played from my heart touched
them, so I began to see that my role in life was to play for people. I
need music like I need water, like I need sun, like I need food. I
need music for life.”
“When I started out in the 1970s there was not this thing
called ‘world music’ and it was very difficult. The people from the
music business did not understand. Back then rai was not popular,
everything was pop and rock and jazz and what the music industry
knew, but at the beginning of the 1980s this began to change,
things began to open up and what had been a problem now
became an advantage.”
“Not many people were doing the mix of Arabic and Gypsy
that I was doing. I never thought of this as a career move but more
like falling in love, a mystery, something I can’t explain. I don’t
want people to think I chose this to try and be exotic, no, this is the
story of my life, music is the mirror of my life.”
obin began recording in the 1980s, his music finally
R
winning a broad audience with 1993’s Gitans (Naïve).
Since then he has regularly recorded with a variety of
ensembles, always intent on pursuing his singular
vision whilst collaborating with Breton guitarists, Yid-
dish accordeonists, Turkish and Kurdish percussionists, Rajasthani
tabla players and dancers, French jazz musicians and more. I pur-
chased his 1998 album Kali Gadji (Auvidis) after seeing him at the
Barbican and was surprised by its heavy brass, while enjoying the
song Swing Wassoulou which finds him celebrating Malian diva
Oumou Sangare. Yet when I suggest that he’s pioneered an
organic musical fusion of sorts he denies it.
“I don’t think my music is fusion, it is my life. Also, I don’t try and
play bits of music from Japan or South Africa. My sound is rooted in
the Mediterranean and before all these national borders were fixed
there was a very strong Mediterranean culture. The Indians travelled
through Central Asia to the Mediterranean. This is my heritage. OK,
for many centuries people forgot about this, but when you listen to
flamenco you can find the connection of the Mediterranean to
North India. So I don’t take from this place and that place.”
One could argue that Titi is the spiritual forefather of Manu
Chao and Ojos De Brujo. What, I wondered, did he make of these
eclectic roots mash-up artists? “If the people are sincere in doing
their music, if they respect the culture they are taking the music
from, then they will learn more than style, they will learn expres-
sion. If you come up only learning tradition – as in India where chil-
dren may learn the classical style as their father and grandfather
play – then it is difficult to find your own personal style. So I don’t
think there is only one way.”
Titi’s latest release (he’s also recently composed the sound-
tracks to two French films) is the extremely ambitious double CD
Kali Sultana (Naïve). While I find moments of great beauty on it,
much of this epic album loses me in an ambient desert blues that
soaks every note in reverb. Titi is, understandably, proud of Kali
Sultana and explains how in France they tour it as a nine-piece
with violin and cello.
“It is one piece of music that needed to be spread across two
CDs, but when we perform it in concert, the show is two hours
non-stop – like a symphony, a movie. I explain to the audience,
don’t be upset if we don’t stop but this is one piece of music. It’s a
story of trying to find this black queen. It is the story of the woman
from childhood. We have nine of us on stage with cellos and vio-
lins, and while we improvise, the cellos and violins read the music.
If the music is naked then they provide a coat of sorts to keep us
warm. I’ve been thinking on this project for a long time and it
took me two years to create it. I’m very proud of it.”
For newcomers to Titi I would suggest starting with the dou-
ble CD compilation Alezane (Naïve) which covers his music-making
from 1993-2004, giving a good idea of his sonic adventures, and
Jivula (Naïve) which includes a live CD and a brilliant DVD package
with five different documentaries. The best of these are two road
movies: the first follows Titi to Andalucia where he pays tribute to
the late flamenco icon Camaron de la Isla, the second finds him in
Rajasthan working with celebrated dancer Gulabi Sapera.
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