Having spent a significant part of his year in Angola visiting some of the local musicians and absorbing the local ‘kuduro’ style of music production, DJ Gregory has returned home not to his native France, but to Amsterdam. Here, he has nurtured an explosive production partnership with fellow Amsterdam-er Gregory Salto, and between them they have crafted some of the raw materials from Gregory’s trip to the African nation into some truly original records.
Their latest is Paris Luanda, featuring the vocals of The Serafim Crew; a group of working under musicians under the guidance of the highly influential Serafim Zacarias. We caught up with Gregory via email to find out a little more about them…
A lot of your recent productions have been inspired by your trip to Angola…is that true of ‘Paris Luanda’?
Yeah for sure. I spent quite some time in Luanda recording several Kuduro singers and Paris Luanda is some late night fun that the boys came up with; I was just a Frenchman lost in the music.
Tell us about The Serafim Crew…who are they?
Serafim Zacarias is a DJ and Kuduro producer from Luanda, and he was the one who made the whole trip possible as he allowed us access to the slum. The ‘crew’ are his closest friends in Barrio da Cuca- the area where he lives; three, young, crazy heads, barely 20 years old. I have also done some proper Kuduro stylin’ tracks with them. When I asked them what was the name of their crew they all looked at Serafim and he just said simply “We are Serafim”.
Tell us about the production process…where did this track start?
I wouldn’t call it a production process, but more a kind of travelling recording as the set-up had to be very light due to the conditions we were working and living in. As I’ve mentioned, track started after a heavy session with the boys, I got a beat rolling and they just jammed along. Back in Amsterdam I finished it off with Gregor [Salto] in his studio
Why do so many of your tracks contain ‘tribal’ elements? What is it about the style that excites you?
If you step back and look at all the Faya Combo release since 2002, you’ll see a common theme to create all kinds of different atmospheres, from ‘Tropical Soundclash’ through ‘Krusin’ and ‘Don’t Know Malendro’, ‘Solaris’ or ‘Elle’ you can tell that it’s about mixing moods and all kinds of different emotional points of view. Last year I was in Rio twice and was in Angola for quite a while; both countries with Portuguese language. I so much material to work on that is tribal oriented, even though the word ‘tribal’ is a little too basic for me.
The way I see it is that a lot of people working on all different kinds of music are focusing on these upcoming electronic music movements from countries that weren’t on the radar before. Local movements such as baile funk in Brazil and kuduro in Angola have been around for many, many years, but it’s only just starting to get the attention it deserves. House music seems to be returning to a raw sound, so it makes sense to me.
You had a starring role in Martin Solvieg’s ‘Hello’ video…how important is keeping a sense of humour in the music business? Do you think some people take themselves too seriously?
Actually it’s becoming more important every day. I just can’t take it seriously when someone puts so much effort into marketing before dropping a single note on a synth. I suppose that there’s a kind of pressure that makes a lot of people think they have to behave a certain way, but this is not true in my case at all.
You’re now living in Amsterdam and ADE is about to roll into town…is it an exciting time for the city? Where will you be hanging out?
Yes, very exciting, too much actually. Amsterdam is a small city so you can really feel when everybody starts focusing on it, which has been happening since August. I am so glad to see that once again there’s a real hang-out for the industry. I’m playing 3 days in a row so I’ll hang out in the daytime of course.
What are your plans for the rest of the year?
There’s a House Master compilation about to pop up with some DJ Gregory classic tracks, some new ones and some remixes. After that there are some remixes I’m doing with some friends from Amsterdam and beyond.
