IAM, the legendary rap group from Marseilles, have recently embarked upon a tour of the United States. On the occasion of their first date in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Akhenaton agreed to grant us an interview.
Why did you choose to do this tour in the United States?We changed turner last year rather abruptly and signed with the American turner "Live Nation". At that time, we were offered directly to come and do this tour in the United States. In fact, we should have done it in 1998 but we cancelled it because we were exhausted after the long tour of L'école du Micro d'argent. So we're doing some kind of makeup session, 16 years later. And, for us, it's pretty logical to be there because we've always been lulled by American rap
Do you love the United States?
We couldn't wait to come. Really, I do. I, for one, have family who's from New York, Brooklyn exactly, so I'm familiar with it. But when we come here it's mostly to take a kind of breath of inspiration. It reminds us of when we were teenagers because we used to come to New York a lot at that time. There are albums like Ombres et lumières for which we had the chance to stay four months in New York, it was great. And even when we came to record Arts Martiens three years ago, we experienced the same magic. We like this country because it's very rich musically
You recently released a solo album, Je suis en vie, why this title?
Sometimes we don't realize what the value of life is. And you have to lose people who are very important to you to realize how lucky you are to be alive, or you have to be in danger yourself... I had the misfortune of having one of my parents who was very ill and this person dear to my heart has a life force that surpasses all else. It's a great life lesson
So I made a visceral album around that theme. In April, I didn't know I was going to record an album that I finished at the end of August, it was done in a very short time and so it's in the line of Métèque et mat or Sol Invictus, it's very introspective.
Acknowledgements : Thanks to Franck Bondrille from Entourage Entertainment Corp for his professionalism and the setting up of this interview
