Meet a rap legend from France: Aelpéacha. A former baseball player for PUC in France, he shares his relationship with music, baseball, and talks about his new projects.
BTVF: What kind of baseball career did you have?
Career is a big word, I played from 88 to 2003 and I won the last Division 1 French championship title with PUC in the year 2000. We had no foreigners, it was mostly French players, and in 2000 when we won, more than half the roster had been trained at the club.
BTVF: How do you define yourself as an artist and as a producer?
I’m actually an artisan, I do everything myself in my studio from A to Z: composition, writing, recording, mixing, and all the CD preparation. I produce my own concerts, so it’s really artisan work compared to the major music industry with huge budgets and big sales. I have a different economy, actually a self-managed one with merchandise like t-shirts, baseball tunics, or caps… here
BTVF: Several of your creations touch on the world of baseball, either through the title like Play ball, or through merchandise with baseball tunics. How do you associate these two domains: sport and music?
It’s mainly that everything we get comes from the United States. They have a common cultural foundation, so music and sports are linked. Over there, whether in rap or funk or anything else, the baseball cap is everywhere and it’s part of the world. So, it’s not a deliberate choice, it’s more of an Americanization of Europe and France. And it works well in France, even if the public doesn’t necessarily associate it with baseball. However, I always do a bit of advertising or allusion to baseball, but there’s no direct link between the two.
BTVF: Your texts are now imbued with maturity and responsibility (planet preservation) and esotericism: the work on the A, the solstices in the longest day, does this reflect a real desire to convey messages?
For the texts, to put it simply, I have a more Anglo-Saxon approach, even if it’s a bit paradoxical. That is, I dress the music with text, and for me, the text is there to highlight the music. Whereas in France, generally, the text is the alpha and omega of all the music. I’ve also been immersed in French chanson: Ferré, Barbara, so I love text, but I also like the text to revolve around the music.
Sometimes, I have certain ideas or concepts, and I start with the text, but I try to extract the text from the music. The performer will experience the words through the songs. It’s the melody and the rhythms that make the music interesting. It’s about feeling these emotions and vibrations when they are put to music. It’s like poetry, for example, which responds to very mathematical, very codified things, you have to know how to write it, but at the same time, there are some things in the text explanations that we don’t really know what the author wanted to say. Ultimately, a fuzzy area is useful because it allows the imagination of the person who listens to work. We don’t do something Cartesian, it’s not a political discourse, it’s music. And the text serves to make people’s imagination work. Engagement is not a primary intention, it can be deduced by someone who imagines it. When I did the track on global warming, in 2007, some people took it the wrong way and said that I was the first to destroy our planet, and others understood the defensive spirit.
BTVF: Do you plan to pick up the glove in a club again, or to volunteer more to coach?
I have two boys who play in the 9U league, so I coach the 9U team at PUC. However, it’s true that we want to pick up the bat from time to time. I feel nostalgic when I post photos of my old teams from the late 90s with players like Bertrand Maire or Samuel Reignier… I’m also preparing actions with Big Ball tournaments for families and players: here
BTVF: When can we expect a baseball anthem composed by you?
Well, back then we made a track with a Cuban player who played at PUC. We need to find the right angle. Actually, we should compose a song, but I don’t know if we really need to explicitly talk about the sport itself. We need music and then a video with baseball images.
BTVF: Big project with Stomy Bugsy and Driver coming up and other projects, can you tell us about them?
Yes, a date at La Maroquinerie with him in April, and I have two or three projects in the works that I’m finishing, so by September, everything will be out. Recently, I had 5 or 6 very quiet years, but after 15 years of very active production. So now, I’ve recharged the batteries and it’s starting again.
BTVF: What can we wish you for 2023?
Well, the maximum amount of time! Not to do things in the spontaneity of energy but also in a calm time and to take the time to refine. But not too much, because then everything becomes flat and on the other hand, we’re not in spontaneity and we do a lot of things that age poorly.
Photo credits: Alpeacha
