Alltta is the meeting between the electronic beat of 20syl (C2C and Hocus Pocus) and the supercharged flow of American rapper Mr. J. Medeiros (The Procussions). With their album The Upper Hand, the duo skims the stages at the controls of a resolutely modern and energetic hip-hop sound imbued with philosophical references.
The brilliant Sylvain Richard aka 20syl is back behind his turntables. After his collective projects of Hocus Pocus and C2C and a solo passage with his Ep Motifs I and II, here he is in tandem with the talented American rapper Mr. J. Medeiros, MC of The Procussions. Always imbued with a hip-hop sound with electronic accents of which only he has the recipe, 20syl boosts and gives body to his music by the energetic flow Mr. J. Medeiros whose stage performance electrifies the crowds. JustFocus caught up with the two acolytes at the Natural Games Extreme Sports and Music Festival. The opportunity to talk about their way of working together for this project but also to evoke for 20syl the future of Hocus Pocus and a long-awaited sequel for C2C.
How did the Alltta project come about?
20syl : It dates from our meeting in 2004-2005 when we were working on the album 73 Touches d'Hocus Pocus. On the occasion of the creation of this album, we were looking for guests and we had just recorded a feat with an English rapper called Ty who was in concert the same evening. Accompanying him before his concert, we came across his first part and it was the band The Procussions. We discovered them and took a monumental slap. They were based in Los Angeles, they were touring Europe at the time. The next day, they didn't have a gig so we invited them to the studio. We recorded the song Hip-Hop together and since then we've been friends. We always had the idea of doing a particular project.
Where does the name Alltta come from?
J. : I grew up in a bit of a religious atmosphere, so the Bible was an inspiration. Today, I'm not really religious but it's part of my life. In one of the texts that I have always found very poetic, it says that we were made "A Little Lower Than The Angels", and when I read that, and I lined up the letters together, ALLTTA, I found a very beautiful symmetry, something cool. I like that idea, and I looked for what Alltta meant. In some languages it also means "Upper", "higher". I found it really unique, and I enjoyed the coincidence. And when I talked to 20syl about it, he saw all the graphic aspects. It's one of those things that we stumble upon, and that grow with us. I think it also gave the color of the context of the album. It goes back to the duality I face, between appreciating and being inspired by faith, and loving science, logic, and reason; and the confrontation between these two things. It reflects the state of my country, the United States, where we are seeing the emergence of a real debate that raises the question of the position of States in relation to religion. It has been a long time since the France separated church and state. We are gradually entering it. So we all have an existential crisis, and I put that in the album.
How did you work and record together?
20syl: We worked in several stages. There was a time when we just exchanged music without really having a name or objectives of real projects. And then came a time when we had 3 or 4 songs that held the road and the desire to maybe release them. At first, it was more in Soundcloud mode. Having several songs, we wondered if they should not be released officially. At this time, J. proposed this name Alltta to me. For me it was the click, we really had to do something with it, I liked it graphically, I imagined what we were going to be able to develop. We have gathered about fifteen titles over time. First by working on our own and sending stuff to each other, then by meeting for two weeks in the studio together to finalize the recording and really evolve the songs.
What I feel during the live shows is that we are all here together, that we form a unity
How did you build your live?
J. : We started by trying to give what we had best, what we thought we could walk, which was obvious. And then we let the audience do the rest. I think the more shows we did, the more we started to see it. I don't like feeling like a performer, who will go on stage and do something for people, I don't like to feel watched… What I feel is that we are all here together, that we form a unity. When you start to see the energy flowing, to feel what works for people and for us, we were trying to keep the best… We need to do a number of shows to see that. I think we did our best for the first one, and for the next ones we moved forward, we got to know the audience better, to know ourselves better, and to see what works best.
20syl, you are a graphic designer at the base, how did you get the idea of this logo?
The logo forms Alltta. The idea is to create a rallying sign that can form the letters of the name. It started from a real delirium where I spent my days declining the name in many different forms in 3D and 2D, B&W, color, super organic, geometric, digital stuff. I was doing a lot to find a direction for the cover. Soon enough, there was this logo with the diamond. I thought it was going to be easily adaptable for live in terms of lights. We find this visual everywhere, it was a desire to have something strong graphically, very refined. Something readable and that gives momentum to the show without vampirizing J's performance.
20syl, is Alltta the evolution on stage of your projects called Motifs?
On Alltta, when we recorded the songs, we didn't necessarily have live as a goal, it was only after the fact that we realized that there was an energy base that was pretty cool to transpose to the live, which was not always necessarily the case in my solo songs. We tried to work on that, we did some tests and we also adapted the live action a lot and added a lot of stuff that is not in the album. And then J. does a lot of work as an MC to connect with the audience, which I can't do well on my own.
J.Medeiros, what's the difference between working with 20syl and The Procussions ?
J. : It's quite different actually. What brings us together with 20syl is that we like to work alone, most of the time. We like to be in our world, which is not the case for the majority of artists. I think many like to get together in one place and collaborate, which is fine, but on our side, most of the work is done alone. I think that's something we both appreciate.
What brings us together with 20syl is that we like to work alone, most of the time
And you 20syl with C2C?
20syl: We both like to take our time to develop the most specific aspects. We each try on our own to develop the smallest detail. It's something you have a hard time doing when you're in the studio in a community. You can not go to the end of a hyper personal delirium and to dig, you are forced to find yourself alone in your bubble and develop your thing, to take the time to do it. We gave ourselves the opportunity to do it, him on the lyrics, me on the music. Afterwards, we like to get together, work together and go into delusions, take us to things we had not planned but we also like to meet to put things down.
I think that each of us went to the end of his personal delirium while proposing things to the other
On C2C you had much more the delirium of finding yourself with four, each idea is worth the other and finally it's only a game of compromise. You are forced to put your ego aside, to accept each other's ideas even if you do not always agree 100%. You know it's a group delusion. On Alltta, we made somewhere two solo albums, juxtaposed that form one. Even if there is a real joint work, I think that each of us has gone to the end of his personal delirium while proposing things to the other, while giving indications to the other. I directed him a lot during the voice recordings by telling him to be a little higher, lower, if he was a little off. After I don't have much to say, he's one of the best MCs I've worked with, it's super fluid. Musically there is nothing to complain about, it is ultra technical and hyper musical. Vocally, he has a range that is able to go very far in the bass and treble. We can trust ourselves in our ability to do something solid.
What is the status of the Hocus Pocus and C2C projects?
Nothing closed on that side. It depends on the desires, the ideas. Hocus Pocus it's true that it relies a lot on my writing and it's something I practice less, so there are fewer pieces. C2C, we toured a lot, a lot happened so we took our foot off the gas a little. Everyone develops their own projects. We'll be back when the time is right.
A big project like C2C, it eats up a big part of your creative energy
After the international success of C2C, how do you move on to a new project?
It's true that when you come out of a project where you're four of you, always together, where every night you play the same set, you just want to do different things. For a while, I didn't make music, I did more graphic design, and then I started composing again, that's when the Ep Motifs arrived. I did a lot of remixing, it was a bit of a throwing side. Then we start building projects a little longer like Alltta. It's really a question of timing. A big project like C2C eats up a lot of your creative energy. I needed to do something radically different. And then, the desire comes back to do things in this spirit.
Is the C2C adventure tempting you again?
Over time I have ideas. When you do a project, sometimes, you do something and you tell yourself that it does not fit for this project but on the other hand it would work well for Hocus or C2C. So yes, there are ideas that are starting to come that could apply to one or the other. After, the guys are really busy, they turn each on their own. Atom is in the studio and working a lot. Pfel is going to release a solo EP, Grim has two or three different bands so it goes on.
