This guy is a beast like a komodo dragon is a beast. 1/4th of the parisian hip-hop pop/dance/everything sensation known as TTC, Tekitek has indeed ran the gamut in regards to the entertainment world and everything that surrounds it. On his journey to be the “the coolest kid”, his group dropped 3 banging full lengths on Big Dada (with the 3rd licensed to V2) while their producers Para One and Tacteel quietly took the dance world by storm as cornerstones of their in-house label Institubes. Fast forward 6 years and dance music is the new beat of the street and this dude’s whole crew is on the forefront of it! He even dropped a solo pop record on Capitol for good measure. Always on to the next one, he and DJ Orgasmic (another TTC member and cold club deejay in his own right) started a sub-label named Sound Pellegrino in order to…. Man, just read the interview yourself since it’s a great read and will explain lots to the layman about Le Mec’s modus operandi. Thanks again for everything throughout the years….
1. in the new decade, you are at the forefront of what appears to be a new music front going on in the parisian dance scene. what are sound pellegrino’s goals (if any) in the new year, amidst all the free downloads and oversaturation of new artists in every genre?
>no particular goals except continuing to be an exciting outlet for house producers with a tendency to think out of the box while maintaining a certain danceability in their music. It’s great being free to release stuff by a different producer every month, and while we don’t want to get into the whole “artist development” aspect of things, it’s lovely to watch the seeds we planted grow beautifully, and sound pellegrino - affiliated artists become super bankable/sought-after DJs-producers-remixers. I think 2010 will definitely see the release of a “physical” compilation, even maybe compilations, showcasing our sound to a wider audience with more conventional record-buying habits.
2. why did you and orgasmic decide to make a new sub-label, it seems like institubes is more successful these days than ever before! where does institubes end and sound pellegrino begin?
>We always had a very Wu Tang approach of the music industry, Institubes is the mothership, and it now has several sublabels, Stunts for the rap thing, Unsunned for the weird pop thing, and soundpellegrino is more of a little brother label, using institubes promo tools and distribution network, but with a different kind of strategy as well as a different sound. Institubes strategy would be to take a relatively unknown artist and develop him/her, building a buzz, putting out several singles or mixtapes leading to one or many albums. Sound Pellegrino is all about house maxi-singles released on digital platforms only (enabling us to cut short the delays between the production and the release) every month or so, with a different artist each time. It’s a collection, each release has a semi-generic artwork handled by Ill Studio. There is a certain connection between the artists, the remixers and the sound, from one release to another. It all started with orgasmic and i getting the feeling that a new sound was building itself on the ruins of hard distorted french house, inspired by the minimal techno thing, but without too much of the dullness and seriousness that goes with it. Music with a certain will to go back to the basics of House, while taking it to another level as well as looking at tropical / african dance music for inspiration. Now this new “sound” is very vague and it’s a big melting pot of multiple scenes that often go opposite ways. We love making the connection between artists that have nothing to do with each other at first listen, and Sound Pellegrino is more about exploring new sonic territories than following one single “sound”.
3. when I first met you in 2004, your group was the toast of the town, you were on big dada and surface to air was still an underground boutique. now that you and your group have both been to the mountaintop and back, (TTC’s last record was on V2 and Teki did a solo record for Capitol) do you have any advice for the young folks next in line to do what you just did?
>I still don’t think i have enough experience to give that kind of advice, and the music industry of nowadays is so unstable, it’s like a constantly morphing monster trying to change its aspect all the time in order to survive, it would be foolish to think there is one way to “make it”. Some choose the independent way, other choose the major label way and it doesn’t necessarily mean that they have “sold their soul”. And nowadays it’s really hard for everybody on both sides of the fence. If there is one rule that i would suggest to follow, it’s “always reinvent yourself”. If you want to stay relevant, you have to put everything in jeopardy and reinvent yourself all the time and not be afraid to start everything from scratch. 5 years ago i was a rapper touring the world with 5 dudes in a van, then in 2007 i was a wannabe pop star appearing on every talk show to tell people how i firmly believe that aphex twin and britney spears are the same music, and now i’m a DJ running a house music label and collaborating on clothing lines with japanese designers. And i’ve done all of these things with the same passion.
4. in 2010, it seems like the main topic of debate is the free download. being a dude who existed pre-internet hype, what are your views on it? necessary? good or bad for the community?
>is it really a topic of debate? i don’t have an opinion. Now that i’m very involved in the label things and i can follow the sales of every release on a day to day basis, i have noticed that it’s really very difficult to tell in what way free downloads hurt sales when it comes to such “niche” genres as the things we put out on sound pellegrino. Some of our most blogged tracks are also one of our best selling tracks, so giving out free mp”s on blogs are definitely a very useful promo tool. But with some artists who have an image tightly associated with blogs and free downloads, it’s really obviously harder to sell mp3s on beatport. I found out that an artist’s image is a very important parameter. You have “blog artists” on one side and “beatport artists” on the other, and then you have artists who do better on different digital platforms than beatport too. Bringing these ingredients together in a smart way through remixes and collaborations is the right strategy for a solid release.
5. you have also taken recent steps in the boutique fashion industry with your new japanese line, while this doesn’t surprise me or any reader in the least, is this a new direction for you? like Tes-1 once said in passing “you can’t download a shirt”,
do you share this sentiment?
>When i started working on my collaboration with Phenomenon i didn’t think “oh nobody wants to pay for music anymore, i’m gonna make tee shirts”. That thing is so limited and costly (mainly because its made in - and shipped from- japan) that i don’t expect to make tons of money out of it. The idea behind it is more of a global will to keep things exciting for me, and to establish myself as a curator not only in music but also in fashion, and maybe in art in general? The goal is not to sell plenty of clothes but rather to raise my profile in the fashion industry as well as in the music industry by making me a “globally cool dude who knows what’s up in every aspect of things”, cause all bragging aside, i really believe that’s what i am.
6. since your big dada debut (with the kid acne artwork), your group basically had a personality makeover. while you obviously gained fans, I imagine you lost a few “core” supporters along the way. did you guys ever think twice during the last 2-3 years and question your new direction and it’s potential reaction?
>Never, we keep going forward and the “core” supporters we lose don’t really matter. We always thought some of them would come back when they see the bigger picture and analyse TTC’s career as a whole, and we didn’t really relate to the nerdy crusty hater types who turn their back on every artist they like once they become successful/ stop making music for 10 people and start making stuff everybody can relate to. We always had the feeling we were doing the right thing at the time when we were doing it. We have a tendency to hate on our own material once it gets old and dated but it’s less and less the case so i guess it’s a sign we might actually be bettering ourselves (approaching perfection?)
7. what do you think the new year holds for music as a whole? will the industry collapse in the middle of the night? are there concentration camps being built for illegal downloaders as we speak? will jesus come back as a free download? what do you think?
>I think all sorts of pessimistic things about the record industry. But recently a friend of mine reported that a very notorious dj/label owner said something really nice about us. In substance he said that for an underground dance music label 2010 was all about releasing digital with the same love as one would release vinyl, calling it “the Sound Pellegrino way”. It made me feel all warm inside and pretty confident about the future.
(check out sound pellegrino and get what ever they’ve got coming to you…)
