“It’s not because you’re disabled that you can’t experience happiness,” Émile Cullin once said to his grandfather. This is a bit of the inspiration for the new album Handicap Bonheur designed by Zachary Richard and his grandson. A song of love and hope for all those who live with a difference.
Twelve years after making the album, J’aime la vie, with his grandson who lives in the Burgundy region of France, Zachary Richard does it again by collaborating musically again with the young man aged in his twenties. The idea came from Émile, mentions the illustrious Louisiana singer-songwriter.
“One day, we were walking in Montsouris park in Paris and we decided that we were finally going to embark on a project again. It took I don’t know how long, probably two years before I picked it up [les chansons].»
Creation happened naturally and organically, often at a distance. All the ideas for the songs come from his grandson who contributed to each stage of creation and production.
“He is the genesis of the song and then I am there a bit as an assistant scribe to reshape things and then render them in a more classic form. We recorded in Montreal for the most part, also in Louisiana,” said the artist, whose grandson has always been a great source of inspiration, in an interview. Moreover, Zachary Richard spends more and more time in France.
“I watch him do it every day. He has a neuromotor disability, so he’s not stupid, he’s not demented, he’s just very slow in his joints and to see him struggle with everyday life is really a lesson in courage in a way because well , able-bodied people, I think we have a lot of difficulty imagining what daily life is like for disabled people.”
Produced in an inclusive cultural dynamic with the idea of putting forward a society serving the most disadvantaged, this collection of eight original songs aims to raise awareness of the concerns faced by people with disabilities on a daily basis.
Public transportation is one of the favorite themes of this album. Zachary Richard says his grandson loves the subway and buses. A few songs deal directly with the plight of people with disabilities.
“One day, Émile said to me “I want to write an open letter to the minister who deals with the disabled”, so I said to him what do you mean.” Thus was born the song Un, deux.
The album’s title track highlights two terms that are rarely associated.
« […] It’s a way of creating a kind of short circuit of understanding for the listener, for those who participate in this project, and precisely to emphasize a little on the notion that it is not because “We are handicapped and cannot experience happiness.”
-Dancing rhythms
An album with danceable tunes tinged with funk, hip-hop, reggae and world music, Handicap Bonheur has something very luminous about it. It’s also a sound that’s a little different from the Daniel Lanois-style folk-rock to which Zachary Richard invites us from Cap Enragé.
“If we go back to the albums of my debut, Allons Danser, Vent d’été, I have always been a bit of the black sheep of Louisiana music to the extent that I had no stylistic restraint and then that I was going a bit playing in everyone’s sandboxes which pissed off the purists to my great happiness, but I am very touched by hip-hop, by reggae, by funk which are music which are not far from my experience musical Louisiana.”
It’s a bit of a special project, since there won’t necessarily be a tour to follow. Zachary Richard instead partnered with the Philou Center in Montreal, which has been providing support and development services to children with multiple disabilities and their families for 20 years. The album launch takes place on Thursday at this center. Royalties will be paid to this organization.
“The main goal is to give hope to the disabled and quite simply by proving that being disabled, you can still carry out projects. […] We were in an interview this morning and Emile said that it was difficult for him to see people in wheelchairs in the street because people often look at them with a certain disdain or contempt.
So, it’s important, I think to understand that every human being has feelings and then to be able to put yourself in the shoes of someone who has difficulty tying their shoes, I think that’s a good lesson of life for all of us.”
Musicians and singers from various backgrounds such as Montreal hip-hop artist of Haitian origin, Emrical, and a choir collaborated on this album. A collaborative project, a bit like any other collaboration with another artist, underlines the Louisiana native.
“Émile is still, I would say, the light and the soul of the project.”
Zachary Richard has started writing a second novel, which could take several more years, if the writing of his first novel The Gusts of Lent is anything to go by. He will publish a collection of poetry this fall. Even if the year will be devoted to writing, he is not neglecting the stage, planning shows in Canada and at the international jazz festival in Louisiana.
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