When his death at the age of 53 was announced on February 16, 2021, a wave of sympathy spread across the networks. France had lost its favorite Uncle. Even though she had neglected him during the last years of his life, she distributed his flowers to him. Those reserved for the first French artist from the reggae sphere to have entered so strongly into TV and radio broadcasts. A duet with Aznavour for “Taratata” here, an 8 p.m. newscast, appearances with Patrick Sébastien, Jacques Martin or Marc-Olivier Fogiel there.
Carried by hits like “Peuples du monde”, “Sûr et certain” (350,000 copies sold of the album “Allez them tell”, on which the title appeared) and “Chacun sa route”, theme song for “Un Allemand dans the city” (top 3 in the charts for this piece performed with Manu Katché and Geoffrey Oryema), Ray David Grammont, who we more simply called Tonton, or Vidda if we belonged to the world sound systems, flew very high in the Top 50 during the 1990s.
The People's Uncle
However, at the time of his death, the then Minister of Culture, Roselyne Bachelot, did not consider it useful to issue a press release to honor the memory of the native of Reunion.
The Niçois Alexandre Grondeau, university professor in Aix-Marseille, founder of the reference site reggae.fr and author of several documentaries and works devoted to this genre, wished “do justice to an important artist of French song” through “Uncle David – The prince of resourceful people” (editions La lune sur le roof).
“He was a good guy, with whom you wanted to become friends. When I met him in 1998, at the time of the creation of Reggae.fr, he was overflowing with anecdotes. He rubbed shoulders with the greatest musicians and had a thousand lives But he remained faithful to the popular environment from which he came. To prepare this book, I collected around a hundred testimonies and among his relatives, there were many anonymous people. supermarket, at the beach or at the bar”explains Alexandre Grondeau.
A not so clear road
While not spreading the private life of Uncle David too much in public, and in particular the link with his family, the author addresses certain little-known aspects of the artist's biography, such as his rough youth, not really “peace “.
“What touches me the most in his story is his human success. He was a poor kid, a thug who had gone through children's homes and served time in prison. He had incredible success, very fast. Then he got into trouble with the taxman And when the record companies dropped him, he fell back into poverty. There, he knew how to become resourceful again. He was all about horse racing. almost became a trifecta player professional. As a joke, he said he could have been a presenter on the Equidia channel.”
L’impossible come-back
Driven by positive intentions, Alexandre Grondeau also did not ignore the “bad sides” of the singer, not very good at smoothing corners with certain players in the music industry.
After a final burst of brilliance in 2005, (read elsewhere), Uncle David is coming off the radar of the majors. They no longer want him, convinced that the “product” is outdated and the man is unreliable. He also harbors a lot of resentment towards them. With the meager means at hand, sometimes boosted by a good bet on a victorious nag, Uncle David tries again and again to restart the machine. In his corner, always driven by the desire to remake himself, and the love of sound. Projects are born and take shape, as with Tyrone Downie, former keyboardist for Bob Marley with the Wailers, who lived with him for a time. But each time, a grain of sand or a burst of blood jams the machine.
-Théo, the eldest of Tonton's four children, is now working on the release of a posthumous album. “It’s an admirable work of filiation, it’s close to his heart. And when we saw the outpouring of emotion and solidarity at the death of Uncle (nearly 55,000 euros had been collected in a pot intended to finance his funeral and this album project), we say to ourselves that it will also be a great gift for the general public”believes Alexandre Grondeau.
When rap and reggae worked together
Before the release of his first album, “Le Blues des racailles” (1991), Uncle David stood out with “Peuples du monde”. In 1990, the song was included on the compilation “Rapattitude”, where we found Assassin, NTM and Dee Nasty. Rising hip-hop figures who rubbed shoulders with Daddy Yod and Saï Saï on this record produced by Labelle Noir, a Virgin label.
“At the time, rap and reggae had very strong interactions. Both musics were marginal, underground, with the same rebellious temperament, made by young people from the neighborhood, often of immigrant origins. And they also shared the culture sound systems”explains Alexandre Grondeau.
Until the beginning of the 2000s, the two genres were still close behind each other. Before rap went into overdrive, establishing itself as the most listened to music in France. “At one time, Skyrock tested ''Skyrock, first on reggae'' as a slogan. The feedback from listeners was very good, that from advertisers much less. The main messages in reggae are pan-Africanism, the struggle of the oppressed, the defense of the common people, or even the relationship with vegetarianism. To put it very quickly, the players in the rap ecosystem have been able to adapt more easily to consumer society and commercial capitalism.”
“No deception on the merchandise”
When you sold records and happily rubbed shoulders with showbiz like Uncle David, the risk of being considered a “sellout” by your original environment, that of conscious and underground reggae, was great. And there was no shortage of that.
“In the movement, there is a significant portion of people who considered that its artistic evolution was a compromise. Others thought that, on the contrary, it was a means of spreading reggae to the general public”explains Alexandre Grondeau.
And which camp does he fall into?
“I reread all his lyrics very precisely. And even in his biggest hits, there is no deception in the merchandise. His main quality was his incredible talent as a lyricist. For me, it He is one of the best of French song between the end of the 1980s and the 1990s. He managed to say very political things with words that touched people, on strong melodies. Few artists manage to do so. That.”
