Ouanani

"It's true that we were beaten, basically by what? By money, and the ethnic vote... ". This is Jacques Parizeau’s famous sentence, used here as an introduction to this new world where the atmosphere is dramatic and the ambience is both electronic and African. Samples of Parizeau’s “Vote etnik” and Québec dialogue with one another. A voice rises singing in French with a Senegalese accent saying "I demand my papers!" .

A kora comes in and Wolof choirs answer on a mix that becomes great dance music. Percussions revv up their intensity. We are thrown in a world where it’s possible to dream that such a piece could become the very first ethnically hybrid québécois pop hit. After all, their song “Lac Saint-Jeanpignon magik”, a formidable raggabékois, a Québec style ragga to Quebec was the hit of the summer across Lac St-Jean two years ago.

In this time of questioning about national identity and the status of immigration, the band makes a clear stand by calling itself a practitioner of unrestrained cultural diversity and a singing ambassador of multiple identities. Their goal is to fusion Quebec, Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America. Their motto: To be a “multietnik"," electro organik "," tropicalboréal" band and and vice-versa.

Multicultural? Intercultural? It’s no longer a question for them and members of Ouanani play their music as they live. Their Quebec includes every languages and every accents. If we french more in the recording, it’s to better make it converse, play and interact with the Wolof, the Khassonké, Haitian Creole and Spanish also heard on the album.

However, this album, no matter how ethnically loaded it may be, represents Québec deeply and completely. Ouanani pens its lyrics and mix them as much as it does its music. Excerpts from Gaston Miron’s “L’Homme rapaillé” are embellished by El Hadj Diouf speaking in Wolof and french words are followed by something in Spanish akin to "The Northern man is dead. Is it the cold that killed him? " sung by Yousy Barbara Ruiz in “Mon âme est une arme blanche” (My soul is a knife), a magnificently sad song which focuses on suicide.

But members of Ouanani can also be funny, alive and irreverent. And, proof of how they can be natural with one another, they know how to play with the fine line that sets sexual clichés apart from humor. They can render the works of St. Matthew in Gregorian or reggae style, poke fun on a falsely simplistic song, assume different role-playing identities while capturing themselves in real life and appear to be a tribe made of several voices at the same time.

Musically speaking, all of Québec’s new trends are represented here: From traditional music to samba and electro, from light Latin to minimalist electro with spikes of dub and typical French chansons, layers of percussion, wild rhythms and some weeping sounds .. . This disc is so much in tune with reality that it is allowed to dream. If Ouanani deals its cards well, it could become a major band on the market all categories set aside.
- Yves Bernard, Le Devoir

Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and tighly knit Quebec joined together in the one and the same "funky cocktail”. Welcome to the multiethnic world of Jean Arsenault and Ouanani!

A pinch of ragga here, two tablespoons of rigodon there, three cups of Senegalese music, two servings of Latino grooves, add a large helping of delirious dreams and a nice dose of salacious humor and electronic rhythms. Let sit for a while and then, mix in a large “pure laine” Québécois style blender, enjoy and dance!

Pretty hard to imagine a more urban and tribal Montreal recipe than that and it’s all made of local and international spices.

Yet, none of the members of Ouanani, who launched its first album this week (“Vote Etnik” on the independent Ouaoua label), were born in Montreal. The singer and founder of the concept, Jean Arsenault, is from Lac-Saint-Jean. His percussionist, Sadio Sissokho, comes from Senegal and the other musicians are from the Ivory Coast, Mozambique and Abitibi without forgetting to mention the Haitian and Cuban singers who appear here and there on the album. "We’re all economical refugees," says Arsenault, smiling.

Their different nationalities, it goes without saying, forged the sound and style of this inclusive multicolored bunch.

"This hybrid ethnic fusion is really the key of our group, explains singer-songwriter Jean Arsenault who is also an inveterate dancer and backpacker who has travelled just about everywhere. “And so is convergence taken within the context of Sakharov. The idea, ultimately, is to take the best of each culture to create a brand new one. "

The fact that Andrei Sakharov is one of the fathers of the Soviet atomic bomb does not put off Arsenault as the man was also a great humanist, who had interesting theories. Yet they had to be recovered by artists, dreamers and life enthusiasts such as this Alma born jack of all trades who was a great friend of Dédé Fortin and one of the first ambassadors of the South African Gumboot dance style in Quebec and who is also the nephew of beloved Québec singer Angèle Arsenault (!!).


It goes without saying that Jean Arsenault uses music to promote the idea of a new Quebec built on harmonious blends. The title of Ouanani’s first album “Vote Etnik” represents a response to Jacques Parizeau’s famous abdication speech at the end of the 1995 referendum. "To him, ethnic represents the Other, the foreigner," says Jean. “To me, the Other must be integrated. Otherwise, our society will not survive as a healthy and fertile one…"

But he doesn’t make a big deal out of it. Cool by nature, Jean Arsenault is a practitioner of the “live and let live” philosophy. It is up to each and everyone to accept or to refuse his poly-ethnic proposal. "Ouanani is only a way to get there says he, it’s our cup of tea and I do not wish to be the loud voice advocating ethnic fusion at all costs. I’m only saying that crossbreeding here in Quebec can be achieved with something other than American music. "

The friend of the Coloc

In these times of great thinking about an intercultural Quebec, Ouanani could not be more topical.

It’s been a while since Jean Arsenault has been exploring the many avenues of La Sono Mondiale as this percussion fanatic has travelled the globe since the 80’s in search of what he calls the "philosophal groove.

His trips led him to Cuba, Brazil, West Africa and Morocco. In the early 2000’s, he left for a long Brazilian trek with his compatriot and long-time friend, the sadly missed Dédé Fortin, founder of Les Colocs, one of Québec’s most popular bands of the ‘90’s. Dédé came back soaked with tropical rhythms and John returned full of new ideas for his Gumboots troupe which had made a big impression at the 1994 ADISQ Awards ceremony during a performance they did with Les Colocs. For the record, it was Jean who introduced the Diouf brothers to Dédé a few years later. A meeting which proved to be decisive for Les Colocs at the time of the “Dehors Novembre” event.

During all this time the concept of Ouanani was taking shape in Jean’s head and between two backpacking trips he composed, wrote, recruited musicians and started recording the album in January 2006. "I thought it would take two months or so” says he breathlessly, “Well, it took me 18 to do it!".

“Vote Etnik” was released last year in Lac Saint-Jean. Unsurprisingly, the song
“Lac-Saint Jeanpignon magik” ( "Lac Saint-Jean is a true paradise / it’s the deepest pool ever dug”) became that year’s Summer Hit on radio stations all over the region. Taking advantage of this success and of the right circumstances abounding, Jean Arsenault sold nearly 700 copies of the disc just by going door to door around the lake.

Will it be the same in the rest of Quebec? If we judge by the fact that the who’s who of the Montreal World Beat scene gathered for Ouanani’s album launch which took place at Club Lambi, the buzz seems to be definitely go - Jean-Christophe Laurence, La Presse

"As far as collective frenzy is concerned, World Music group Ouanani won the prize. Firmly led by the hand by Jean Arsenault and Sadio Sissokho, the band was as much in its element as the whales which laze in the fjord. Used to marathon like performances, the African-Caribbean-Québec band could have kept until sunrise." - Antoine Léveillée Voir, Aut'Fréquences

"It had been a real long time since we had heard an album laced from start to finish by such madness, impertinent, healthy and joyful at the same time. Starting with the fateful sample by Jacques Parizeau himself, which is immediately answered by gusts of Sadio sissoko’s djembe. Fasten your seatbelts!”. - Ralph Boncy, Voir

"Ouanani was the coup de coeur of the Edmonton Chante Festival with its festive rhythms ..." - The Franco, Edmonton

"The dream of Commissioners Bouchard and Taylor became reality last night, thanks to the Festival de la chanson de Tadoussac.
An amazing blend of ethnicity!A band which knows what partying is all about, which practices openness without preaching, and whose mind is not unlike that of the late Colocs."

- Daniel Côté, Le Quotidien

"Never did Métis songs have reflected Quebec so well... A sense of time which could allow them straight access into the big league. " -Ici - Ici

"You don’t get bored listening to this multicolored patchwork quoting libertine poets to restore an image just as trivial as realistic of what Quebec is today."

- L’Actualité

" Motley cross between Manu Chao, Dédé Fortin and Gaston Miron, always referring to epicurean philosophers, this congregation of magic Jeanpignons puts forth happily that Montreal does have the ethnic vote indeed".

- Voir

"Ouanani: a model of cultural and social integration ..." - La Voix acadienne