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Star Feminine Band - In Paris - LP

Name: Star Feminine Band - In Paris - LP
Brand: Born Bad Records
Price: 22.0 EUR
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Star Feminine Band - In Paris - LP

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Star Feminine Band: first journey and return

To produce a record can be quite an adventure – to do so with young girls from Northwest Benin is one tall order. Though not exactly a world music label, Born Bad took up the challenge and released Star Féminine Band’s first album in late 2020. Heaps of acclaims and praise and the whole shebang, then boom: the tour that was to materialize, live, all of the band and its entourage’s hopes got cancelled due to Covid. The p …

Star Feminine Band: first journey and return

To produce a record can be quite an adventure – to do so with young girls from Northwest Benin is one tall order. Though not exactly a world music label, Born Bad took up the challenge and released Star Féminine Band’s first album in late 2020. Heaps of acclaims and praise and the whole shebang, then boom: the tour that was to materialize, live, all of the band and its entourage’s hopes got cancelled due to Covid. The pandemic didn’t get the better of them, though; with their desire to go up on European stages still very much alive, the combo reappeared on the Transmusicales festival’s line-up just one year later – a highlight of their first tour, regardless of all the hurdles and hiccups.

“The procedure wasn’t as simple as the first time around.” That’s how self-appointed “band dad” (two of his daughters are part of the formation, which he initiated in 2016) and songwriter André Balaguemon euphemistically describes the obstacle course he had to go through in order to have them land in France. “We all had to travel from Natitingou, our town in the Northwest, to Cotonou, the capital, where the embassy centralizes visa procedures. Each of the girls had her personal file for the application.” That’s how the journey began: with many trips there and just as many back, thirty hours on the bus each time. That’s no small feat for these teenagers the youngest of which, the drummer Angélique, celebrated her 12th birthday in March 2022, and the eldest turned 18 this spring.

“There and back and there and back again… We did it countless times before it finally worked out” – and that despite JB having made sure, before even considering the idea of a first tour, that they all had a valid identity card and passport, plus an up to date vaccination card. “It was a sine qua non condition if we were to try winning over any European booker. At the beginning of the adventure these girls didn’t even have a civil status.” To which he adds, sensible though bitter: “Everyone wanted to make them play – but 48 hours after we’d have sent the proposal, sizing up the difficulty of the administrative task, everyone would get cold feet.” Everyone except Azimuth’s Bernard and Geneviève, thanks to their booker Léo Tran’s insistence. They got on board, with all the consequences it presupposed – a gamble, but one they considered was worth it.

Inviting over minor African girls is a long shot, not to mention in full Covid season. “They had to be vaccinated, but in Benin minors didn’t have access to the vaccine. And we couldn’t invoke compelling reasons, culture falling out of that category”, recalls Morgane Bois. She was entrusted with the case file, which wasn’t on the light side – each step involved loads of attestations and certifications to comply with legislations regarding the employment of minors and night work – night-time beginning at 8pm according to the relevant authorities. Conclusion: the story was nowhere near simple. “Administratively a bit heavy”, corrects Morgane with a sweet understatement. Then, once admitted and landed, they still had to observe a quarantine in Juvisy, not far from Massy, the Parisian banlieue’s concert hall.

One week later they were free – or almost. They still had to comply with daily Covid testing and a follow-up with their schoolteachers in Benin via videoconference – all that with supporting certificates in due form. These things shouldn’t be taken lightly, but still – with these obligations fulfilled, the Star Féminine Band was definitely ready for the stage. A first in this tour of all of the first times: leaving Benin, taking the plane, discovering Paris… “Everything intrigued them!”, JB adds, never out of flowery anecdotes. Like the time when, in front of the escalator, many struggled to set foot on it. Or when, faced with the elevator, they just stood there, frozen in place. Not to talk about the GPS: “A voice indicating a direction is pure science fiction. My car, to them, was the Enterprise – though it’s just a good old Peugeot Partner.”

Along the way, they learn the codes of good conduct, European style – though doing a sound check or braving the stage isn’t all that difficult when you’ve essentially played under the scorching sun, with faltering electricity and no feedback. Nor is partaking in unceasing interviews: national newspapers, specialized magazines, radios and TV stations, Arte and TV5, then the BBC… André Balaguemon carries on: “So much interest, so many interviews – we didn’t expect such a reception. It just kept going, but regardless of the fatigue they were really happy to tell their story.”

“Once they played, we clearly had a “mission accomplished” feeling – that all the energy put into this was worth it!” And Morgane wasn’t the only one to feel the buzz during the tour, a month spent between Massy and Bobigny, Lyon’s opera and Geneva’s L’Usine, during which the Star Féminine Band put everyone on the same page – starting with the critics who abounded at the Transmusicales to weigh the phenomenon. They left convinced, just like the audience, enthralled by the direct, live formula. “As soon as they got up on the podium it was game on”, says “daddy” André. All the same when they had to record in the studio – a whole new thing too, like a final challenge they rose to with youth’s talent, thanks to the listening skills of Laurent Boisgisson from One Two Pass It studio.

The sequel to the adventures of these new ambassadors for Unicef? They persist and sign with a feverish and energetic soundtrack in which nabo, peulh and waama are enlivened with drum lines and spiced up with more “modern” sounds, spreading words of tolerance and kindness. Simple and direct, they speak of their reality, of the ills of young women who don’t always have a choice. Often out of school and destined to selling peanuts, bananas or gari on the roadside, most of the girls around there don’t have a future. Forced marriage, precocious pregnancies… “These kids are heroines!”, continues JB who, by welcoming them in a record studio, allowed for the formula to be sharpened into a sort of garage band with an afro twist. Thanks to the English lessons that their manager Jérémie Verdier has been providing every Sunday night for two years over videoconference, the girls even experimented with English lyrics in “We Are Star Feminine Band” and “Woman Stand Up”. In Paris is the happy outcome of that challenge.

It’s also the beginning of new adventures, the promise of killer tomorrows with a blazing summer tour in prospect: Dour, Les Eurockéennes, Roskilde, Les Nuits de Fourvière… The return home was triumphant: their videos played non-stop on television, there were focuses on the radio, and the ORTB – the national Beninese channel – even broadcasted a concert filmed for Arte a few times. This band of unknown girls became a national reference. “So this time, for visas, it’s easier.”

Jacques Denis

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