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Louie Culture: "Stay wise and focused."

Louie Culture gave us one of the best shows of the Reggae Geel 2010.  We had the chance to share some ideas for a couple of minutes.  Musical news and news about his health after he was victim of gunshots early this year.

Was it your first performance in Reggae Geel ?

"Yes, it’s my first time to play in Reggae Geel.  I loved the vibes, good vibes !   I hadn’t been in Belgium since 2004 when I came over during a tour with Freddie Mc Gregor, so it was good to be back. This summer I’m on a tour with the German sound system called Silly Walks and it’s going on very well so far." 

You played a very rootsy show.  Your stance is to keep a strong rasta principle in your music? 

"It would be easy with my flow to do some ragga stuff.  But the youths are listening to you so you need to stay wise and focused.  U have to know what to say because they are influenced by what you say. A lot of people out there want to listen to something positive.  But if you feed them with negative, them gonna stick to the negative vibes.  In every man there is good and bad : so it’s what you give them to feed.  If you give them positive them gonna be even more positive." 

A song called Gangalee made you famous.  What’s the concept of this tune?

"A gangalee is a man who is born to be free.  A man who have his own free mind and spirit.  You can have a man in a prison who is also a gangalee : because he might be behind walls but still his mind can be free." 

Between your debut album “Gangalee” in the nineties and “The Uprising” in 2005, almost 10 years have passed.  Why? 

"I recorded an album for Xterminator.  But it is still unreleased.  Then I worked with Bobby Digital on a album.  But things never worked out right between me and him so we just cancelled it…" 

Things didn’t work right… Because U are a gangalee? 

"Yes, because I have to be free.  I want to work free and they don’t want me to work free !" (laugh…) 

How did the album Uprising come about? 

"I worked with a youth named Justice from Reggae Central.  So we recorded nuff nice tunes and two combinations, one with Luciano and one with Sizzla. And released the album." 

There’s a beautiful tune on the album called That Land. 

"It’s a track about Mama Africa, the ancient land.  You know we can’t forget about the roots.  Anywhere we are in the world, we should never forget about Africa.  We should sing about it because they always show negative things on TV about Africa.  So I got to chant about the nice sides of Mama Africa." 

You’ve got a new tune on the Aspire riddim, produced by Silly Walks… 

"Yes man, it’s called Concrete Jungle Rock.  It’s about ghetto youths and the toughness of the living and about the fact that still you have to survive, no matter how hard it is.  Just has Bob Marley said : we’re living in a Concrete Jungle.  Even where the houses are big, pretty and look nice, the livity is a jungle life.  Them put the poor in the ghetto and the rich pon top.  So we call it concrete jungle rock." 

Talking about toughness in the ghetto, you’ve been the victim of a gun attack this year.  What happened? 

"Gunshots !  A gunman simply did it.  As I was with one of my brethren reasoning at his tyre shop, one youth approached with a very suspicious look, with a hand behing his back.  And him started firing shots so I had to run.  But still I catch a bullet in my hand." 

So it's healed now?

"It’s not completely healed yet, I’m still doing some therapy on it.  The middle finger is still not valid, it can’t move because there is a small iron thing in it.  But the doctor said it’s getting better so I need to go for another operation and get it out.  Through I’m doing this tour, it will be possible for me to go back for the operation." 

Did it affect you mentally? 

"For a little while, yes.  Because you never think about this thing and it just happen to you.  So at first you get a lot of evil thoughts about it.  But after a while, with time, you leave those thoughts.  Because if you check the great men, good people of this earth, they’ve been travelling through worse than this.  So I just say good over evil and leave the rest to time!"

Published on 21/08/2010 by Irie Nation