Les Négresses Vertes - A large family

If you've ever visited the Louvre in Paris, chances are you've taken a look at Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa. Many years ago, however, a painting by the Russian painter Vladimir Tretchikoff, nicknamed “the king of kitsch”, achieved unexpected fame: in 1950 he painted on canvas the half-bust of a girl with Oriental features he'd met in San Francisco, but soon afterwards had the bright idea of scribbling her face green. That painting is titled “Chinese Girl”; sharper-eyed viewers may have spotted it in a shot from Alfred Hitchcock's film “Frenzy”, or in a few episodes of Monty Python. Over time it became one of the most widely reproduced prints of all, so popular that it was jokingly nicknamed “the Mona Lisa's Revenge”. The French, however, weren't at all pleased, and so they slapped it with the nickname “la négresse verte” (“the green negress”), a derogatory expression that soon entered common use in xenophobic circles, hurled as an insult at immigrants of any origin whose complexion didn't faithfully match the immaculate, stylistically perfect one of the Mona Lisa. So when, in the summer of 1987, during one of the many evenings made up of sub-metropolitan flatness and boredom, a few down-and-out youths of North African origin showed up at a club on rue de l'Orcque completely drunk and with their hair dyed green, a brawl broke out and the police threw them out roughly, shouting at them, “Sortez d'ici, les négresses vertes!” — that is, “get out of here, you green negresses!”. The kids weren't offended; if anything, they laughed it off — theirs was a multi-ethnic gang long used to facing this kind of hostility, thick-skinned enough by then not to even notice. But they held onto it, and out of spite decided that that would be exactly the name of the band they were about to form.

Voilà Les Nègresses Vertes

The story of Les Nègresses Vertes is the story of any bunch of twenty-somethings with very few dreams and even fewer chances of fulfilling them, who one day manage to flip a destiny that already seemed written and escape a life of hardship and humiliation. It's a film we've seen and re-seen countless times… but in this case it really is a true story, set in France in the second half of the Eighties, starring nine friends who form a rock band: their names are Noël Rota (vocals, known as "Helno" or "Helno Rota de Lourqua"), Joe Ruffier des Aimes (piano, known as "Jo Roz" or "l'Ami Ro"), Stèfane Mellino ("Cheb", guitar), Jean-Marie Paulus (or "Casio Paulus", bass), Gaby ("Gaby le Magnifique", drums), Matthias Canavese (simply "Matias" on accordion), Michel Ochowiak ("Mich", trumpet), Abraham Sirinix (or "Abraham Braham", trombone) and Iza Mellino (backing vocals). This is the band's original line-up, which, thanks to a couple of spot-on albums and a series of tremendous live performances, rewrites the ending of a script that was anything but a foregone conclusion.

They're all children of immigrants, most of them Algerian, who meet hanging around out-of-the-way bars and underground clubs in north-eastern Paris - poor outcasts thrown together by life even before music, driven by the need to watch each other's backs in a local scene marked by abuse and racist violence. They go around with slicked-back hair, waistcoats and ties, part gypsy, part punk, with a weakness for booze and drugs. But above all they're desperately broke, which means they absolutely need to find work: so, in a flash of clarity, they hatch the mad idea of starting a band, and begin playing in apartment-block entryways, on pavements and in the stations of the Paris metro. The group is heavily influenced by the popular, working-class culture of the Thirties: Andalusian and North African music, an unbridled passion for old-style dances such as waltz, polka and flamenco, plus the inseparable accordion always close at hand. Traditional sounds mixed with modern rock: that's their trademark, a little eccentric but destined to prove a winning formula right from the start. These are the years when such crossbreeding is only being attempted by Gipsy Kings, albeit in a rather rudimentary and simplistic way, and the same year sees the birth of Mano Negra's patchanka, which springs from the same Mediterranean roots but immediately heads off in a more stubborn and contrary direction. Les Nègresses Vertes' sound, by contrast, is a lively, multi-faceted mix that brings a kind of travelling circus onto the streets, drawing ever-growing crowds of onlookers and curious bystanders from every background, temperament and walk of life. Thus a France that seemed to have been forgotten suddenly shakes off its torpor to rediscover itself as multi-ethnic and happy to be so, beginning to admire itself in the mirror under a new light - the thousand-coloured light cast by the kaleidoscope of Les Nègresses Vertes. And for the lads themselves, the big break is not long in coming.

Mlah (All Good)

They land a couple of cabaret shows, where one evening they're heard by a producer from the small independent label Off The Track, who invites them to record a demo. Their first single, "200 Ans d'Hypocrisie", from 1988, is a somewhat unusual bit of hardcore for them, a fiercely protest-driven song that immediately sets things straight: released as a response to the celebrations of the Bicentenary of the French Republic, it paves the way for their debut album, which arrives shortly after. Mlah comes out in 1989 and is a success waiting to happen: these street musicians had already won everyone over before even setting foot in a recording studio, thanks to an energetic, gripping melting pot of raï, French dances and gypsy, Slavic or Spanish-tinged sounds - it hardly matters which, since the band scrapes the bottom of its musical barrel, dusting off roots sounds and reshaping them with new, Anglo-accented rock cadences.

Mlah (which means "all good" in Arabic) is a wild, playful party open to everyone, whose finest calling cards are "Voila l'etè" and "Zobi la Mouche", two great classics of their repertoire that, with a cry of "up and dance", bring a thoroughly sui generis blast of freshness and modernity to the dancefloor, as do "La Valse" and "Les Yeux de ton pere". It's hard to find comparisons in the contemporary rock landscape, apart from the most carefree Madness (their "Our House" comes to mind) or the least rebellious, most Sandinista-leaning Clash. In Italy, Mau Mau tried something along similar lines. But beware of being misled by the raucous atmosphere and frenzied rhythms: the lyrics are in fact steeped in anger and melancholy, tightly bound to a past that's impossible to erase, made of pain, abuse and injustice. Les Nègresses Vertes give voice to the social unease of those who are "rejected", their slang drawing on a daily life of survival among garbage bags, the smell of rot and broken bottles on the pavement, the last souvenir of yet another dawn spent out on the street drinking too much and, if need be, throwing punches. "Orane", "II" and "Marcelle Ratafia" are likewise fully representative tracks of this slightly retro, slightly gypsy round dance, which exports to the public a new model of Frenchness - not the elegant kind found in the cafés and bistros of romantic neighbourhoods for honeymooning newlyweds, but the one born on the other bank of the Seine, among the banlieues and the immigrant ghettos, the Frenchness of the children of a colonialism pushed to the margins, people for whom the magic words liberté, égalité, fraternité sound every day like a cruel joke of fate, a mirage that drifts past their eyes but can never be grasped.

Few bands in this field can boast a debut album already so mature in its lyrical and compositional reach. "L'Homme des Marais" and the self-celebratory "La Danse de Lès Nègresses Vertes" enrich a tracklist that's already quite rich in its own right, whose infectious, good-time rhythms even manage to mask a fair number of technical shortcomings: all the band members are self-taught, and most of them were playing their instrument for the very first time, with the sole exception of Helno, who had been the vocalist of Bérurier Noir, a fairly successful rock band on the local scene. Matthias, Gaby and Paulus, meanwhile, all cut their teeth together in the punk band Les Maîtres, but essentially worked as clowns and acrobats for the Cirque Zingaro Horse, until Matthias was forced to quit following an accident. Guitarist Stefane, for his part, comes from a completely different background, having repaired fishing nets in a small village in the south of France before heading to the big city to try his luck in music.

While they win unanimous approval at home right from the start, it's in England that they truly strike gold: they tour across the Channel for the first time in October '89 and are met, to everyone's surprise, with downright enthusiastic acclaim from a nation not exactly famous for its warmth towards French musical (or other) exports. The press adores "this ethnic band that manages to turn dancefloors upside down" with its unique, multi-faceted style, but Les Nègresses Vertes exert a particular charm above all on ordinary people, who are quite happy to be won over by their street-urchin look: caps on their heads, striped shirts and fashionable Doctor Martens boots, along with their rowdy, infectious behaviour. They pack out every club in London where they play, and their success goes far beyond anyone's rosiest expectations, to the point that they're invited to record tracks for several major international compilations - first among them "Red, Hot And Blue", put together in 1990 by the Red Hot Organization to raise funds against AIDS (a tribute album to Cole Porter featuring plenty of stars, on which they contribute a cover of "I Love Paris") and "The Last Temptation of Elvis". Madonna falls in love with them from the very first listen, to the point of naming them one of her favourite bands and insisting they collaborate with her on the soundtrack to "Dick Tracy" (they contribute "Hou Mamma Mia").

So their fame crosses the ocean. America too welcomes them warmly: their roots, part French, part Algerian, part Spanish, graft perfectly onto the Nashville tradition and American urban culture, and once you throw in a certain circus-like theatricality along with some street/jazzy influences, the job is done. With 350,000 copies sold, Mlah remains their biggest success, an unhoped-for result for a record that was, after all, far removed from certain conventional rock/pop standards.

The following year the band returns to Paris and, after playing three shows at La Cigale in January, sets off on a hectic tour. Once it's over, though, they find themselves facing a long legal battle with their record label, Off The Track, which had been caught off guard by the uproar caused by Mlah and the band's understandable demands to renegotiate their contract - which is why the label starts throwing a few spanners in the works, delaying plans for the release of the second record and forcing them to record the tracks in Paris first and then remix them in London, where the work is placed in the capable hands of Clive Martin, Sting's trusted producer.

The legal disputes force the group into a period of enforced silence; nevertheless, at a concert held at L'Espace Cardin in Paris on 23 April 1991, they still perform live the material that will form the backbone of the new album, which, after a difficult gestation, finally sees the light of day in November 1991. It's called Famille Nombreuse, and it's the record of their consecration. Distributed in France and ten other European countries, it once again wins widespread public favour, driven by the singles "Hou Mamma mia", "Sous le soleil de Bodega" and the near-title-track "Famille Hereuse", which quickly storm the charts thanks to countless radio plays.

Compared to Mlah, the band changes almost nothing of its distinctive style, aside from refining a few small details, and this proves to be a winning move, since their brand is already well established: gypsy guitars, trombone, African percussion, accordion, horns, brass, shouts, din and giggles - rarely has music seen a group of nine people so in sync, where one member's flaws are naturally offset by another's strengths, and when that's not the case... never mind, they have fun anyway and carry on; after all, that's exactly the greatest secret of Les Nègresses Vertes - not for nothing has someone described them as a gang or a tribe rather than a band. Yet, paradoxically, their formula embodies the spirit of rock at its best: a group of people gathered in a room with instruments, ready to have fun and argue, but above all to encourage one another through their imperfections. "Perpetuellment Votre", "Face à la mer" and "Infidele Cervelle" add a pinch of spice and warmth to this unmissable carnival, once again made of whirling dances and driving rhythms. It's easy to love this band, where everyone is friends in life long before they're bandmates on stage, and deep down all they want is to show us how much fun they're having making music. A happy family open to everyone, so much so that friends, wives and girlfriends pop up here and there too - impossible to list them all, save for a well-deserved mention of the new full-time drummer Zè Verbalito (or Zè Zè) and a new percussionist/backing vocalist (Julot, or Julo).

The only sour note: a heroin addiction that begins to cloud Helno's songwriting abilities, forcing him, on Famille Nombreuse, to hand over a good number of lyrics to guitarist and co-writer Stefane Mellino. Not, however, the darkest and most autobiographical one, "Car C'est un Blouze", a sadly prophetic song about a fate that would not be long in knocking at his door. The song tells us how life often ends up getting the upper hand, and how, however brave a fighter one may be, sometimes you come out defeated even in the prime of your years. Even native French speakers have had a hard time deciphering its lyrics, built on Arabic argot (argot being a particular way of writing messages so as to encode them and make them understandable only to a specific group of people) and on that wordplay trick so dear to Helno of breaking words apart and inverting their syllables (his own stage name Hel-no is nothing but the inversion of his given name No-ël).

This is the golden period for Les Nègresses Vertes, who are invited to perform in Beirut for what will remain one of the standout episodes of their career and, in its own way, a landmark event: organised by the well-known Parisian promoter Assaad for the evening of 21 December 1991, it's the first concert held in Lebanon since the start of the 1975 war, and it ends with a standing ovation from the crowd. The huge media coverage of the event makes them even more beloved in Europe, where they immediately set off again on a long tour taking in the Netherlands, Scandinavia and Spain. Thousands of fans give them a triumphant welcome when they return home, with grand shows held at the Olympia Concert Hall in Paris (4 and 11 May 1992) and across the other French provinces for the rest of the year. But while fortune, audiences and critics all smile on this multi-coloured troupe, '93 turns out to be a thoroughly black year in the band's history.

Helno is dead, long live Helno!

On the morning of January 22, Helno is found dead of an overdose in the bed at his mother's house, in the very room he had loved occupying since childhood, in a modest little apartment in the north of Paris. His death, like his life, was the result of an existence lived on the fringes, between recklessness and naivety. The success he achieved and the money he earned hadn't managed to change his mindset: he always preferred going back to his old house rather than buying a new one. The same held true right up to his collapse. The night before, after a Negresses gig, he had left his blue Mobylette parked and asked his friend and bandmate Matias Canavese to give him a lift home. He was a lost sheep, which is why his bandmates were so fond of him, even though over time he had become increasingly unreliable. Off stage, he was a frail, dishevelled figure; the moment he opened his mouth you could tell he hadn't seen a dentist in a while and certainly wasn't drinking water. But on stage, his sinister grin and his oddball yet effective body language made him a character of absolute charisma, as well as a songwriter of undeniable talent and an uncommon gift for writing. Like the other members of his band, Helno was self-taught. His name was Noel, like Christmas, since he was born on December 25, 1963, in Montreuil. Years of drifting through the streets of Les Halles, doing little more than getting high, as he himself used to tell it, along with his first lyrics dreamed up astride an old bike, were the prelude to his debut with Beruriers Noir, which he left after just one year to embark on the difficult adventure with Negresses Vertes.

His little songs were steeped in that dark humour closely echoing the low-life tales of Aristide Bruant from the previous century, elevating him to the status of a small yet great poet of a modern school of chanson realiste, made up of quality lyrics and dandy outfits picked up at flea markets, equally appealing to art lovers and to the youngest ravers. The French Minister of Culture at the time, Jack Lang, described him as "one of the leading singers of his generation, capable of blending French tradition and popular song into a melodious, original style."

His epitaph, taken from the final verse of Jacques Brel's "La Chanson De Van Horst" from 1972, reads:

De Foire en Foire/ De Verre en Verre/ De Boire en Boire/

Je Mords Encore a Pleine Dents/Je Suis un Mort, Encore Vivant

From fair to fair/from glass to glass/from drink to drink/

I still bite with all my teeth/I am a dead man, still alive

Manu Chao would write "Helno est mort" in his honour, included on the 2004 album "Siberie m'etait contee".

He leaves a void impossible to fill within the group, not only because he was irreplaceable as a singer but also because he was the very soul of the band, which in fact would never fully recover from the devastating loss.

After a period of grief and mourning, May '93 brings the release of the album 10 remixes 87-93: as the title reveals, ten of their tracks remixed by the coolest musicians/DJs on the dance scene of the time, among whom the names of Massive Attack and William Orbit stand out, plus a new version of their first single "200 Ans D'Hypocrisie", relaunched as a tribute to Helno himself. At this point, however, the band considers calling it quits, and several members leave. They would return to the studio almost two years later, in a reshuffled line-up, to record Zig-Zague in 1994. The group is by now down to five official members: Paulo, Matias, Stefane, Mich and Iza, who take turns on lead vocals. But it's not the same. The album is recorded in Bearn, in the south of France, under the direction of producer Rupert Hine, who shifts the focus towards Latin American rhythms. Out of this come "Tango Sous La Lune", "Mambo Show" and "Fanfaron". Most of the lyrics are written by Iza Mellino; "Enfer et Paradis" and "Apres La Pluie" are commendable attempts to find inspiration, even if it's far removed from the golden years. Better, then, to focus on their live activity, always the band's true strength, and from October 1994 they set off on a marathon tour immortalised by the excellent 1996 live album Green Bus. Two years on the road crowned by appearances at the Printemps de Bourges and Francofolies festivals in La Rochelle, but above all by some memorable performances, again at La Cigale in Paris (February 8, 9 and 10, '95) and at L'Hot Brasse (November 28-29, 1995), which helped keep the Negresses Vertes name riding high: the joyous welcome they received everywhere is proof of an affection from fans that remained unchanged. Green Bus (the title captures the green bus that accompanied them during the grueling tour) perfectly captures the wild atmosphere, the grit and the energy of a band that once again manages to give its best live.

Also in 1996, Jane Birkin asks the band to help her put together her new album "Versions Jane", a collection of Serge Gainsbourg classics reinterpreted by the English actress/singer. Negresses Vertes lend their touch by handling the new arrangements of "La Gadoue", a song already made a hit in the '60s by another star of British song, Petula Clark.

At this point a new, long period of silence begins, broken only by a brief appearance on Natacha Atlas's single "L'egyptienne" in 1998. The band returns to the studio after a couple of years and starts experimenting with new material. This time, however, they choose to move away from the Latin American fusion that had defined the previous Zig-Zague and head in a new, electronic direction. They put themselves in the hands of Howie B, one of the most fashionable producers/DJs on the dance scene, who stitches together an electro-disco sound on the album, updated with more modern textures in line with the dominant European scene. Thus, in '99, comes Trabendo. Recorded in October, the title is Algerian slang referring to the smugglers working between Algiers and Marseille. The band explains the choice as an attempt, in musical terms, to "traffic" and "smuggle" elements and sounds that could renew and, why not, enrich the traditional Negresses repertoire, steering it towards a kind of dub-oriented lounge sound.

The album stirs up a certain amount of curiosity, and critics welcome this turning point in the career of a band that, while not back at its absolute peak, is at least sharper and renewed in its intentions, as well as a standout in a French market that was coasting along on the (admittedly scant) laurels of Noir Desir, fronted by the ill-fated Bertrand Cantat, or an entirely female-led singer-songwriter scene (Charlotte Gainsbourg), and which was only reaping rich rewards from a flourishing techno movement (Air, Daft Punk, Cassius, St. Germain).

The British magazine Dazed and Confused goes even further, devoting ten whole pages to this grand-scale comeback by Negresses, launched on the radio by the new single "Easy Girl", while "Entre enfer et paradis" offers a detailed account of ten years lived at the crest of the wave, between exhilarating highs and dramatic episodes ("between hell and heaven", indeed), overcome thanks to extraordinary willpower and an enviable professional discipline — qualities without which any lesser band would have simply fallen apart. But not Negresses Vertes, who at the 2000 Victoires de la Musique ceremony pick up the award for Best Album in the New Trends category precisely for Trabendo, which to this day remains their last official album of new material. As has become customary, the album's release is followed by a tour that keeps them busy all summer, including a brief but prestigious appearance at the Hotel Matignon (the French prime minister's summer residence) on the occasion of the Fete de la Musique, the music festival held every year on June 21.

Acoustic Clubbing, from October 2002, is recorded at Gang studios and comes about following the excellent impression left by one of their radio performances. It reworks, in unplugged form, fourteen tracks drawn from the band's four classic albums, so "Face a la Mer", "Hey! Maria" and "Car C'est un Blouze" are presented in a completely different light and mood, yet still compelling, alongside an enjoyable cover of the soul classic Spank. Around the same time these acoustic tracks were being recorded, several remixes appeared courtesy of Alex Gopher, Les Diamantaires and Gotan Project, confirming the rightness of LNV's electronic turn — an acronym that, more fashionable than the full name, would from then on become the new official brand for the productions of the now ex-Negresses Vertes.

Also in 2002, Le Grand Dèballage was released, a compilation put together by LNV collecting the most representative tracks from their studio repertoire, plus two live tracks and a few remixes, while 2004 saw the release of L’Essentiel, a new best of with an eloquent title. Finally, in 2006 came A’ l’Affiche, yet another greatest hits that stands, to date, as their last official release on the market.

Today Stèfane and Iza Mellino, lifelong partners, continue to perform together, simply as “Stèfane and Iza” or as “Mellino’s”.

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