THOMAS: Your mother is from Cameroon, your father is French and you were raised in Chad. How was it to grow up in a country ravaged by war?
FAUSSART: You adjust your behavior, your way of living. You see people suffering, and even if they are suffering they smile, and they love and believe in life. So when I suffer from little frustrations or crazy thoughts or jealousies, I realize I’m being stupid. It’s nothing. Nothing at all.
Is that experience reflected in your music?
In the first album we spoke out about peace. And some critics told us, “Don’t you think talking about peace is naive?” No, it’s not. Peace is very expensive. You have to give yourself. We don’t dwell on the morbid, describing flesh, blood, destruction and pain. We’re not saying war is good or bad. Instead we offer a little message: if war happens, maybe we are all responsible.
The United States embarked on the war with Iraq without France, launching a huge wave of anti-French sentiment in the U.S. just as you were going on tour there. How did your audiences react?
We had no bad reaction from the audience, never ever. We were shocked by the news and the anti-French political situation, but we didn’t get that ourselves. I truly believe the people came to our show to listen to some good music, and they were not into all that “Oh, they’re French.”
What about the debate over changing french fries to “freedom fries”?
We played with it. “Here we are,” we told the audiences, “eating freedom fries, freedom kissing, speaking and singing in freedom.” Everyone laughed. We found it very poetic. Freedom is a beautiful language.
How did you get into music?
When we were children we would sing at home, re-creating shows like “Carmen” and “West Side Story.” In 1993 our father died and we started to sing again to comfort ourselves. One day a friend said, “You should sing onstage.” He signed us up for a music festival in Bordeaux, and we performed there–we sang gospel. We didn’t even have a band name. The next day our friend came by with the local newspaper and said, “Look, they are talking about you.”
How did you get your name, Les Nubians?
Nubia was the first black civilization. It was a way to pay tribute and talk about black people as one people looking back in history. This is something we are still trying to defend as an idea: being one people.
You moved to Philadelphia recently. Why did you leave France?
To be honest, it is very hard to push your idea forward if you are a black female in France. France is an old country with a very conservative way of thinking, a feudal system. If you are not the son or daughter of anyone important or you don’t have the right friends, you can’t get anywhere. In the U.S. you can be no one, and if you have talent they take you seriously.
How hard is for a Francophone singer to succeed in an English-language market?
When we perform for Anglophone audiences we introduce each song in English, so the track will be understood. People have come to us and said, “We don’t know what you are talking about, but we love the melodies, the sound of it, your voices.” Music is its own proper language. People can feel the emotions without even knowing the words.
Does music transcend politics?
Yes, because it is not just words, it’s also vibrations–something invisible that talks directly to people. Politics are so far from us, they deal with theory. Music is the expression of the death of our souls. If you think about it, all the big events that touch our humanity, such as war, are often foreshadowed by musicians. Maybe because musicians are more sensitive, more in touch with the base, and feel real life.
