BIOGRAPHY

The bass, the drum and synthesizer are enough to send grooving a gang of four Caribbean maroons on the mic. Daddy Happy is the first you notice: 100 kilos of muscles and a thundering voice. Why do they call him “happy”? His friends snarl: because he always has a grouse! But a kind of strange kindness pervades his massive silhouette, his bumpy forehead. Growling like a bad dog or swinging with formidable ease, he never looses his balance. Yaga Yeah!

But you cannot fail to notice his alter ego, Ramone, the other pillar of Energy Crew. Although much more limited in height and width, just wait to hear him explode! At first, he was a man of the shade, playing drums and programming, but since he devoted himself total

ly to the mic, he has developed a vibrant medium voice, with silky choruses and high flashes of soul. Ramone is a singer of enormous potential.

Then there are the two Rasses, Genese and King Mo. Genese comes from another band, Jah Soldiers, famous for a controversial hit on the “Roots de Guyane” compilation, “Ben Laden”: “Oussama Ben Laden, the man most wanted by the FBI… America is the biggest man, a small man comes and bust them up…We no want no flesh and blood, Rastaman don’t deal with war, all we need is peace and love.” The other Rasta is King Mo, alias Buju, who has his own group Living Creation in Surinam, on the other side of the Maroni River, but has carved himself a small niche in Energy Crew, on the French side. Life is so hard in Surinam: no producers, no money, no structures. To rehearse, his group had to cross the border every day, two or three miles of river as wide as the Amazon…His energy burns the stage. Do or die, as the Jamaicans say…

Compared to them, Ramone was a veteran: he had already formed two groups, Music Force and New Star, but had got disillusioned. Happy convinced him to come back. With Meyo (drums), Stephane (bass) and Mario (keyboards), they formed Energy Crew. Their music is dance-hall (or Ragga, as it is called in Europe), with sounds inspired from traditional music and Surinam pops, kawina. Daddy Happy leads the gang, easy, powerful, a natural master of the stage. Mr “It a go boom” (in his own brand of French “Ca va boom”, his favourite expression) has not gone unnoticed. Several majors are interested in the new album, which is presently being completed, with featurings by Junior Kelly, Morgan Heritage, Dean Fraser, Luciano, Steel Pulse… Some songs were recorded with Blackwood, a local veteran of reggae, others in Finland, “with the Vikings” as they like to say. Most of the album was done in France in 2003 while on tour, at studio Le Pressoir – a superb memory.

A few years ago,

Happy and his friend Lami were two bad boys rampaging the riverside, carrying the occasional pack of herbs from one side to the other – from Surinam to France. To them, the Maroni their nation, it belongs to the Maroons, the fugitive African slaves. European powers have made a border out of it, but who cares? A border of 350 kilometres of jungle controlled by twenty odd custom officers… A border which is like a highway, the only inroad into the back country – no roads, no airport there… When the state wants to send its soldiers up the river, it must rely on the talent of the Maroon boat drivers, the only ones who master the secrets of the dangerous Maroni… Nature is the only master there. One fears a wild boar more than a custom officer! 

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