A French music critic once described Fédération Française de Fonck (FFF) as “packaged rebellion of the highest order”. Indeed, about a decade ago, had anyone asked the band’s founders and juggernauts Marco Prince and Nicholas Baby what FFF was rebelling against, as Marlon Brando did in The Wild One, they would have given a probing look and gnarled, “Whaddaya got?”
Fortunately, time has proven to them that the world has got more to rebel against than just “to make some noise”, the philosophy that was the cornerstone of the band’s foundation.
Little did they know that the noise they were making in the suburb of Paris, which had only a vibrating touch of jazz-rock, would gradually evolve to epitomise a staggering comeback for the moribund funk music.
In mid-1987, a few months after the band was founded, singer/composer Prince and bass guitarist Baby soon discovered that in order to make people listen to their noise, they needed talents to help transform the group into a hot funk melting pot. The ideology created space for West Indian drummer Krichnou and guitarist Yarol Poupaud, later followed by saxophonist Philippe Herpin.
Their sound evolved from a jazz-rock approach that was to be later infiltrated by pop, disco and a touch of traditional French music rhythm. Their music addresses issues of drug abuse, Aids, racism and sexism. While the group is quite capable in studio, it’s very much driven by a reputation of being an exceptional live act.
With the band’s controversial multiracial nature, the incredible talents of its members and their unique touch of the funk music, it took FFF only three years to breakthrough. They began drawing attention in 1990 at the prestigious music festival Transmusicales de Rennes. This was briefly followed by another tremendous success when record company, Epic, a subsidiary of Sony, signed them on.
The group went on to record its first album Blast Culture, with American producer and master of alternative world music Bill Laswell. The album reveals an interesting combination that draws its inspiration from James Brown, Georgelln Clinton, Slyllnlln Stone, Red Hotlll Chilli Pepperslll and Fishbone.
The album’s success won them, within a period of two years, more than 250 concerts across Europe, the United States, Japan and several North African countries. In 1993 FFF delivered their second album, Free For Ever, recorded in the United Kingdom, with a sound that was strongly influenced by the US rock band Faith No More.
During the second half of the 1990s the group released three more albums, including Vivants in 1997 and Vierges in 1999, which was released under their new label V2, a subsidiary of Virgin records.
Perhaps far more important than their music success and their ruthless lyrical campaigns against the galloping Aids epidemic and racism, lies a Herculean challenge to prove to the world that funk music and the Afro-American rhythm, which they adore, has not disappeared. And this they are grappling to prove in all their albums through the fusion of funk and other music genres.
The French Institute of South Africa has roped in FFF for two performances at the Oppikoppi Tuned festival next week. The group, who will be coming to South Africa for the fist time, say they are not easily startled by geographical location and that each audience is a new challenge. And if you consider the sensation they’ve caused at international festivals far bigger than Oppikoppi, then you might be right in concluding they’ll definitely wow the crowd on South African turf.
Fédération Française de Fonck is in concert on August 10 at the Oppikoppi Tuned festival at Fountains Valley, Pretoria. For more information contact Xavier at the French Institute on (011) 836 0561