Gary Clark Jr: "I want to let it know: this land is your land, but it's mine too" | The music

While working on his new album This Land, Gary Clark Jr. had an uncomfortable confrontation with a neighbor. With his wife, Nicole Trunfio, and their toddlers, Zion and Gia, Clark had recently bought a 15-acre ranch near Austin, Texas where he grew up. To say nothing of his status as a volcanic performer, he had already won a Grammy, played with the Stones, strummed at the White House and released two ambitious feature films, Blak and Blu's 2012 and The Story of Sonny Boy's 2015. Slender. But as he revealed it to Rolling Stone earlier this month, Clark's neighbor insisted he was not living there and asked who really owned the property. "It's 2017," he told the Guardian. I am confronted with racism in front of my house. "

This meeting led to rap group The Land, which is also the first single and the name of Clark's new album, a provocative, energetic and incredibly unclbadifiable pastiche of blues, rock, R & B and hip-hop. hop. The 34-year-old told us about the Trump era, anger and pride, and the pressure he felt to carry the torch for the 21st century blues.

You named the single This Land the most important song you wrote. How did the anti-racism process and the current union situation in music go?

The process was, on the one hand, to be black in the south of the country and, secondly, about 2016, and that reflected the climate, the culture, the news, both for blacks and for all those who felt discriminated against. . It was a situation I had, it did not matter, but it was a bit of a straw that broke the camel's back. I found it frustrating and sad and I just decided to write a song about it. I already had music. This is an adaptation of This Land is Your Land by Woody Guthrie. "This country is mine" was the only lyrical text I wrote on it and we just played it a little bit.

It's daring to give your own interpretation to a song that is so badociated with a very specific and nostalgic patriotism.

I remember singing this song when I was a kid. I love the song and I love what it represents, but I do not think we can all sing it as a unified nation. I just wanted that to be made known: this land is your land, but it is mine too, and all of us Americans, citizens of this country, should all have the same fate.

On this new album, you present a very wide range of sounds: blues, reggae, R & B and hip-hop. You talked about your admiration for Prince because he was a world-clbad guitarist without being called a "guitar god". Is it something you are trying to get out of under?

Absolutely. I am a guitarist at the end of the day, but I also do something else. I play other instruments, I sing and I write songs. I'm trying to be an artist, so [“Guitar God”] is not the right representation. Sometimes I wake up, play the drums and am only a drummer. But because of the guitar that you put in this American blues pigeon and I'm ready to express more than that. Growing up, I played in blues clubs, but I always played something else, whether jazz, country or reggae. Quincy Jones has long been talking about breaking the idea of ​​genre with his music. And the contribution that Quincy made to this world: this guy did it all, by dialing with Sinatra, he brought us Thriller. I want to be on the same length of wave.

You & # 39;We have been badociated with a kind of nostalgia for the heyday of blues and rock'nroll. On this album, you are looking for something new and contemporary. Where do you see yourself on this continuum? Do you Do you consider yourself a modern torchbearer for the blues?

All the people I met, the people who inspired and mentored me, always supported me to advance the music. The blues are relevant, you know? It's not a step back, something you look at in a museum. It's alive and well, it's not going anywhere. It will be in modern music and I do not know of any other way. Sometimes I feel like a torchbearer for modern blues and I'm really proud of that, you see? People like Jimmie Vaughan, Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, so they can wear my name in a positive way, it's more important to me than what many people say and feel. When I played at Crossroads Festival in 2010, I went through the stage for the finale and BB King m caught me by hand and watched me. She simply nodded and smiled at me. It was a bit like a home. I will not lie: I have tears in my eyes. I was like, "Whoa, it's heavy. Gather, 30,000 people are watching. Be cool!"

You said that lyric writing was particularly focused on this record. Is it true that Langston Hughes is a great inspiration for you?

Langston Hughes was my first introduction to writing. I remember reading a book of his poems at the library of elementary school. Langston Hughes, Edgar Allan Poe: There was something in the poetry that really touched me. That turned into me and my friend Ryan in the fourth year writing our first song called Dream Girl, which is a horrible look of R & B. But this process interested me: put a melody in words, so I created a rhythm, a Casio keyboard. That's how my writing process began. I always feel like trying to put poems on a musical soundtrack.

Who are you reading these days?

Recently, I went to Charles Bukowski. I also think that the comedian's point of view on life is very interesting. Like, my next album could be something like Weird Al. Comedy and music are truly unfiltered ways to communicate with people and share an indispensable point of view.

In recent years, you have bought a 20-hectare ranch and settled with your family and children. Has happiness been as creative as other emotional states?

If you listen to the album, my emotional state is ubiquitous. Every human being goes through ups and downs, so I just noted all that. Without specifically calling anyone, You know who it is. Regarding the song This Land, I immediately felt as if I had something to say. I did not want to be angry because I did not think the anger was positive. At the same time, I think that holding back emotions is unhealthy. So I made a choice.

How long after writing the song did you feel relieved of your anger?

I felt immediately relieved of my anger once I entered the cabin. To play the record for the people of the label, get their immediate support, I said to myself, "All right, people are really willing to hear that and it's beautiful." It's time. When the video was published, I was like, "Yes, that's what we feel."

When you grow up in Texas, you hang out near the creek and sometimes you find those arrowheads, and I remember learning about natives at school and wondering what kind of people were here, where were they now, why are not they here? Regarding the images of the video, the Confederate flag was immediately confirmed for me, as a youngster, as an element founded to scare me. When I spoke to Savannah [Leaf, the music video director]she asked what it meant to me. And it's basically that darkness comes light. This fire in my belly, this feeling that we have to do better, treat people the way they should be: that's really what I felt.