Discussion around the origins of techno and the whitewashing of electronic music have been going on for a while now. The COVID-19 crisis has accelerated conversations around race and equality, not only in our music scene but across the board. I'm a Black producer who used to operate in the French scene. It's a country with the biggest Black population in Europe and it has a very raw and recent colonial history.

In France, not only do your white counterparts get more opportunities, but they are also the ones gatekeeping what is seen as "authentic" African music. It adds another layer of complexity to discussions around the Black origins of electronic music.

In this conversation with fellow Black French artist Christelle Oyiri, the DJ, producer, multidisciplinary artist and writer also known as CRYSTALLMESS, we discuss the French electronic music scene's reluctance to tackle issues of cultural appropriation, as well as her ongoing residency at the UK's Wysing Arts Centre.

Hey Christelle, how are you? It's been a while. Can you present yourself for those who don't know you?

I go by the moniker of CRYSTALLMESS. I produce, make music out of bits and pieces and create art.

What motivated you to get into production?

I guess being some sort of frustrated dreamer led me to production. I wanted to paint my own pictures, whether they were/are good or not.

You grew up in the Parisian suburb of Villejuif, right? What was that like?

It was fab as a kid because the neighborhood was still pretty busy and had a lot of activities. It wasn't always safe but at least we had adventures and I don't regret anything. It got a little complicated as a teen because youth centers got defunded, and other issues surfaced with the 2008 economic crisis.

I saw that your Twitter account got suspended. What happened?

I called some racists some names and got suspended and deplatformed. I see a pattern of Black artists getting deplatformed or losing their blue check in a really vicious way on Twitter and I guess this follows the same pattern.

Meanwhile white supremacist can share their hateful messages for months before any they see any consequences, if there are any consequences at all.

You're a resident on London's NTS Radio with your show UNLEASHED, and you released a split EP on PAN in 2019. You also played Berghain a couple of times. I feel you're getting so much love outside of France—so why do you think there is such a disparity between the attention you get within the French scene compared to other countries?

It might appear like that but I actually feel embraced in France as a musician now. The scale for the type of music I make is obviously not the same in France and that's absolutely fine. I did a lot of radio and played in lots of clubs in France so I think the question has less to do with me being embraced and more to do with the French audience's relationship to the plurality of electronic music in general, as well as dare I say the "industry" of electronic music in France.

Things are either on a very large scale (major record labels) or an ultra-niche scale. There are no mid-range legacy labels like—I don't know—let's say Hyperdub, and that's why people constantly feel like there is a void. The reality is that on one hand, actually a lot is going on, but you have to do the digging for yourself instead of waiting for huge PR campaigns to tell you how good a record is. And on the other hand, contrary to Germany and the UK, French electronic music isn't funded at all despite being one of the most exported forms of French music. Contradictions!

Last June, I released a track called "ISSA REVENGE" for NADSAT's upcoming compilation, to be released in September 2020. It will mainly showcase French artists like Sentimental Rave, Ascendant Vierge or Boukan Records. Artists that have been making a name for themselves in their lanes by creating their record labels and creating exciting music themselves.

You recently released the INTROLUDO INFERNO MIXTAPE, which is centered around intros, interludes and sonic interstices as part of your residency with Wysing Arts Centre. Can you expand on that?

I thought that centering my mix around intros and interludes would be the opportunity to honor musicians' vulnerability, humor and psyché. It's often the occasion for us to use skits, dialogues, field recordings and experiment more than usual. I feel like you can get the real sense of a project through the silences, the intros and the interludes. It can be so generous and often feel like pieces of a puzzle. One of my favorite intros for instance has to be "The Infamous Prelude" by Mobb Deep, but I often thought to myself: how would it sound with an eerie choir synth?

There is a consensus that says electronic music history in Europe has been whitewashed, and the traces of the Black working class origins of techno are difficult to see in Berlin, which is now seen as the capital of electronic music. There is a push for rewriting the origins of our music. What's your take on that?

It's such a VAST discussion! In my view, a lot of people have been doing a great job online to demystify and reassert the truth about the whitewashing of techno. I'm thinking about critical thinkers, producers and cultural organizers like Deforrest Brown Jr., HE VALENCIA and Frankie [Decaiza Hutchinson] with her platform Dweller. I feel like we've been reclaiming our voices and sharing our history a lot more these past few years.

I just want our history to actually be present among Black circles more. Like, it's really cool that some experimental music festivals with essentially white audiences want to do panels about this now, but if I'm being real I'd love for my people to know more about this music and its roots. For that we need to be speaking to Black audiences that have little experience and knowledge of techno.

The French bass continuum’s history is paved with the appropriation of Black diaspora music, as an echo of France's colonial history. One half of French electronic music sweethearts Daft Punk, Thomas Bangalter, has a father, Daniel (Vangarde) Bangalter, who produced zouk, which is a Black Caribbean dance music from the French Overseas Territories.

To take another example Eddie Johns' "More Spell On You," released in 1979, was produced by Daniel Vangarde and became the main sample behind "One More Time." Its use by Daft Punk has been a source of backlash, the band never acknowledged using this. The only article I could find about the subject was in English. Why is cultural appropriation in the French music scene such a taboo subject?

Cultural appropriation is taboo in France for the same reason race issues are. Ah! Hélas! I also think that we reached a point of no-return when it comes to complex thinking. Two things can be true: Daft Punk can be a sick group as well as cultural appropriators. I won't sit here and act like I wasn't doing the "Around The World" choreography when I was five.

Now, being a Black musician myself, I'm trying to put myself in these people's shoes. How would you feel if your music was sampled super obviously and without your consent by two French rich kids and it turned out that the song became an international hit and you didn't get a cut from the royalties? Yes, that's what I figured... you'd be pissed! The thing with Daft Punk is that they did that on an entire album (Discovery) so yes, a discussion needed to happen indeed.

I love that you said you are not gonna act like you didn't do the choreography as a toddler. What is important and seems difficult for some people is you should always be critical about things that you like, or literally grew up with in the case of Daft Punk. It doesn't mean you can't listen to certain artists because they didn't clear samples or because they used some problematic trope. You just have to be aware of the context in which music is made and take it into account when you decide to support something.

For example, Mawimbi is a white French duo using Swahili in order to embrace a Black persona. They've been around the Parisian scene for a while now and illustrate everything that could go wrong in the sense of white DJs doing cultural appropriation, using their access to play the opening of a performance by a renowned African artist playing in France (Oumou Sangaré). As France is the European country with the biggest Black population, I'm pretty sure the booker could have found a talented Afro-descendent DJ or musician to do the warm-up. And they were playing at the infamous Quai Branly museum, which is a symbol of French colonialism.

It's so on the nose that it makes it comical. I do not rate them and literally have no comment. No free promo in 2020. I don't think they're even relevant enough to be brought up.

Why do you think that only Afro-descendent members of the scene were raising concerns about it, and what do you think about allyship in the Parisian scene?

I don't think about allyship at all. I don't think it exists at all actually. My main concerns are well-being, agency and autonomy.